Pentatonic, diatonic, and chromatic scales share the same underlying structure, that of the well-formed scale. Well-formedness is defined in terms of a relationship between the order in which a single interval generates the elements of a pitch-class set and the order in which those elements appear in a scale. Another characterization provides a recursive procedure for organizing all well-formed scales into hierarchies. Finally, well-formed scales are defined in terms of scale-step measure, and aspects of the diatonic set are examined.
Description
JSTOR: Music Theory Spectrum, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 187-206
%0 Journal Article
%1 carey1989aspects
%A Carey, Norman
%A Clampitt, David
%D 1989
%I University of California Press on behalf of the Society for Music Theory
%J Music Theory Spectrum
%K DLfrage MaMu Musik Musiktheorie
%N 2
%P pp. 187-206
%R 10.1525/mts.1989.11.2.02a00030
%T Aspects of Well-Formed Scales
%U http://www.jstor.org/stable/745935
%V 11
%X Pentatonic, diatonic, and chromatic scales share the same underlying structure, that of the well-formed scale. Well-formedness is defined in terms of a relationship between the order in which a single interval generates the elements of a pitch-class set and the order in which those elements appear in a scale. Another characterization provides a recursive procedure for organizing all well-formed scales into hierarchies. Finally, well-formed scales are defined in terms of scale-step measure, and aspects of the diatonic set are examined.