Related
The preceding entries (whole-tone, octatonic, blues) all belong to one family: artificial scales — not grown slowly out of a traditional modal system, but built from an explicit interval idea.
How to tell grown from built
| Traditional scale | Artificial scale | |
|---|---|---|
| Origin | settled gradually through practice | designed from a rule or a target effect |
| Structure | usually unequal, with clear degrees and functions | often equidistant or highly symmetrical |
| Examples | major, minor, church modes, pentatonic | whole tone, octatonic, blues, invented collections |
This line is not a value judgement. Artificial scales can carry first-rate music; they simply require the composer to define what counts as consonance and resolution, because tradition supplies no ready answer.
Common construction ideas
| Idea | Method | Example |
|---|---|---|
| equal division | split the octave into equal parts | whole tone (6), chromatic (12) |
| alternation | repeat two step sizes | octatonic (whole, half) |
| symmetry | mirror the structure at a point | octatonic, some invented collections |
| insertion | add a clashing note to an existing scale | blues (pentatonic plus a lowered fifth) |
| combination | merge two structures | two diminished sevenths make the octatonic |
Why it deserves its own entry
Because from the twentieth century onward, choosing the material became part of composing. Traditional scales hand you a ready vocabulary; an artificial scale hands you a blank page — which notes, used how, is all down to you. That is why this is a separate entry: not a curiosity, but a method of composition.
Diagram: five construction ideas
Listen: an invented scale
The line below belongs to no tradition — it is assembled from a step pattern of its own. It exists in the library, plays, and can be repeated exactly. The point of an artificial scale is never rarity; it is being precisely definable.
Common misconceptions
- "Artificial means unnatural and therefore worse." "Artificial" describes how it came about, not its quality. The whole-tone and blues scales are both artificial.
- "Traditional scales are natural." They too are the result of long selection and habit; traditional and natural are not the same thing.
- "Artificial scales must be complicated." The blues scale is a pentatonic plus one note — artificial all the same.
- "An artificial scale destroys tonality." A tonic and a centre can be kept deliberately; whether there is a centre depends on use, not on whether the scale is traditional.
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Listen in the library
All tracks from midicn-lib — inline badge is the license tier (C1 commercial / C2 non-commercial / C3 study only).
Sources
- 人工音阶指不源自传统调式体系、按特定音程设计构成的音阶，属乐理通则
- 全音音阶、八声音阶、蓝调音阶常被归入人工音阶一类，为通行分类表述
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.