chromatic scale

"12." The chromatic scale could also be said to be the "grandparent of all the scales." It is the Rome where all the musical roads can originate and return within the domain of the equal tempered system of tonal organization. Here is the chromatic scale, constructed exclusively of half steps, notated using flats. Example 1.

Sound familiar? Stylistically, rarely do we hear chromatic ideas in folk music. Thanx to guys like Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Van Halen, the rockers potentially enjoy the chromatic universe. Blues players? They always seem to be mining between the cracks so to speak. For the jazz player, the idea that anything can come and go from anywhere becomes a key to understanding the jazz vocabulary. Can we also respell the chromatic scale with enharmonic equivalents, using sharps? Example 1a.

Here is hopefully a reasonably familiar lick created from the chromatic grouping of pitches. A "state fair" kinda "carnival" cliché from the way old days, a descending chromatic color, do you remember this one? Example 1b.

Ring a bell? Cool, this is the only cliche chromatic idea I know of. In theory, the pitches of the chromatic scale are created by the division of the octave into 12 equal parts. This is one of the main structural components of our equal tempered system. The "tempering" part of our system allows us to build any of our melodic or harmonic resources from each of the 12 pitches of the chromatic scale. Really? Both the major and minor tonalities? For sure, this is part of what makes our musical system so cool and a rather deep musical "well" to draw from. 

To begin our theory explorations of the chromatic scale, lets list all of our modal melodic resources, using C as the fundamental pitch and spell out their pitches, do a bit of musical addition, and try to prove that these groups of pitches, most of which pre-date the emergence of equal temperament, can be created from selected pitches of the chromatic scale. Example 2.

Cool huh? Combining the pitches of the 7 church modes creates the chromatic scale. Did you have any doubts? Didn't think so. So from a historical perspective, did the chromatic scale "arrive" by simply combining the pitches from all of the modes? Well, yes and no, see history of the modes if you are curious.

So why is this chromatic group of pitches potentially so important to the creative musician? Well for starters, from the above chart we see that by combining the pitches of the modes, we can create the chromatic grouping of pitches. From this we can advance the idea that the flip side is also true, that "any and all of our melodic resources can be extracted from the chromatic grouping, regardless of key center," is perhaps one worth examining. Thus from a theoretical perspective, knowledge of the chromatic color provides an important resource from which we can extract all of the other equal tempered colors. 

Second, that perhaps due to it’s exclusive half step structure, the chromatic color is ideally suited to "blur" tonality and direction, suspending the tonal gravity within the music. This chromatic "blurring and suspension" is so complete that any of our melodic resources, in whatever key, can potentially emerge after a chromatic passage. This is a potentially huge composing / performing "artistic license." We can use chromatic ideas to seamlessly morph from one color to another. With the exclusive half step intervalic structure of the chromatic scale, is every pitch a potential leading tone? Exactly.

Thirdly, that by understanding the theory and hearing the music from a chromatic perspective, potentially creates a "chromatic musical world", a place where anything can go anywhere, based on one's own artistic direction, where the artist is perhaps completely free from the effects of a tonal center and it's inherent tonal gravity. A musical utopia you say, well almost. Music that is overly chromatic can rapidly loose a lot of listeners. Why? Well, a continuous blurring of the tonality tends to create just that, a blurred sense of tonal center. And although the chromatic color can create a good deal of musical excitement, it also can get very tiresome very quickly. If we never have anything to really "sink our ears into" tonally, it eventually becomes a "wash" so to speak and a loss of interest is not uncommon. Also that so much of the music we love is tonally based that overly chromatic music sounds sort of weird to a lot of folks. So like most things of such a sweet and unique nature, moderation in using the chromatic color is perhaps the way to go, at least initially.

Used as an enhancement in many styles of American music, the chromatic color is truly golden. Again perhaps to invoke a golden rule for the creators of improvised American music, "can I invision, hear, sing or hum the lines I want to play?" Perhaps the most common of the chromatic enhancements is with the major triad, here we simply add a passing tone a half step below each of the three pitches in the triad. Example 3.

Rearranging the rhythm of the pitches. Example 3a.

Rearranging the pitches. Example 3b.

Rearranging the pitches. Example 3c.

Cool huh? Jazz legend Charlie Parker loved these kinds of chromatically enhanced ideas, so sleek and cool yet of the purest of the American vanillas. So, sing the line, then all is cool, as we are still centering and projecting from our heart? Thinking along these lines, can you accurately sing a chromatic scale? Its not an easy scale to sing for sure but when vocally mastered, can dramatically strengthens one's ability to hear music and theoretically understand it's component parts, a potentially crucial ability for the career musician. In acquiring this ability to accurately sing the chromatic scale, perhaps we are sort of getting our arms around the whole pitch resource, providing a better command of the resources. Perhaps go back up to the top of the page, click the music and sing along, then try to recreate it from memory.

