Scales and modes — your palette of notes
A scale is a subset of the 12 semitones written as offsets from a root. Stay inside the set and almost everything you play fits together. Changing the root of the same scale type is transposing; the pattern of numbers never changes, in a tracker you shift every note by the same amount (source: s-037-lab).
Scale formulas and moods (from 037-lab)#
| scale | offsets | mood |
|---|---|---|
| Major (Ionian) | 0 2 4 5 7 9 11 | bright, confident, "end-boss-defeated" energy |
| Natural minor (Aeolian) | 0 2 3 5 7 8 10 | melancholic, serious — the chiptune default |
| Harmonic minor | 0 2 3 5 7 8 11 | dramatic, gothic, castle-level tension |
| Melodic minor | 0 2 3 5 7 9 11 | smooth minor, slightly jazzy |
| Dorian | 0 2 3 5 7 9 10 | cool, hopeful minor — funk and 90s dance |
| Phrygian | 0 1 3 5 7 8 10 | dark, menacing, Spanish tinge |
| Phrygian dominant | 0 1 4 5 7 8 10 | exotic, eastern, metal |
| Lydian | 0 2 4 6 7 9 11 | dreamy, floating, sci-fi wonder |
| Mixolydian | 0 2 4 5 7 9 10 | bright but laid back, rock/blues |
| Major pentatonic | 0 2 4 7 9 | simple and folky — almost impossible to hit a wrong note |
| Minor pentatonic | 0 3 5 7 10 | riff machine, bluesy |
| Blues | 0 3 5 6 7 10 | gritty, expressive, bend-me notes |
Modes as alterations, keys and mnemonics (TraxWeekly)#
Leviathan (1995) derives every mode from the major scale by flattening degrees: Dorian 3b 7b · Phrygian 2b 3b 6b 7b · Aeolian 3b 6b 7b · Mixolydian 7b · Locrian 2b 3b 5b 6b 7b (his Lydian line reads "5b", a typo for the raised 4th) — C Dorian = C D D# F G A A#. Keep all chords of a progression in one mode and "writing leads is easier since you only have to use notes from the mode" (source: s-tw001-modal-and-chord-theory).
Greg Heo (1996): find the key from the note your phrases end on; key signatures from C (none) through G (F#), D (F# C#) … and F (Bb), Bb (Bb Eb) …; remember the order of sharps with "Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle" and flats with the reverse; trackers show sharps only (C# = Db, D# = Eb, F# = Gb, G# = Ab, A# = Bb); "when the major key you know, the minor lies a third below" (A minor ↔ C major); build a scale by writing eight letters from the key note and applying its sharps; degrees are roman numerals — I tonic, IV subdominant, V dominant (source: s-tw074-intro-to-musical-theory).
Step formulas for tracker keyboards (Dan Hartrell, 1995)#
A Mazurka beginner's lesson writes scales as whole-tone/semitone steps and notes that pressing the tracker keys in order — AZSXDCFVGBHNJMK and 1Q2W3E4R5T6Y7U8I9O0P in ST3 or FT2 — steps through every semitone, so a formula can be walked on the keyboard: a semitone is C-4→C#4, a whole tone C-4→D-4. His scales, with the offsets derived from his note lists (source: s-tw021-tracking-tips):
| scale (his name) | steps | his notes | offsets |
|---|---|---|---|
| major | WT WT ST WT WT WT ST | C D E F G A B C | 0 2 4 5 7 9 11 |
| harmonic minor | WT ST WT WT ST W+ST WT | C D D# F G G# B C | 0 2 3 5 7 8 11 |
| blues / jazz | W+ST WT ST ST W+ST WT | C D# F F# G A# C ("I've seen guys change the D# to E") | 0 3 5 6 7 10 |
| chromatic | ST throughout | every note | 0 1 2 … 11 |
| whole tone ("dreamy") | WT throughout | C D E F# G# A# C | 0 2 4 6 8 10 |
| aeolian ("used often in pop") | C D D# F G G# A# C | 0 2 3 5 7 8 10 | |
| "oriental pentatonic" | C D E G A C | 0 2 4 7 9 (the major pentatonic above) | |
| "Egyptian (or Arabic) pentatonic" | C C# E F G G# B C — seven notes despite the name | 0 1 4 5 7 8 11 |
Two tricks from the same lesson: ride down the pentatonic and start a second ride two notes lower for parallel chords (C+G, A+E, G+D …); and "adding … a C# can make any scale sound Egyptian" — the flat 2nd as an instant exotic colour (compare Phrygian above). Once the scale of a genre is in your fingers, he says, melodies come "in a few seconds" (source: s-tw021-tracking-tips).
Scales that are not made of semitones#
Everything above assumes twelve equal steps per octave, which is a choice the tracker makes, not the chip. A pentatonic scale can also be built by retuning the instrument so those five pitches are all it has — little-scale's koto commission tunes a whole lsdj ROM to the hirajoshi ratios 9/8 · 6/5 · 3/2 · 8/5 · 2/1 on A, mapping the five degrees across the twelve keys 2-3-2-3-2 so several adjacent keys sound the same note (source: s-little-scale-koto-tuning). Scales with steps that do not exist in 12-TET at all — quarter-tones, 15-, 18- or 31-tone equal divisions, Pythagorean and just tunings — need the same treatment. See alternative-tunings for the theory and rom-retuning for the procedure.
Note that the offset notation on this page stops meaning what it means once the grid changes: 0 2 4 5 7 9 11 is a major scale only when a step is a 12-TET semitone.
Useful facts#
- Relative major/minor: A minor and C major contain exactly the same notes; minor starts 3 semitones lower (
A = C − 3). Same palette, different home base, different mood. - Modes are the same idea — one note set, different root — each with one or two colour notes: Dorian's bright 6th (+9), Phrygian's dark ♭2 (+1), Lydian's floating ♯4 (+6).
- Pentatonics remove the two most friction-prone notes; great for fast runs that can't go wrong.
- Notes outside the scale aren't forbidden, they're spice: briefly, on weak beats, passing between two scale notes (chromatic passing tones).
- The opposite extreme — all 12 notes weighted equally, none repeated until the other eleven have sounded — is serial-composition; shawnm's (Shawn of NOISE; source: s-tw041-interview-shawnm) advice to trackers who find tonal theory complicated was to listen to Webern first, after which "you'll quickly embrace tonal theory" (source: s-tw046-serial-composition).
Related#
semitone-math · diatonic-chords · chord-progressions · melody-writing · serial-composition · alternative-tunings · rom-retuning · harmonic-series
Sources#
s-037-lab · s-little-scale-koto-tuning · s-tw001-modal-and-chord-theory · s-tw074-intro-to-musical-theory · s-tw046-serial-composition · s-tw021-tracking-tips · s-tw041-interview-shawnm