Scales Clock-centric

Instead of using the somewhat random-looking piano-centric major scale as a basis for melody and improvisation, I prefer to add to a small pool of notes that is easy to memorise from the patterns they form on the clock. To be more specific,

• For any chord, you need to memorise at most 6 'safe' notes, and all other notes can be thought of as neighbours of those notes.

Furthermore,

• The 'safe' notes in major, minor, and dominant can be visualised as symmetric patterns on the clock.

The notes that make up the patterns of 'safe' notes are referred to as symmetric scales. The non-symmetric scales are extensions of the symmetric scales.

Modes

Some symmetric scales fit several chords. You might know that a C pentatonic scale can be used on both C major and A minor. In fact, it can be used on C7 as well. Thus, the pentatonic scale will fit any minor, major, or dominant chord provided you adjust the root note accordingly. Below is a summary of the relationship between the symmetric scales and the chords they can be used on.

The three scales - pentatonic, hexatonic, and pentadominant - are the building blocks of the method I am promoting for the M3, and you will find plenty of material on this site covering them. As an introduction a brief explanation of their names and properties follows.

• Pentatonic. The well-known 5-note scale, sometimes referred to as the blues scale. In major and dominant 1-2-3-5-6, in minor 1-b3-4-5-b7.
• Hexatonic. A 6-note scale produced by adding the 7th to a major pentatonic or, equivalently, adding the 9th to a minor pentatonic. Be aware that some people take hexatonic to stand for any scale with six notes. Not so here.
• Pentadominant. I have made up this name to indicate it is a 5-note scale used on dominant chords. It contains the notes 1-2-3-5-b7.