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Septenate Music & The Septenate Tonal System: Background Information

The whole point of this project was to organise, label and compose with all possible heptatonic (7-note) scale types possible using our western 12-tone music system. It has taken over 3 years from the initial idea to the launch of this website (April 2013); most of the scale formula cataloguing and composing was done on my train journey to work.

NAMING THE SCALES

Throughout the process of cataloguing the master scales and their modes, I decided to group them as follows in order to help me keep track of them:

Primary: 1 Master Scale (The Major Scale)
Secondary: 7 Master Scales (each with one chromatic alteration)
Tertiary: 15 Master Scales (each with 2 chromatic alterations)
Quaternary: 12 Master Scales (each with 3 chromatic alterations)
Quinary: 7 Master Scales (each with 4 chromatic alterations)
Senary: 4 Master Scales (each with 5 chromatic alterations)
Auxiliary: 20 scales (each with at least one double sharp or flat)

I tried hard at first to give all the scales names that related in some way to existing scale names, but it became increasingly difficult, as some of the scale formula became too different to existing scales and modes to name accurately. Because of this I decided to give each master scale a new name, and each mode to be named after it with the addition of the appropriate Roman numeral in relation to its position within the master scale.

The names come from my interest in the Ageless Wisdom Teachings, astronomy, and esoteric astrology.

THE PRIMARY MASTER SCALE

As the whole system is based on chromatically altering the major scale I have designated it as the primary master scale, and named it Sol after our star, the sun, which is the source of all life in our solar system.

SECONDARY MASTER SCALES

Secondary master scales have 1 chromatic alteration and are named after the 7 ‘sacred planets’ of our solar system, which, according to the Ageless Wisdom Teaching, are the most advanced planets, whose Logoi (a Planetary Logos is a cosmic entity that manifests Itself through a planet, in the same way as our soul manifest itself through a human body and personality) are closer to achieving their evolutionary goal. They are as follows:

b2 Vulcan
#2 Saturn
b3 Jupiter (Melodic Minor)
b5 Mercury
#5 Neptune
b6 Venus (Harmonic Major)
#6 Uranus

In case you are wondering what Vulcan is, it is a hypothetical planet that was suggested orbits very close to the Sun, whose existence has been dismissed by the scientific community. The Ageless Wisdom Teachings suggest that this planet is somehow hidden from view.

And, just for the record, I’m not about to, nor do I expect anyone else, to go around calling the major scale ' Sol ' or melodic minor 'Jupiter'; It’s just a label to make this system consistent and complete.

TERTIARY MASTER SCALES

Tertiary Scales have two chromatic alterations and are named after the moons of the solar system, with the 15 largest moons used in order of physical size (largest first):

b2 b3 Ganymede (Neapolitan Major)
b2 b5 Titan
b2 #5 Callisto
b2 b6 Io (Double Harmonic Minor / Byzantine)
b2 #6 Luna
#2 b5 Europa
#2 b6 Triton
#2 #6 Titania
b3 b4 Rhea
b3 b5 Oberon
b3 #5 Iapetus
b3 #6 Charon
b5 b6 Umbriel
b5 #6 Ariel
#5 #6 Dione

QUARTERNARY MASTER SCALES

Quaternary Master Scales have 3 chromatic alterations and are named after the 12 constellations of the Zodiac.

b2 b3 b4 Aquarius
b2 b3 #5 Capricorn
b2 b3 #6 Sagittarius
b2 b5 #6 Scorpio
b2 #5 #6 Libra (Enigmatic descending)
#2 b5 b6 Virgo
#2 b5 #6 Leo
b3 b4 b5 Cancer
b3 b4 #5 Gemini
b3 b4 #6 Taurus
b3 b5 #6 Aries
b3 #5 #6 Pisces

QUINARY MASTER SCALES

There are 7 ‘quinary’ master scales, each with 4 chromatic alterations. They are named after the 7 planes of existence in this solar system, according to the Ageless Wisdom Teachings.

b2 b3 b4 #5 Adi
b2 b3 b4 #6 Monadic
b2 b3 b5 #6 Atma
b2 b3 #5 #6 Bhuddi
b2 #4 #5 #6 Manasic
(Enigmatic ascending)
b3 b4 b5 #6 Astral
b3 b4 #5 #6 Etheric

To give you a (very) basic idea of what the 7 planes are:

ADI The highest, most abstract point of our solar system – from where all Life emanates.
MONADIC Where All is One
ATMIC Where the One Life differentiates
BHUDDIC Pure reason, love and intuition. The plane of the Soul.
MANASIC (MENTAL)
Higher mind – formless concepts, creativity, genius.
Lower, or concrete mind - associated with everyday cognitive thought.

ASTRAL PLANE Dreams, emotions, spiritualism, devotion. Where we exist immediately after death.
PHYSICAL PLANE, which has seven sub-planes:

The 4 etheric sub-planes – physical matter that is invisible to the majority of people. Scientists are beginning to investigate this phenomenon, and refer to it as ‘dark’ matter. Etheric energy is everywhere, and gives the dense physical levels their vitality.
The 3 dense physical sub-planes: Gaseous, liquid and solid

The above descriptions are very crude and inadequate, but will maybe lead you to further study of the Teachings.
I named the seventh quinary master scale after the etheric planes, as it sounds better than a scale called ‘physical’.

