I wrote a bass line that I like and am trying to figure out the scale to use in writing more over it. I had thought I wrote F# minor, but I didn't. Rather than using a C#, I used C and it sounds good.

http://www.christopherpisz.is-a-geek.com/temp/bassriff.wav

What scale am I using now or am I unknowingly using 2 different ones?

Without knowing the notes your using its a bit hard to answer but if your not using a "B" you could have found the C# scale.
I'm not that hot on theory but heres the notes in C#

C# D# F F# G# A# C C#

Hope this helps

A minor chord with a flatted fifth is actually a diminished chord.

F#dim is F#-A-C.

F# G# A B C D E

Hmm, Maybe that is why it works. Just because it happens at the right time.. maybe. Builds some kind of unexpected tension.

It seems OK if I play F# minor bases arpeggios over it.

The expression is a flattend 5th
A minor chord with a flattend 8th is a diminished chord. If you add a 6th to it' it's still a dimished chord.
Look at the key of G starting on F#
F#GABCDEF#
In a dimished chord one "stacks" minor thirds.

Chords also have inversions. Meaning the chord does not start with the root tone. BDG - G first inversion
F#AD D or D/F#
C is also part of the D7 Chord DF#AC
D7/F# - figure this one out for yourself.

There are also chords called half diminished or m7b5
F#ACE

Simply because you are instroducing a variation on a chord does not mean you are going out of key. Key is determined by the majority of notes in the melody but not always in the harmony.

Watch this old guy harmonize the scale of C note he doesn't only use the notes from the key to harmonize the scale.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-CI9FABTw4

Can't download your wav file for some reason.

A B C D E F# G# is known as the A minor melodic scale. deriving triads from that, you have 'vi'. Not that that's how you arrived at that, just to show it's not anomalous or anything.

same row from E basis, you have a major tetrachord E F# G# A then a conjunct minor tetrachord A B C D, which is only slightly 'exotic'.
Cf., In E minor it's the default for 'ii chord'

et cetera...

I'm sure it does not. Since the OP has A and you have A# but no A at all.
For starters. (You have two Cs in a scale which isn't too good either. C# *major* reads: C# D# E# F# G# A# B#. A seven-note scale is spelled alphabetically, seven consecutive letter names.)

F# G# A B C D E, I would call 'F# half diminished scale'. It's a kind of artificial scale and there might not be an official name for it. Compared to an F# minor scale, you flatted the fifth degree.

Re: the "A melodic minor" I indicated, that raised the 'natural' sixth and seventh degree of A ['natural'] minor; 'A melodic minor' for many will be the default for that particular construction. ie., there are jazz people that call what you have as "sixth mode of A melodic minor". ('mode' means the same set from a different start)

What is the resolution of the tension? Anyway that's all food for thought.

edit: adding another minor third to F# A C gets us to a diminished seventh, Eb, which tappermike called a 'sixth' [ie., D#] gives you a diminished seventh chord. Which is ambiguous, it can 'resolve' a number of ways and is used as a device to get you to new key areas.
Last edited by jancivil on Sun Apr 29, 2012 10:01 am; edited 2 times in total

I said i was not that hot on theory,
I just used the Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone rule from C#,
and I mis read original post, I thought brekehan had written F#, did not notice the minor bit, sorry.

Ps just noticed its in the post title aswell,
note to self, pay more attention !

Hi brekehan,

The notes you have listed (F# G# A B C D E) are from the A Melodic Minor scale.

But any scale can be viewed in several alternate modes, each mode using the same set of notes, but starting on a different one.

Since you have a preference for starting this on F#, you might like to consider it as F# Locrian #2 (which has the degree sequence 1-2-b3-4-b5-b6-b7).

This would then suggest you can use the chords F#dim (1-b3-b5) or F#m7b5 (1-b3-b5-b7) as arpeggios over the top.

You can find more discussion on this here and in the surrounding topics:
http://www.howmusicworks.org/hmw809.html

You might also like to check out the Notes To Scales and Relations tools in Songtrix which are intended for exactly this type of diagnosis.
http://www.songtrix.com
Last edited by chordwizard on Mon May 14, 2012 10:59 pm; edited 1 time in total

^Redundant per: A name I don't know and find only a confusion. Why name it after locrian only to seek to obviate part of what that real and useful name means? I don't think this name for *sixth mode of A melodic minor* is so prevalent. Let alone useful.Ok. What musical reason would a person have for this choice? The correspondence is obvious enough.which the unclickability of reveal you have yet to post five times on this forum. Do you have a vested interest in clicks on these links? "Chordwizard" sounds like a domain name. Spammish posting IMO.

sadly I wasn't able to play your clip (just wouldn't load at all) but as morphyb suggested, the easiest way to get a flattened fifth to sound natural in a minor scale is to introduce the dominant major scale (bear with me, I'm not sure if this is a common term), i.e. major scale starting on the fifth note.

usually in a major key, the dominant scale is mixolydian - but as the minor scale doesn't have a dominant naturally I think it makes as much sense introducing the ionian major as the mixolydian major.

you also get an augmented interval between the third and the flattened fifth/sharpened 4th of the compound scale resulting from the alternation between the original minor scale and the dominant major scale - where you maintain the minor tonality but add the 7th, 2nd and 3rd of the dominant major scale - i.e. sharpened 4th (as I would prefer to call it in this case), 6th and 7th of the original minor scale. kind of arabic/ominously jazzy vibes in the first tetrachord and a mild allusion to major in the second, providing contrast. a great melodic device to employ over the already powerful major dominant -> minor resolution. make it a vamp (repetition of simple sequence) and you can experiment a bit more with odd melodic possibilities.

sorry for making little sense and perhaps committing slight blasphemy against established analysis.

F# G# A B C D E - F# Locrian #2.