ALTERED REALITY

I’VE BEEN PLAYING the guitar and studying music for over three decades. Throughout my time spent woodshedding in the name of mastering various scales and all their various modes, one scale in particular traditionally vexed me. After years of trying to harness the potential of this Voldemort-like “scale that must not be named” (not yet) with otherwise successful methods, I realized I had to change my approach. I needed a new reality, one that entailed re-examining the importance of naming conventions, embracing enharmonic equivalents (different names for the same pitch) and, perhaps the most jarring, using chords to inform my learning of a scale.

I speak of , which is the seventh mode of the melodic minor scale. Now, it’s our standard practice to spell out a scale’s intervallic formula in parentheses when it’s first mentioned. This temporary omission is fallout from the theoretical rebellion the altered scale wages, which I will attempt to quell in this lesson. To the uninitiated, the altered scale presents itself as a or b, or maybe more descriptive names like (my favorite) or (my second favorite). If you’re looking for more commemorative or exotic names, then consider dubbing this organized order of elements the “Pomeroy,” “Ravel” or “Palamidian” scale. Whatever name suits your fancy, the fact remains the altered scale is a challenging proposition to wrap your head around. All that said, to get the most from this campaign, prepare to have your own scale learning reality, well, altered.