Scales Named After Composers

Certain scales are named after composers. This usually happens when a composer really likes a scale and ends up using it a lot. This is a bit like guitar teachers who started naming the 7#9 chord the “Jimi Hendrix chord”. Jimi really liked the sound of the 7#9 chord and used it in many of his songs.

Here’s the complete list of composers whose name became the name of a music scale, or who got scales named after one of their compositions. (The accompanying scale number refers to where the scale is in the scales book I published).

You would simply put the word “The” in front of the name and the word “scale” after the name, as in for example: “The Bela Bartok Scale”.

• Claude Debussy (1279)
• Alexander Scriabin (851)
• Igor Stravinsky (Petrushka Chord, 720)
• Olivier Messiaen (all the Messiaen Modes)
• Bela Bartok (1370)
• Sergei Prokofiev (1656)
• Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1636, 1739)
• Anthon Van Der Horst (1625)
• Alexander Tcherepnin (1542, 1647, 1790, 1879,1954, 1912)
• Oscar Espla (1618)
• Dmitri Shostakovich (1637)
• Franz Liszt (712)
• Toru Takemitsu (814, 815)
• Maurice Ravel (1171, Altered Scale)
• Herb Pomeroy (1171, Altered Scale)
• Josef Rut (1191, Rut Biscale descending scale)
• John Foulds (1241)
• Guiseppe Verdi (1239, 1249, 1677)
• Willem Jeths (1320)
• Eric Satie (1335, Gnossiennes scale)
• Peter Hamel (1660)
• Arnold Schoenberg (614)

A Great Improvisation Truth

Speaking of scales, here’s a fact that, when you keep it in mind while soloing, will greatly improve the quality of your reaction to any perceived “wrong note” you accidentally hit.

When you hit a sour note, simply follow it by a note up or down a half step from there.

Problem solved!

Conclusion

Hit me up anytime at vreny@zotzinmusic.com if you have any questions, or if you would like to book a lesson.

These free lessons are cool, but you will never experience the progress, joy, and results that my students experience in lessons when you’re learning by yourself from blogs and videos.

That is why people take lessons: way better results and progress, much more complete information, exposed to way more creative ideas than you can get from a blog or YouTube video.
There is only so much that self-study can accomplish.

If you want to see amazing results and progress in your guitar playing, buy your first lesson here and get started ASAP.