Your method for constructing chords to eastern scales?

[memyselfandus]

What is your method for constructing chords to eastern scales?

For example you have a 5 note Japanese scale in F (penta)
F Gb Bb C Db

or a similar 7 note non western scale

would you use Quartian intervals instead of 1 3 5 6 7 9 11 13 ect

Maybe Quintian?

Or is there a logical way to use Tertian and make it work?

I am open to combining both but have not been able to find
any structured printed info on this.

I know mclaughlin has done some of this

[nuffink]

There is no great tradition of chordal harmony outside of the west. Eastern scales are invariably a melodic rather than a harmonic resource. So you're free to invent your own chords without reference to accepted practice*.



*This is, of course, also true of western scales even though they do come with historical baggage.

[memyselfandus]

I believe You are correct because I cannot find any info on this..


This will be fun experimenting with intervals though.

I mean if Schoenberg can get advantageous with note
selection why cant we right?

Not that I will Ever be Anywhere near him though

[jancivil]

What is your method for constructing chords to eastern scales?

For example you have a 5 note Japanese scale in F (penta)
F Gb Bb C Db

Nuffink is right, there is no sense of chords in these sorts of non-western music. There might be parallelisms, or a kind of ('primitive') counterpoint, but thinking in chords terms is really antithetical to the thinking behind these kinds of sounds. It's about melody and rhythm. LINE. Think: Horizontal, not Vertical.

If 'chords' you must, consider this: What intervals make up this set?
What tensions are inherent to this set?

[ynot]

i would see it as a partial of a phrygian or phrygian dominant & use appropriate chords for those scales,but thats just me.

[funkychickendance]

There is no great tradition of chordal harmony outside of the west. Eastern scales are invariably a melodic rather than a harmonic resource. So you're free to invent your own chords without reference to accepted practice*.



*This is, of course, also true of western scales even though they do come with historical baggage.

Spot on as ever, nuffink. I first went through this thought experiment about 15 years ago, thinking "there have to be chords." Why did I think that? Because George Harrison made things like 'If I Needed Someone' seem Indian. But if you go look at the sheet music, it's neither one thing nor the other, and he's cleverly anchoring the melody at odd points with a chord, or stitching together chords with scalar riffs. There's no sense of a 'chord sequence' carrying a tune based on a single scale or vice versa.

At first this was a big letdown. But it's actually very liberating, because one of the greatest things in music is to recognize your freedom from dogmatic thinking. To a certain extent. To prove I learn slowly, I went through the whole same damn thing looking for chordal ideas to underpin late-period (68-75) Miles Davis. Doh!

//fnx

[Lunatique]

I actually have experimented a lot with this exact same concept in the past, and I have discovered that if you tried to construct chords that are harmonically very "western" while using an eastern scale, it might throw off the eastern feel. That is the short and overly generalized view, and it gets a bit more complex.

Let's say you are playing the mentioned Japanese scale, or a standard Chinese pentatonic scale (black keys only). In both cases, if you added some "missing" notes, those scales become standard western scales again, right? So, let's say if you are constructing chords and you are severely limited by what you can construct using an eastern scale, your first instinct when trying to still constructt familiar western chords is to include those "missing" notes from the eastern scales. Once you do that, you immediately got rid of the harmonic limitations of eastern scales--HOWEVER, this is at the price of progressively losing the eastern "feel" of the piece the more western chords you throw at it--especially if you go beyond simple minors and majors and start getting into 7th, 11th, 13th...etc. Also, the more of the "missing" notes you use in your chords the more you'll lose that eastern feel.

When I try to make something sound very eastern but need harmony, I usually try to stay simple like using 5th's (three notes--highest and lowest are octaves, and middle is the 5th interval) and any major/minor chords I can construct without adding too many of the "missing" notes. But if I start to use almost equal amounts of the "missing" notes to the notes that are in the eastern scales, then the piece will start to sound more western--particularly going beyond triads and into 7th and so on.

[jancivil]

i would see it as a partial of a phrygian or phrygian dominant & use appropriate chords for those scales,but thats just me.

That would ignore what it actually is, in favor of what you know, which isn't so good a thing to do, really.

If 'chords' you must, consider this: What intervals make up this set?
What tensions are inherent to this set?