Playing the piano is one thing, but being a composer is an artistic talent that develops with practice from creativity and discipline. As a composer, it will be interesting for you to venture into the use of harmonizations based on unconventional scales, which will give you a whole range of structures in their degrees, destroying the tonal center that you usually find as the tonic. In this article, you will learn how to harmonize with four scales with structures very different from the major and minor that are generally known.
The harmonizations that we will present are based on four scales known as the Arabic, Byzantine, Algerian, and Oriental scales. It is a fact that if you use unconventional scales in your harmonizations you will present results that are rarely used in commercial music; however, its application to find harmonies that do not have a tonal center is very interesting; this will give you a unique and original style of composition in your creations. In this article, you will see how these scales break with functional harmonies.
Atonal art music compositions have been composed from 1900 to the present day. As a modern composer, you can surprise your audience by creating works in which they cannot predict a single note, simply because you will not harmonize with any tonal center. Harmonizing with unconventional scales is a strategy that will help you compose your music atonally, but for this, you must first know a little more about the distribution of scales with their chords.
Instructions for forming chords with non-conventional scales
Next, let’s see how these scales are distributed in their intervallic structure among their degrees and which vertical structures are formed in each of them:
Distribution of the Arabic scale:
- Tone.
- Tone.
- Tone.
- Halftone.
- Halftone.
- tone, and
- Tone.
This scale presents a structure with the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh flattened in comparison to the major scale. On the other hand, when it comes to seeing what harmonies this scale gives you, you will get the following three and four-note chords:
triads:
- I: Major with a flatted fifth.
- II: Minor with a flatted fifth.
- III: Minor with a flatted fifth.
- IV: Minor.
- bV: Increased.
- bVI: Increased, and
- bVII: Major.
Tetrads:
- I: Dominant with a flatted fifth.
- II: Semi-diminished.
- III: Semi-diminished.
- IV: Minor with the major seventh.
- bV: Augmented with the major seventh.
- bVI: Dominant with an augmented fifth, and
- bVII: Dominant.
In this way, by having a flat fifth degree, there is no tonic gravity, achieving a non-tonal effect and avoiding the traditional diatonic harmony.
The Byzantine scale is distributed in:
- Halftone.
- Tone and a half.
- Halftone.
- Tone.
- Halftone.
- tone and a half, and
- Halftone.
This gives you a second and a sixth flat in your structure. In addition, it offers you the following chord structures:
triads:
- Q: Major.
- bII: Major.
- III: Minor.
- IV: Minor.
- V: Major with the fifth flat.
- bVI: Increased, and
- VII: Major with the second suspended and the fifth flatted.
Tetrads:
- I: Major seventh
- bII: Major seventh
- III: Minor with sixth
- IV: Minor with a major seventh
- V: Dominant with a flatted fifth
- bVI: Dominant with an augmented fifth, and
- VII: Major with sixth, suspended second, and flatted fifth.
It is important to note that when naming these chords such as the seventh degree with three and four notes, as well as the tetrad of the third degree, you must make use of harmonies to make it easier to name its structure.
The Algerian scale is made up of:
- Tone.
- Halftone.
- Tone and a half.
- Halftone.
- Halftone.
- tone and a half, and
- Halftone.
Consequently, you will get an unusual structure with this scale, as it features the following three and four-note chords:
triads:
- Q: Minor.
- II: Major with the fifth flat.
- bIII: Increased.
- #IV: Major with the second suspended and the fifth flatted.
- V: Major.
- bVI: Major, and
- VII: Major.
Tetrads:
- I: Minor with a major seventh.
- II: Dominant with the fifth flat.
- bIII: Augmented with a seventh.
- #IV: Major with sixth, suspended second and flat fifth.
- V: Major seventh.
- bVI: Major Seventh, and
- VII: Major with sixth.
In the case of some chords, it is also necessary that you use the harmonies to understand some structures more easily, as in the case of the fourth degree of this scale. Also, the Algerian scale gives you a series of very interesting and unusual chords, which easily break the tonal sonority of the chords embedded in them.
The oriental scale has the following structure:
- Halftone.
- Tone and a half.
- Halftone.
- Halftone.
- Tone and a half.
- halftone, and
- Tone.
From this structure, you will get the following three and four-note chords:
triads:
- I: Major with the fifth flat.
- bII: Increased.
- III: Minor with the fifth flat.
- IV: Major.
- bV: Major.
- VI: Minor.
- bVII: Minor.
Tetrads:
- I: Dominant with a flatted fifth.
- bII: Augmented with a seventh.
- III: Decreased.
- IV: Major seventh.
- bV: Major seventh.
- VI: Minor with sixth.
- bVII: Minor with major seventh
As in the case of the Algerian scale, the use of harmonies is required to name some chords that are formed in this scale. The use of this scale is quite interesting if you want to present an anarchic and expressionist style with your music because they give you chords in altered degrees that are not usually found in any composition since they break with the tonal gravity that we are used to hearing.
Finally, you must know that the Algerian and Oriental scales create non-functional chords, which you can use to find non-functional harmonizations through these scales.
What do you need to harmonize from atonality?
- The atonality in the composition “destroys” the link between tones and semitones of a scale, so you don’t need a tonic and therefore you do without a fundamental tone. Mainly it’s about suppressing the root tone so it doesn’t cause a close or that ending feeling.
- To compose from atonality you need to think, feel and know the music as it is presented in the audible reality of your audience. To compose atonal music you have to study music, demonstrate an intellectual effort to understand the styles and principles, and with this as a support, then let creativity, inspiration, and ideas flow.
- Now, it is not about following the wave of an organized structure as such, because we know that atonalism is opposed to tonalism, it is about knowing the rules of a game that is played amid chaos, but even so that the chaos be chaos must have principles, because « aesthetics » is very important in atonality, even if it doesn’t seem like it.
Tips for Forming Chords with Unconventional Scales
- A practical advice to get started in atonal compositions is to avoid repeating intervals or sequences of notes so that they do not cause a sensation of ending; that is, to evade the fundamental tone
- Finally, we advise you to start composing experimentally, without pressure or perfectionism, but you should read a little about music theory and history. The scales that we described before are a great resource to find unconventional harmonies and without a tonal center for your harmonizations; feel free to use them.
- Remember that everyone can have ideas but not all are true composers because although there are mathematical methods to “produce” an atonal composition, such as assigning numerical values to each term of the semitone scale from a decacophonic matrix, “composing” and “producing” in the art of music is not the same.