As creative musicians, we’re always on the hunt for fresh and unique sounds. One way to introduce new musical ideas and reinvigorate our playing is to look at incorporating less familiar sounds. As most pop, rock, blues and even jazz utilises a well-worn set of scales and chords, a great way to do this is by studying scales that popular western music rarely employs. We can cover new ground either by exploring a completely new concept, revisiting an old musical friend to search for new ideas, or by slightly modifying something we already know well. Our brief today is to help us expand our playing by focusing in on 10 different scale sounds, with a range of five, seven and eight-note options coming from all over the world. These will allow you to add sophistication, edge and beauty to your playing. You’ll expand your knowledge of harmony along with your melodic phrasing, fluency and compositional options along the way.
There are 10 musical examples for your perusal. Each consists of a new scale definition, an intervallic or triadic exercise to establish some of the harmonic possibilities using this sound exclusively, a
