The Neutral Scale

I'm writing today about a scale I had forgotten about. The neutral scale which to xen theorist is known as "Maqamic"[7] or "Mohajira"[7] depending on how it's tuned. The neutral scale is basically the middle ground between major and minor. Consider this, if we take the natural minor scale and raise the third sixth and seventh we get a major scale. But if we only raised those pitches by around half that distance which ironically is a 1/4 tone then we would have the neutral scale. Neutral land is very weird as all the major chords and minor intervals and chords are equated with each other to produce chords which sound both dark yet a little sweet and pungent.  The sound actually to me at least resembles train whistles and clock chimes. The sound is a bit hard to describe in general. They are extremely mellow yet not as crisp or stark as minor.

Structure 

The major scale has a structure of L L s L L L s while the minor has L s L L s L L. In this particular case, the L represents a whole step while s is a semitone. However, in a neutral scale, the s step represents a neutral tone being roughly mid-way between the whole tone and semitone. Thus we get
L n n L n L n  as the neutral scale.

The diagram above shows Major in purple, Neutral in pink, and Minor in blue and how they relate to one another. Notice how two neutral steps makes up the same distance as L + s or s + L.  Here we used n to represent neutral but in reality, we would simply use two step sizes normally except that the small step represents a neutral tone rather than a semitone.  The result is L s s L s L s.

The Neutral Scale Alphabet

If we wish to base music in a neutral tonality, we may want to create a new set of altered letters to write music. The alphabet C D E F G A B C is all connected by a single chain of fifths from F as is the minor scale from Ab, C D Eb F G Ab Bb C. However the neutral scale isn't actually built from a chain of fifths but two separate chains of fifths. Four of the letters connect by one chain and the other three letters by another. 

The simplest way to do this would be to use some sort of sign to indicate an off-set from a chain of fifths. Here I use arrows to indicate and raise or lowering of a pitch rather than # and b which have meanings of their own. These arrows represent a smaller value, more like a 1/4 tone but it depends on how the scale is tuned. 

C D E↓ F G A↓ B↓ C   The ↓ sign is pronounced "Down".

The above makes perfect sense to someone who understands music notation but there is another option which is cleaner though less intuitive. That is to drop E A and B for alternative letters to indicate they are not part of the same fifths chain. I like using greek letters so I wanted to find three letters which weren't just greek versions of the letters and followed the same pattern thus I used η κ and λ or Eta, Kappa, and Lambda to represent these notes. The lowercase was more snazzy looking to me so I chose this as the alphabet:  c d η f g κ λ c 

The alphabet: 

This isn't very difficult to learn as the large steps occur on letters which come from the same alphabet. Thus κ to λ is a large step but d to η is a small step. 

Dissonance for the 21st Century

This post is me musing about my own harmonic language I seem to be developing for standard tuning. At this point, I feel that I am still very immature in my musicianship and certainly my musical approach. My ideas for non-microtonal tunings or any form of 12 note based system is this:  A new approach to harmony.

I feel we are at a pinnacle point in time now or at least, we're close to it. Music has always been about dissonance for a long time, because dissonance makes something sound cool to us. I want to push the level of accepted dissonance in a way that is outside of our comfort zone but not so much that it makes people go "Eww that's just noise!"

If you think about it, nothing in tonal music sounds bad to our ears anymore, thus there isn't a huge amount of tension possible without going into the "atonal" zone. Even in many forms of jazz, we're keeping our hands out of some of the most clunky sonorities. Why?  I dunno, probably because people think it kills the mood. Personally, I feel music needs to go somewhere with harmony, obviously microtonality will solve this but 12 still has some gas left in the tank too.

Where should we go next?  My personal opinion is to stop being scared of a little clashing. My god, this is 2016 and we still rarely hear a chord that we consider to be a little uncomfortable. I mean obviously 20th century music is rough to many people and modern composers but is there no middle ground here? Ok I may be historically inaccurate or whatever, but I'm sharing my opinions here so cut me some slack haha.

My point is let's explore dissonance. REALLY I mean seriously, when I say dissonance I mean 21st century level dissonance! Not that silly little V7 chord or even most jazz chords which by now have lost their bite because we hear them so often.  But the point is not to wallow in dissonance, it's to USE IT for tension.  We already have incredible piles of music which is dissonance based, that's what most modern classical is and I do like alot of it myself. But here's an idea, why not combine some chords with a little roughness with more harmonious chords?

What I'm proposing is to heighten the level of dissonance, alter a bit what we consider a resolved chord, but still keep it on a level that it doesn't sound like a train wreck to normal listeners. We want to CHALLENGE their ear not beat it with a sledge hammer!  Make the music as dissonant as possible while still keeping some degree of listenability to those not accustomed to odd styles of music.  It's not being a sell-out here, I'm not trying to please listeners, I'm trying to explore the realms between crazy atonality and strict tonality.

I began to get this idea when I began asking questions to myself about harmony. I said "Hmm, so a B in a C major chord sounds good and sweet, then how about an F# in it up an octave?" I tried it, obviously it sounds great, it's that #11 I've grown to love so much.  But then take it a step further, what about C# in a C major chord?  That sound is one I initially did not like. But i tried it more, and found if you put it up two octaves from the root, it sounds alot sweeter.  But this C# in a C chord is not a major seventh. It's a sound rarely ever used in music outside of a "horror effect" why is that?  Is this sound bad?

Nope, this is a very cool sound but it's new, it's quite weird in a tonal context but that's what makes it so cool.  You'll notice if you put a Bb in the chord that C# sounds then more familiar, just sounds like a diminished chord or something.  But try C# with just a C major triad or a C major seventh or even C major Ninth chord.  It's totally different.

What I'm getting at is, in my music I am really trying to experiment with these "wrong" chords. I have two general ideas here:

1) No chord is always bad, there is MULTIPLE ways to use the same sound to accomplish different effects. This means if you can do it, you could hypothetically get a very clashing chord to sound tender if played in a certain context.  Try it! Do it with G# A#  G D A.  It's tricky but possible.

2) Try to go in and out of harsh chords and more normal jazz chords. In general the more dissonant your normal chords are, the easier it is the make the chords with more bite flow. But remember, try to keep them to a tolerable level.

3) Use the odder added notes to regular chords to create even more jazziness than normal chord extensions.  Try C#, D#, G# and A# with C major extended chords.  Each one sounds different. Try them in different octaves too!   Try clusters too but these are harder to voice lead, I recommend clusters with notes that are a larger leap away to create easier voice leading.


So I urge any musician, try messing around with chords that clash! Use some chords that you think sound terrible and MAKE THEM WORK IN A TONAL CONTEXT!! I believe a good musician can make any sound work, remember it's context that makes chords sound scary or disturbing, not the chord itself.

Below is a three track piano EP called "Forbidden Colors" demonstrating this idea I have.