octatonic_scales - Synonyms for octatonic_scales

Examples of "octatonic_scales"
Most of the music of this period is built on the acoustic and octatonic scales, as well as the nine-note scale resulting from their combination.
The half diminished scale is a musical scale more commonly known as "Locrian 2", name which avoids confusion with the diminished scales (see octatonic scales) and the half-diminished seventh chord (min. 7, flat 5). It may be considered Mode VI, the sixth mode, of the ascending melodic minor scale. See: jazz scale.
The twelve tones of the chromatic scale are covered by three disjoint diminished seventh chords. The notes from exactly two such seventh-chords combination form an octatonic collection. Because there are exactly three ways to select two from three, there are exactly three octatonic scales in the twelve-tone system.
There are two types of symmetric diminished scales. These scales are sometimes called octatonic scales because they contain eight tones. They are based on a series of alternating half steps and whole steps. One type starts with a half-step (H-W-H-W-H-W-H-W), and one starts with a whole step (W-H-W-H-W-H-W-H).
Other sources suggest that Scriabin's method of pitch organization is based on ordered scales that feature scale degrees. For example, a group of piano miniatures (Op.58, Op.59/2, Op.61, Op.63, Op.67/1 and Op.69/1) are governed by the acoustic and/or the octatonic scales.
Messiaen found ways of employing all of the modes of limited transposition harmonically, melodically, and sometimes polyphonically. The whole-tone and octatonic scales have enjoyed quite widespread use since the turn of the 20th century, particularly by Debussy (the whole-tone scale) and Stravinsky (the octatonic scale).
Many of Jennifer Higdon's pieces are considered neoromantic and tend to use octatonic scales. Her musical style uses elements of traditional tonality and display a freedom of form, intense dynamic changes and dense textures. Although Higdon's pieces are mostly tonal, some atonality is still present.
Jazz musicians typically consider the half-diminished chord as built from one of three scales: the seventh (Locrian mode) of the major scale, the sixth mode of the melodic minor scale (the latter scale is nearly identical to the Locrian mode, except that it has a 9 rather than a 9, giving it a somewhat more consonant quality), or the "half-whole" diminished scale (see octatonic scales.) See: chord-scale system.
Bartók’s musical vocabulary, as demonstrated in his string quartets particularly, departs from traditional use of major and minor keys, focusing more on the chromatic scale and attempting to utilize each note equally. Regardless, Bartók doesn’t follow any form of serialism, instead dividing the semitone scale into symmetrical units, with tonal centers being based on “axes of symmetry”. He also incorporates whole-tone, pentatonic, and octatonic scales — as well as diatonic and heptatonia seconda scales — as subsets of the chromatic scale.
Octatonic scales first occurred in Western music as byproducts of a series of minor-third transpositions. While Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov claimed he was conscious of the octatonic collection "as a cohesive frame of reference" in his autobiography "My Musical Life" , instances can be found in music of previous centuries. locates one in Domenico Scarlatti’s Sonata K. 319. In the following passage, according to “its descending whole-step/half-step bass progression is complete and continuous”.
Over many years Harris has developed a codified methodology and approach to the teaching of jazz. His approach, drawing primarily from the melodic and harmonic concepts/techniques utilized by Charlie Parker and Bud Powell, relies upon using the major and minor 6th chords and the octatonic scales (such as Bebop Major, Bebop Dorian, and Bebop Mixolydian, OR major 6th diminished, minor 6th diminished, and dominant seven, respectively) as a basis for creating melody and harmony.
The tonal material of the prelude can be found in its first four measures, based on the half-step/whole-step octatonic scale beginning on G (G-A-B-C-D-D-F-F-G). The use of octatonic scales features prominently in the symphony and serve as a means of changing between tonal centers. This unites the prelude in a ternary form characteristic of Copland, moving the tonal center by a tritone in the B section.
Rimsky-Korsakov maintained an interest in harmonic experiments and continued exploring new idioms throughout his career. However, he tempered this interest with an abhorrence of excess and kept his tendency to experiment under constant control. The more radical his harmonies became, the more he attempted to control them with strict rules—applying his "musical conscience", as he called it. In this sense, he was both a progressive and a conservative composer. The whole tone and octatonic scales were both considered adventurous in the Western classical tradition, and Rimsky-Korsakov's use of them made his harmonies seem radical. Conversely, his care about how or when in a composition he used these scales made him seem conservative compared with later composers like Igor Stravinsky, though they were often building on Rimsky-Korsakov's work.
Rimsky-Korsakov was open about the influences in his music, telling Vasily Yastrebtsev, "Study Liszt and Balakirev more closely, and you'll see that a great deal in me is not mine". He followed Balakirev in his use of the whole tone scale, treatment of folk songs and musical orientalism and Liszt for harmonic adventurousness. (The violin melody used to portray Scheherazade is very closely related to its counterpart in Balakirev's symphonic poem "Tamara", while the "Russian Easter Overtures" follows the design and plan of Balakirev's Second Overture on Russian Themes.) Nevertheless, while he took Glinka and Liszt as his harmonic models, his use of whole tone and octatonic scales do demonstrate his originality. He developed both these compositional devices for the "fantastic" sections of his operas, which depicted magical or supernatural characters and events.
