In music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

, the acoustic scale, overtone scale, Lydian dominant scale, or Lydian 7 scale, is a seven-note synthetic

Synthetic scale

In music, a synthetic scale is a scale which has been derived from a traditional diatonic major scale through the alteration of one degree by a semitone in either direction. Composer Ferruccio Busoni originally explored these scales in his A New Esthetic of Music and their number and variety were...

 scale which, starting on C, contains the notes: C, D, E, F, G, A and B. This differs from the major scale in having a raised

Sharp (music)

In music, sharp, dièse , or diesis means higher in pitch and the sharp symbol raises a note by a half tone. Intonation may be flat, sharp, or both, successively or simultaneously...

 fourth and lowered seventh scale degree. It is the fourth mode of the melodic minor ascending scale

Minor scale

A minor scale in Western music theory includes any scale that contains, in its tonic triad, at least three essential scale degrees: 1) the tonic , 2) a minor-third, or an interval of a minor third above the tonic, and 3) a perfect-fifth, or an interval of a perfect fifth above the tonic, altogether...

 . The term "acoustic scale" is sometimes used to describe a particular mode of this seven note collection (e.g. the specific ordering C-D-E-F-G-A-B) and is sometimes used to describe the collection as a whole (e.g. including orderings such as E-F-G-A-B-C-D).

The acoustic scale appeared sporadically in the nineteenth century, notably in the works of Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

, and appears very frequently in the works of Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy

Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...

 . It also plays a role in the music of other twentieth century composers, including Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

, and Béla Bartók

Béla Bartók

Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...

 . It plays a major role in jazz harmony

Jazz harmony

Jazz harmony is the theory and practice of how chords are used in jazz music. Jazz bears certain similarities to other practices in the tradition of Western harmony, such as many chord progressions, and the incorporation of the major and minor scales as a basis for chordal construction, but...

, where it is used to accompany dominant seventh chords starting on the first scale degree. (That is, the scale C-D-E-F-G-A-B is used to accompany the chord C-E-G-B. The term "acoustic scale" was coined by Ernő Lendvaï

Erno Lendvai

Ernő Lendvai was one of the first theorists to write on the appearance of the golden section and Fibonacci series and how these are implemented in Bartók's music...

 in his analysis of the music of Béla Bartók

Béla Bartók

Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...

 .
The name "acoustic scale" refers to the resemblance to the first seven pitch-classes in the harmonic series

Harmonic series (music)

Pitched musical instruments are often based on an approximate harmonic oscillator such as a string or a column of air, which oscillates at numerous frequencies simultaneously. At these resonant frequencies, waves travel in both directions along the string or air column, reinforcing and canceling...

. Starting on C1, the harmonic series goes C1, C2, G2, C3, E3, G3, B3, C4, D4, E4, F4*, G4, A4*, B4, B4*, C ... The italicized notes spell out an acoustic scale on C4. However, in the harmonic series, the notes marked with asterisks are out of tune; F being almost exactly halfway

Quarter tone

A quarter tone , is a pitch halfway between the usual notes of a chromatic scale, an interval about half as wide as a semitone, which is half a whole tone....

 between F4 and F4, A being closer to A4 than A4, and B being too flat to be generally accepted relative to equal temperament

Equal temperament

An equal temperament is a musical temperament, or a system of tuning, in which every pair of adjacent notes has an identical frequency ratio. As pitch is perceived roughly as the logarithm of frequency, this means that the perceived "distance" from every note to its nearest neighbor is the same for...

.

The acoustic scale may have formed from a major triad (C E G) with an added minor seventh and raised fourth (Bb and F#, drawn from the overtone series) and major second and major sixth (D and A) . Lendvaï described the use of the "acoustic system" accompanying the acoustic scale in Bartok's music, since it entails structural characteristics such as symmetrically balanced sections, especially periods

Period (music)

In music, a period is a group of phrases consisting usually of at least one antecedent phrase and one consequent phrase totaling about 8 measures in length . Generally, the antecedent ends in a weaker and the consequent in a stronger cadence; often, the antecedent ends in a half cadence while the...

, is contrasted with his use of the golden section. In Bartok's music the acoustic scale is characterized in various ways including diatonic, dynamic, tense

Consonance and dissonance

In music, a consonance is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance , which is considered to be unstable...

, and triple or other odd metered, as opposed to the music structured by the Fibonacci sequence which is chromatic, static, relaxed, and duple metered .

Another way to regard the acoustic scale is that it occurs as a mode of the melodic minor scale, starting on the fourth degree (relative to the minor root), thus being analogous to the Dorian mode. Hence the acoustic scale starting on D is D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, containing the familiar sharpened F and G of A melodic minor. The F turns the D minor tetrachord into a major tetrachord, and the G turns it Lydian. Therefore, many occurrences of this scale in jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 may be regarded as unsurprising; it shows up in modal improvisation and composition over harmonic progressions which invite use of the melodic minor.

An often cited example of its use is The Simpsons Theme

The Simpsons Theme

"The Simpsons Theme", also referred to as "The Simpsons Main Title Theme" in album releases, is the theme song of the animated television series The Simpsons. It plays during the opening sequence and was composed by Danny Elfman in 1989, after series creator Matt Groening approached him requesting...

by Danny Elfman.