Hexatonic Scales
Those are six-note scales, which are usually created by superimposing two mutually exclusive triads. Hexatonic scales often function as the solution to having a common scale to improvise while cycling through unusual chord progressions or hybrid chords.
Example: the three-tonic cycle normally requires changing "key notes" to emphasize each modulation. If we look for one scale that can fit all the chords, the first logical thing to do is to try and combine the triad notes of all tonics. Suppose we start the cycle with C major, our pitches will be: C E G, E G♯ B, and A♭ C E♭. These notes form the following scale:
C D♯ E G A♭ B (C)
Essentially, these are C augmented and B augmented triads superimposed over each other. Such structuring, as always, produces a symmetric scale.
Read more about this topic: Synthetic Mode
Famous quotes containing the word scales:
“As deaths have accumulated I have begun to think of life and death as a set of balance scales. When one is young, the scale is heavily tipped toward the living. With the first death, the first consciousness of death, the counter scale begins to fall. Death by death, the scales shift weight until what was unthinkable becomes merely a matter of gravity and the fall into death becomes an easy step.”
—Alison Hawthorne Deming (b. 1946)