Songs aren't made right off the chromatic scale.
That would be the same as blending verbal sounds from all the different languages in the world and randomly combining them to construct sentences.
Kinda of a messy read, that last sentence, probably "not well composed"!
Others might disagree!
So whereas compositions can't be judged...
Their batter can also not be judged — yes I have spaced out into culinary examples for the first time and there's no stopping now.
Food is a weirdly uncanny analogy for music.
Chromatic scale cannot be the batter for music.
It's too basic and doesn't stick together. Side note here, if notes were to be picked from chromatic scale tastefully, it could work but the word 'tastefully' has likely altered the chromatic scale in a much more selective set of notes.
This reminds me of a curiosity I once developed and lived with for the longest time.
"Why can't more interesting chords be used in pop/rock music ?" because that'll alter the genre.
Pop/rock aren't the genres with frequent use of highly tense chords.
That's looked down upon by Mr Jazz in the room.
For a good long phase, I too couldn't find peace in basic chords and melodies, it could be a result of exposing myself to highly technical bands. Musicianship Gluttony.
Jazz standards Autumn Leaves, Blues Boss, and Fly Me to the Moon utilize fairly simple melodies.
By no means is fine dining fun every night! Give me those frozen nuggets. Okay, they were shitty.
Jazz and the Chromatic Scale
The chromatic scale is fundamental in jazz, not as a melodic foundation, but as a tool to add tension, movement, and color. Jazz improvisers often weave chromaticism into their solos to navigate harmonies more fluidly.
Passing Tones: These are non-chord tones that lie between two chord tones. For example, in a C major chord (C, E, G), a jazz musician might play a D# between D and E, creating a smooth transition.
Chromatic Enclosures: A technique where notes above and below a target note are played in succession, "enclosing" it chromatically. For instance, to target G, a musician might play G#, F#, and then resolve to G. This adds rhythmic and harmonic intrigue.
Examples in Jazz Standards:
Charlie Parker frequently used chromatic runs in his bebop improvisations, blending them seamlessly into the diatonic framework.
John Coltrane’s "Giant Steps" uses chromaticism extensively to connect the challenging chord changes, creating an almost cascading effect.
Chromaticism allows jazz musicians to stretch beyond the tonal limitations of diatonic scales, exploring dissonance and resolution in unique ways that have become synonymous with the genre.
Compositions can't be judged — like that new dish mom prepares, you either got a taste for it or not.
Experienced musicians though tend to have a sense of direction and are less likely to compose an entire metal song on a pentatonic scale.
The flavors imposed will factor in from their music taste, production capabilities, etc., but there will largely be a sense of direction.
You won't expect metal from tailor Swift.
A major scale is a subset of the chromatic scale — a rather well-known and well-accepted subset.
The origin story as to why Major Scale is so close to humans has been blurred by aliens... I mean there isn't one clear answer to it.
But I believe the answer is in the ratios, the math behind intervals suggests that the pentatonic scale is the most "natural" subset of intervals possible.
The pentatonic scale is one of the most universal scales, found in musical traditions worldwide, from African to East Asian music
Research suggests humans may have an innate preference for the intervals of the pentatonic scale due to its mathematical simplicity and consonance.
Adding two tensed notes to the pentatonic (4th and the 7th)... because we humans thrive on tragedy (gets boring otherwise) makes the major scale a complete package of entertainment.
Historically, Pythagoras and his followers explored the mathematical basis of scales, laying the groundwork for modern Western tuning systems, including equal temperament.
Moving on from the major scale... there are some common accidentals to get familiar with.
Flattening the 6th from the major perspective (or altering the 7th note in the minor scale) has been a staple of Bollywood music in the past.
From a major perspective, studying alteration of every note (except for the root of course; nothing wrong with that but it'll rather fall into the category of key modulation... perhaps something to be studied separately) sheds light on what alterations can be dealt as modes of major scale versus when we are changing the foundational structure of the scale and are stepping into another scale.
We'll need to talk out the word 'perspective' real quick.
The idea arises from the 'root', the gravitational note.
Assuming one knows the concept of the relative minor — the idea that the minor scale is a major scale from the 6th note to an octave above (In the case of C major, A to A on the higher octave), facilitates the visualization of the fretboard but kills the essence in terms of flavor.
As a guitar player, I find it easy to cluster major and minor scales together to simplify chord families, visualize fretboard, and other similar reasons.
But,
As a musician, this hurts.
Every single melody line has a flavor embedded, supposedly if it happens to be a minorish flavor — perceiving it from a major perspective undermines the musicality while simplifying visualization for instrument players.
How instrument players fall prey to the mechanical approach often sounds like another blog I'll work on later.
What would a song composed in chromatic scale sound like? It'll have to be all adjacent notes either ascending or descending. Any of the non-adjacent notes used will disqualify the notion of the chromatic scale as a foundation.
Clearly, it won't be a Grammy-winning track, yet Spotify or any other streaming service can't stop you from uploading it.
A melody based solely on the chromatic scale often lacks a clear tonal center, making it feel disjointed. Tonal music thrives on the tension and resolution created by intervals within diatonic scales.
Famous pieces with chromatic passages (like Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2) demonstrate how chromaticism can add flair, but they still root themselves in a tonal framework.
In Baroque and Classical music, chromaticism was often used to add emotional intensity and complexity. For example, Bach and Mozart frequently used chromatic passages to heighten drama.
One may perceive this as a play with no rules — importantly though it's a play. Don't work guitar.
John Cage's experiments with atonal and aleatoric music represent extreme examples of rule-breaking that still hold an internal logic.
Also to break the rules, you must know the rules. Just saying.
Being a musician is one of the most unruly strict phenomenons.
Say Bye!
Anubhav Kulshreshtha
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