1

I haven't had much luck in my search for a well-curated and (reasonably) comprehensive list of scales. I'm looking for a database or list of any kind that includes scale names and their corresponding intervals. Here's an example of what I'm looking for:

  • Ionian: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
  • Lydian: 1 2 3 #4 5 6 7
  • Minor Pentatonic: 1 b3 4 5 b7
  • Phrygian Dominant: 1 b2 3 4 5 b6 b7

The two resources that have been most helpful are harmonics.com and wikipedia, but neither list is without its issues.

FYI the reason for the request is I'm interested in experimenting with interesting/uncommon scales. I'm also building a tool for visualizing scales as part of my learning experience.

Taylor Vance
  • 171
  • 4
  • 1
    I've used this tool for fifteen years. There are obviously many more scales, but this is a good start. (Warning - PDF download) https://www.jazzbooks.com/mm5/download/FREE-scale-syllabus.pdf – The Chaz 2.0 Mar 13 '18 at 15:52
  • 1
    Questions which are merely requests for external resources are [off-topic here](https://music.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic). If you want to find such a resource, I promise that you can find one by searching through questions about scales here, or you could just search Google. I tried searching "list of scales" and got an enormous number of hits. –  Mar 13 '18 at 16:30
  • 4
    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's a request for external resources. – Stinkfoot Mar 13 '18 at 16:36
  • 1
    @TheChaz2.0 thank you, that's the sort of thing I'm looking for. – Taylor Vance Mar 13 '18 at 17:43
  • @DavidBowling I'm sorry if I broke any rules. I thought this would be the place to ask. For what it's worth I did search questions here and I've been extensively googling for the past week. As I mentioned, the results I found were not sufficient. At the risk of sounding snarky, you can get an enormous number of hits by googling almost anything (try "kidney bear calendar paint"). I'll try to be more constructive with future submissions! – Taylor Vance Mar 13 '18 at 17:48
  • You might have to dig a little; [here are](https://ianring.com/musictheory/scales/) a couple [of links](http://allthescales.org/) that should come up pretty easily in search. I found the first one when searching for the phrygidorian scale once, I don't remember how I found the second, but it was also in the "list of scales results". [Here is another interesting link](http://143.50.47.149/music/index.html) that you would be less likely to stumble over. You still haven't explained what "issues" the Wikipedia has. –  Mar 13 '18 at 18:39
  • @DavidBowling That first study of scales link is very interesting. I'd seen "all the scales" and wondered how it was generated. Thanks for the info. As for wikipedia, take the Istrian scale row. Its scale degrees are listed as "1 ♭2 ♭3 ♭4 ♭5 5". Maybe I just don't know enough music theory or notation conventions, but what is a flat 4? Shouldn't that just be a natural 3? So I followed the link to the Istrian page and found an example: "E-F-G-A♭-B♭-C♭". Cb? Does that even exist? Why not call it B? – Taylor Vance Mar 14 '18 at 12:04
  • From the Wikipedia Istrian scale page, this is not an equal tempered scale, and the notation provided there is only an approximation. Outside of equal temperament, C♭ and B are not the same note in general. This is one reason that ♭4 is used instead of 3: this is saying that the scale contains a diminished 4th instead of a major 3rd. But the 5 is suspect, since it looks like this should really be a 6. But, again since it appears that only approximations of this scale can be notated, this maybe isn't a real issue. –  Mar 14 '18 at 12:28
  • You might be interested in [reading about naming intervals](https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/60771/defining-intervals). Both the letter name and distance between pitches in semitones are important. –  Mar 14 '18 at 12:29
  • Possible duplicate of [Is there a resource that list every scale existed in all keys in music](https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/59369/is-there-a-resource-that-list-every-scale-existed-in-all-keys-in-music) – Brian THOMAS Mar 14 '18 at 13:49
  • The database would not need to contain all that data. Regular western scales are divisible into two "tetrachords" that essentialy have only one bit of info: the position of the semitone ratio. So for diatonic scales, you only need two pieces of information. – Ate Somebits Mar 18 '18 at 03:19

0 Answers0