ABSTRACT
Chapter 16 examines the pitch structure, chord-scale relationships, harmonic and melodic potential of the octatonic scale.
• Cardinality
• Double-diminished 7th chords
• Octatonic scales: Half-whole (1/2) octatonic I,
II, III
Whole-half (2/1) octatonic I, II, III
• Scalar transpositions
• Transposition through the scale
In the previous chapter, we saw how bebop scales expand the number of scale members from seven to eight. Theorists often refer to this expansion as a change in the cardinality of the scale. The term “octatonic” denotes a scale whose cardinality is eight, i.e. the scale consists of eight distinct pitches. The octatonic scale covered in this chapter comes in two unique intervallic arrangements, half-whole and whole-half. The names “half-whole” and “whole-half” refer to the intervallic pattern of major and minor 2nds (or vice versa) recurring throughout these scales. Arabic numbers 2 and 1 represent the intervals of major 2nd and minor 2nd respectively. The designation 1/2 stands for the half-whole octatonic and the 2/1 for the whole-half octatonic. These two octatonic collections exhibit very
symmetrical nature of both scales allows for some interesting functional overlaps and a multiplicity of harmonic associations.