SENARY MASTER SCALES

Senary master scales are named after the remaining ‘non-sacred’ planets of the solar system. The Ageless Wisdom teachings refer to 12 planets: the 9 ‘traditional’ planets, plus Vulcan and two ‘hidden’ planets.
After the recent scientific discovery of Eris and the other so called ‘dwarf’ planets (which now include Pluto), I do not know which of them (if any) are the two ‘hidden’ planets. As there were 4 scales to name, I used Eris simply because it is bigger in physical size to Pluto. (2013)

b2 b3 b4 b5 #6 Earth
b2 b3 b4 #5 #6 Mars
b2 b3 #4 #5 #6 Eris
b2 #3 #4 #5 #6 Pluto

(correction: since New Horizons visited Pluto in 2015, it is now considered to be larger than Eris). There is also currently a hunt for another distant gas/ice giant 'Planet X'....)

AUXILIARY MASTER SCALES

Auxiliary master scales are named after the brightest stars seen from Earth. The master scale that contains all the semitones next to each other (heptatonic chromatic cluster) is named after the star cluster Pleiades.

b2 bb3 bb4 Sirius
(b2 bb3 #5 Canopus
b2 bb3 #6 Kentaurus
b2 X5 #6 Arcturus
#2 b5 bb6 Hadar
#b3 b4 bb5 Vega
#X4 X5 #6 Capella

b2 bb3 bb4 bbb5 Rigel
b2 bb3 bb4 bb5 Procyon
b2 bb3 bb4 b5 Achernar
b2 bb3 bb4 #5 Betelgeuse
b2 bb3 bb4 #6 Acrux
b2 bb3 b4 #5 Altair
b2 bb3 b4 #6 Aldebaran
b2 bb3 X4 #5 Antares
b2 bb3 X5 #6 Becrux
b2 X3 X4 #5 Spica
#X2 X3 X4 #5 Deneb

b2 bb3 bb4 bbb5 bbbb6 Pleiades
b2 bb3 bb4 bbb5 bbb6 Regulus

RESEARCH METHODOLODY

To my surprise, the initial idea for this venture came to me when I was writing down guitar finger exercises using different combinations of tones and semitones not commonly used in standard western music. Some of them I recognised as the so-called ‘exotic’ and ‘synthetic’ scales that jazz musicians and other western musicians that push the envelope of music have used (such as marva theta, Hungarian minor, harmonic major and Byzantine), with many of them being adapted from various world music cultures. However, the more I thought about it and investigated the various patterns, the more I began to realise that there were far more then I ever imagined, each with it’s own unique mood and possibilities for harmonic and melodic structure. I became curious about exactly how many 7 notes scales were possible using our 12 note equally tempered music system, and if there was a way of organising and labelling them for myself and similarly curious musicians and composers to investigate and (hopefully) use.

Then came the difficult part; as I worked through the different scale formulae it became apparent that some scales were modes of others I had already worked out. I then needed a system to catalogue and organise all the possible scales. This is where the idea of master scales came from; I decided to base the whole system on chromatic alterations of the major scale, wherein the mode of each scale pattern that had the least amount of chromatic alterations would be the Master Scale (mode I), in the same way that the Major (or Ionian) scale is mode I of all it’s other modes - Dorian (II), Phrygian (III), Lydian (IV), Mixolydian (V), Aeolian (VI) and Locrian (VII).

At this point I started to list all of the candidate master scales, working through all the chromatic alterations of a major scale in order, starting with one altered note, working through the scale degrees (i.e. Major b2, Major #2, Major b3 etc..) then 2 altered notes, carrying on with this logical system. It was then clear that each Master Scale would need to have a limit on how far each note could be removed from it’s original position in the major scale without the scale becoming merely a fragmented chromatic scale with no real tonal cohesion, so I decided to limited the alterations to one semitone either way for it to be considered as a candidate for a master scale. This excluded scale degrees such as bb7 or X4 from being present in a master scale (although the modes of Master Scales did end up having these degrees). This narrowed the field of possibilities enough to come up with a definitive list of candidate master scales.
Each time a candidate scale was considered, I worked out the modes of each scale, and deleted any modes from the candidate scale list if they appeared.
For example, major #4 (Lydian) is mode IV of the major scale, so cannot be a master scale. Another example is the 'major b2' master scale, which has the modes major #4 b6, major #2 #4 #5 #6, and major b5 b7, meaning that they could no longer be considered as candidate master scales.

As I began to compose the first batch of Fixed Septenates, I found that I liked the sound of the modes that included double sharps and/or double flats. This opened another can of worms; cataloguing the remaining 7 note scales and modes that contained double, triple and even quadruple sharps and flats to make the whole system complete. As a result, I have catalogued a total of 66 master scales that, with their modes, make 442 heptatonic scales using the 12-tone equal temperament tuning system.