In diatonic set theory, a bisector divides the octave approximately in half and may be used in place of a generator to derive collections for which structure implies multiplicity is not true such as the ascending melodic minor, harmonic minor, and octatonic scales. Well formed generated collections generators and bisectors coincide, such as in the diatonic collection. The term was introduced by Jay Rahn (1977), who considers any division between one and two thirds as approximately half and who applied the term only the equally spaced collections. Clough and Johnson both adapt the term to apply to generic scale steps. Rahn also uses aliquant bisector for bisectors which may be used to generate every note in a collection, in which case the bisector and the number of notes must be coprime. Bisectors may be used to produce the diatonic, harmonic minor, and ascending melodic minor collections. (Johnson 2003, p.97, 101, 158n10-12)
In 1856, while Tchaikovsky was still at the School of Jurisprudence and Anton Rubinstein lobbied aristocrats to form the RMS, critic Vladimir Stasov and an 18-year-old pianist, Mily Balakirev, met and agreed upon a nationalist agenda for Russian music, one that would take the operas of Mikhail Glinka as a model and incorporate elements from folk music, reject traditional Western practices and use exotic harmonic devices such as the whole tone and octatonic scales. They saw Western-style conservatories as unnecessary and antipathetic to fostering native talent. Eventually, Balakirev, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin became known as the "moguchaya kuchka", translated into English as the Mighty Handful or The Five. Rubinstein criticized their emphasis on amateur efforts in musical composition; Balakirev and later Mussorgsky attacked Rubinstein for his musical conservatism and his belief in professional music training. Tchaikovsky and his fellow conservatory students were caught in the middle.
Stylistically, although many of Paterson's works are atonal, a large selection of Paterson's works are tonal, combining major and minor scales and modes with chromaticism, Octatonic scales, Blues scales, Tone rows, artificial scales and scales from non-Western cultures, such as his use of the Indonesian Pelog scale in his work "Quintus". Some of his works derive their material from chromatically saturated harmonic patterns that combine chords, melodies and motivic ideas that complete the chromatic scale within given sections of works. Formally, some of Paterson's works are highly episodic, such as his "Sextet" and "Hell's Kitchen", while others are more seamless, such as "Dark Mountains" for orchestra, "A Dream Within A Dream" for a cappella choir or "Deep Blue Ocean" for two pianos.
The work is in a single, short movement without a definite key centre. Changing tempos articulate the movement into four sections: Pouco movido (b. 1–13), Muito vagaroso (b.14–23), Pouco movido – Pouco meno (b. 24–49), and Tempo Primo – Animando (b. 49–54) . Motivically/rhythmically, however, the first tempo section actually consists of two sections: b. 1–9, in which the clear accents of b. 3–5 give way to normal metric stresses, and b. 10–13, characterized by march-like rhythms. The overall form is similar, in miniature, to the much larger one of "Chôros No. 10": The first three sections combine into a "movement" in which fragmentary motifs are presented, followed by a second "movement" in which these fragments gradually become integrated to attain a certain logical, suggestive direction. In addition, the clarinet motif in b. 10–11 (consisting of two consecutive, chromatically descending figures, the second slightly higher than the first) is very similar to the main motif of "Chôros No. 10", but this relationship is skilfully disguised by uniting it with the flute's slower figure . Harmonically, the course of the work is produced by the interaction between diatonic structures on the one hand and more complex pitch collections drawn from the chromatic, whole-tone, and octatonic scales .
The scale was extensively used by Rimsky-Korsakov’s student Igor Stravinsky, particularly in his Russian-period works such as "Petrushka" (1911), "The Rite of Spring" (1913), up to the "Symphonies of Wind Instruments" (1920). Passages using this scale are unmistakable as early as the "Scherzo fantastique", "Fireworks" (both from 1908), and "The Firebird" (1910). It also appears in later works by Stravinsky, such as the "Symphony of Psalms" (1930), the "Symphony in Three Movements" (1945), most of the neoclassical works from the Octet (1923) to "Agon" (1957), and even in some of the later serial compositions such as the "Canticum Sacrum" (1955) and "Threni" (1958). In fact, "few if any composers have been known to employ relations available to the collection as extensively or in as varied a manner as Stravinsky" . The second movement of Stravinsky’s Octet for wind instruments opens with what Stephen calls "a broad melody completely in the octatonic scale". Jonathan describes a highly rhythmic passage in the first movement of the "Symphony in Three Movements" as “gloriously octatonic, not an unfamiliar situation in jazz, where this mode is known as the ‘diminished scale’, but Stravinsky of course knew it from Rimsky. The ‘rumba’ passage… alternates chords of E-flat7 and C7, over and over, distantly recalling the coronation scene from Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov. In celebrating America, the émigré looked back once again to Russia.” catalogues many other octatonic moments in Stravinsky's music. The scale also may be found in music of Alexander Scriabin and Béla Bartók. In Bartók's "Bagatelles", Fourth Quartet, "Cantata Profana", and "Improvisations", the octatonic is used with the diatonic, whole tone, and other "abstract pitch formations" all "entwined… in a very complex mixture" . "Mikrokosmos" Nos. 99, 101, and 109 are octatonic pieces, as is No. 33 of the "44 Duos for Two Violins". "In each piece, changes of motive and phrase correspond to changes from one of the three octatonic scales to another, and one can easily select a single central and referential form of 8-28 in the context of each complete piece." However, even his larger pieces also feature "sections that are intelligible as 'octatonic music'" .