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Play (help·info).The enigmatic scale (Italian : scala enigmatica) is an unusual musical scale, with elements of both major and minor scales, as well as the whole-tone scale. It was originally published in a Milan journal as a musical challenge, with an invitation to harmonize it in some way.
The enigmatic scale was invented by a professor of music at the Bologna Conservatory, Adolfo Crescentini. [4] On August 5, 1888, Ricordi’s Gazzetta musicale di Milano challenged its readers to compose a piece that harmonized against this scale. The Gazzetta published several solutions to this “scala-rebus” (scale-puzzle), including one by Crescentini, yet the whole affair might have become obscure had not Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi later composed his own solution, which became the basis of the "Ave Maria (sulla scala enigmatica)" (1889, revised 1898), part of the Quattro Pezzi Sacri (1898) [4 sacred pieces]. [5] It has been described as "that still almost incomprehensible into-one-another-gliding of harmonies over the entirely 'unnatural' scala enigmatica". [6] The piece features the scale both in its harmonies and as a cantus firmus throughout the short piece [7] in whole-note values in the bass and then each successively higher voice accompanying, "queer counterpoint which...is far-fetched and difficult of intonation; [and] the total effect is almost, if not quite, as musical as it is curious". [3]
The version of the scale starting on C is as follows:
The scale has a general formula of:
With the musical steps as following: Semitone, Tone and a half, Tone, Tone, Tone, Semitone, Semitone.
The scale lacks a perfect fourth and a perfect fifth above the starting note. Both the fourth and fifth degrees of a scale form the basis of standard chord progressions, which help establish the tonic.
The scale was used by guitarist Joe Satriani in his piece "The Enigmatic" [1] from Not of This Earth (1986), Monte Pittman with the song "Missing" on "The Power Of Three", and by pianist Juan María Solare in his piano miniature "Ave Verdi" (2013). It was also used in the song "Enigma" from the 1989 album The Spin by the Yellowjackets composed by Russell Ferrante and Jimmy Haslip .
The major scale is one of the most commonly used musical scales, especially in Western music. It is one of the diatonic scales. Like many musical scales, it is made up of seven notes: the eighth duplicates the first at double its frequency so that it is called a higher octave of the same note.
In music theory, the minor scale is three scale patterns – the natural minor scale, the harmonic minor scale, and the melodic minor scale – mirroring the major scale, with its harmonic and melodic forms
In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches, or chords. However, harmony is generally understood to involve both vertical harmony (chords) and horizontal harmony (melody).
In music theory, an interval is a difference in pitch between two sounds. An interval may be described as horizontal, linear, or melodic if it refers to successively sounding tones, such as two adjacent pitches in a melody, and vertical or harmonic if it pertains to simultaneously sounding tones, such as in a chord.
In music theory, the tritone is defined as a musical interval composed of three adjacent whole tones. For instance, the interval from F up to the B above it is a tritone as it can be decomposed into the three adjacent whole tones F–G, G–A, and A–B.
In music theory, the key of a piece is the group of pitches, or scale, that forms the basis of a musical composition in Western classical music, art music, and pop music.
Tonality or key: Music which uses the notes of a particular scale is said to be "in the key of" that scale or in the tonality of that scale.
A fourth is a musical interval encompassing four staff positions in the music notation of Western culture, and a perfect fourth is the fourth spanning five semitones. For example, the ascending interval from C to the next F is a perfect fourth, because the note F is the fifth semitone above C, and there are four staff positions between C and F. Diminished and augmented fourths span the same number of staff positions, but consist of a different number of semitones.
In music theory, a perfect fifth is the musical interval corresponding to a pair of pitches with a frequency ratio of 3:2, or very nearly so.
An octatonic scale is any eight-note musical scale. However, the term most often refers to the symmetric scale composed of alternating whole and half steps, as shown at right. In classical theory, this symmetrical scale is commonly called the octatonic scale, although there are a total of 43 enharmonically non-equivalent, transpositionally non-equivalent eight-note sets.
A jazz scale is any musical scale used in jazz. Many "jazz scales" are common scales drawn from Western European classical music, including the diatonic, whole-tone, octatonic, and the modes of the ascending melodic minor. All of these scales were commonly used by late nineteenth and early twentieth-century composers such as Rimsky-Korsakov, Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky, often in ways that directly anticipate jazz practice. Some jazz scales, such as the bebop scales, add additional chromatic passing tones to the familiar diatonic scales.
In Western music theory, a major second is a second spanning two semitones. A second is a musical interval encompassing two adjacent staff positions. For example, the interval from C to D is a major second, as the note D lies two semitones above C, and the two notes are notated on adjacent staff positions. Diminished, minor and augmented seconds are notated on adjacent staff positions as well, but consist of a different number of semitones.
The intervals from the tonic (keynote) in an upward direction to the second, to the third, to the sixth, and to the seventh scale degrees (of a major scale are called major.
A semitone, also called a half step or a half tone, is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically. It is defined as the interval between two adjacent notes in a 12-tone scale. For example, C is adjacent to C♯; the interval between them is a semitone.
In music from Western culture, a seventh is a musical interval encompassing seven staff positions, and the major seventh is one of two commonly occurring sevenths. It is qualified as major because it is the larger of the two. The major seventh spans eleven semitones, its smaller counterpart being the minor seventh, spanning ten semitones. For example, the interval from C to B is a major seventh, as the note B lies eleven semitones above C, and there are seven staff positions from C to B. Diminished and augmented sevenths span the same number of staff positions, but consist of a different number of semitones.
The intervals from the tonic (keynote) in an upward direction to the second, to the third, to the sixth, and to the seventh scale degrees (of a major scale are called major.
The Phrygian mode can refer to three different musical modes: the ancient Greek tonos or harmonia, sometimes called Phrygian, formed on a particular set of octave species or scales; the medieval Phrygian mode, and the modern conception of the Phrygian mode as a diatonic scale, based on the latter.
A heptatonic scale is a musical scale that has seven pitches, or tones, per octave. Examples include the major scale or minor scale; e.g., in C major: C D E F G A B C—and in the relative minor, A minor, natural minor: A B C D E F G A; the melodic minor scale, A B C D E F♯G♯A ascending, A G F E D C B A descending; the harmonic minor scale, A B C D E F G♯A; and a scale variously known as the Byzantine, and Hungarian, scale, C D E♭ F♯ G A♭ B C. Indian classical theory postulates seventy-two seven-tone scale types, collectively called thaat, whereas others postulate twelve or ten seven-tone scale types.
In Western music and music theory, augmentation is the lengthening of a note or the widening of an interval.
Music theory analyzes the pitch, timing, and structure of music. It uses mathematics to study elements of music such as tempo, chord progression, form, and meter. The attempt to structure and communicate new ways of composing and hearing music has led to musical applications of set theory, abstract algebra and number theory.
Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair, especially when applied to contrasting features of the common practice music of the period 1600–1900.
The Quattro pezzi sacri are choral works by Giuseppe Verdi. Written separately during the last decades of the composer's life and with different origins and purposes, they were nevertheless published together in 1898 by Casa Ricordi. They are often performed as a cycle, not in chronological sequence of their composition, but in the sequence used in the Ricordi publication:
Musicology commonly classifies scales as either hemitonic or anhemitonic. Hemitonic scales contain one or more semitones, while anhemitonic scales do not contain semitones. For example, in traditional Japanese music, the anhemitonic yo scale is contrasted with the hemitonic in scale. The simplest and most commonly used scale in the world is the atritonic anhemitonic "major" pentatonic scale. The whole tone scale is also anhemitonic.