With this in mind, lets explore some of the other common places within the music where we employ this unique and wonderful color. Here is the carnival cliche line. Example 3.

Is the above line simply part of a "chromatically enhanced" C major scale? Let's create a simple melody from the pitches of the C major scale. Example 3a.

Now, chromatically enhance this line. Example 3b.

Interesting eh? "Chromatically enhanced" is perhaps a sophisticated term for a relatively simple technique that potentially may become an important aspect in defining one’s artistic signature. This chromatic enhancement could be one element in a players approach to their melodic embellishment of the resources, oftentimes referred to as a musical turn. For example, here is a major triad chromatically enhanced. This example simply surrounds the principle triad pitches with its upper and lower neighbors. Example 3c.

This type of chromatically enhanced melodic treatment is all over the Charlie Parker Omnibook. Are you hip to this important composer / player and text of his transcribed solos? Over the years of playing, each of us will evolve our own way of "turning a musical phrase", which becomes a part of our artistic signature. So in a sense, can any line can be chromatically enhanced? You bet. By simply filling in between pitches of a melodic line chromatically by half step as in the carnival lick above, or by encapsulating pitches by their chromatic upper and lower neighbors as in example 4, or while modulating in example 5 which follows. Each have their own unique effect and may become important melodic and harmonic "treatments" on your artistic palette. Chords too? Of course, hip to the half step lead in? Read on.

Chromatic enhancement is also used harmonically while comping in a few of the American styles. The half step lead in helps to "blur" the sound as well as potentially creating a tremendous amount of rhythmic forward motion, accelerating one elements motion towards another, potentially an important component in getting at that swing thang. Melodic and harmonic substitutions are also many times chromatically enhanced. Here is a common Two / Five chord progression treated with a chromatic, half step lead in from below, to the dominant chord first and then the Two chord to repeat the cycle. Example 4.

This last non - resolving Two / Five idea we often find in vamp situations. Let's resolve the above cadential motion using the half step lead in approach and a bit of melody. Example 4a.

This type of chromatic harmonic motion is very common in jazz music, from either a half step below or half step above the "target" chord. It is so simple a technique but oh so very cool and important, this chromatic half step lead in, both harmonically and melodically. Example 4b.

Cool huh? Advanced melodic improv oftentimes includes melodically articulating chosen aspects of the chromatic, half step lead in chords. Beginning to see any chromatic options in your existing lines? Another one of the many wonderful musical effects created from the chromatic color is that what comes after the chromatic "blurring" can potentially go to any of the available tonal environments. Think about it. If all the equal tempered pitches available are within the chromatic grouping of pitches, and all of our equal tempered scales can be created from the chromatic scale, the creative artist might be able to "get on the chromatic train at any station and get off at any given station whatever the weather."

For example, the following melodic idea uses chromatic motion to move from the tonal center of C major to Gb minor. Example 4.

In the above example, a simple melodic idea morphs chromatically to a new idea a tritone away, while also moving from the major to minor tonality. We've gone completely across the cycle of fifths in the blink of an eye. Can our "chromatically enhanced" modulation could go anywhere melodically and harmonically? Here are a series of four bar phrases resolving one chromatic idea into various tonal environments. To the major tonality in C. Example 7.

To the major tonality a half step higher, to Db major. Example 7a.

To the A pentatonic minor tonality. Example 7b.

To the blues tonality. Example 7c.

With the exclusive use of just the half step interval for constructing the chromatic scale, is it possible that every pitch within the group is a potential leading tone to the 12 major and minor keys? That is a very distinct possibility my friend, also perhaps a conclusion which is indicative of a reasonably advanced understanding of the equal tempered system. Other tonalities? To the harmonic minor tonality. Harmonic minor tonality? Example 7d.

To the whole tone tonality. Example 7e.

Well, enough of that. You'll probably never want to hear that carnival call again! It is a goofy lick no doubt, but chromatic, and familiar enough I think? Using it here as a cliché hopefully allows for the theoretical implications we are examining to take a better hold, to more readily tie into the existing knowledge within the reader, so very important for the educational dynamic to occur, take root and organically grow. So, can we use the chromatic color as a bridge to go anywhere in the tonal universe? Maybe huh? In most situations, too much of any one thing tends to wear it out. The chromatic group is no different. Like most styles of improvisation in American music, unless convincingly done, playing that is overly chromatic tends to bore, it starts to sound thematically unfocused and presents the other players within the group and the listeners with certain artistic problems, mostly in terms of the direction of the music. So much of this artistic thought revolves around the intent of the music we each are looking to create. If your gigging with "modernists", following the path of the later John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman or Sun Ra legacies ( and many others ), put on your chromatic helmet and head for the coda! If the gig is at the local Holiday Inn, you might want to tone the chromatic thing down a bit and perhaps just embellish the written melody with some cool chromatic passing tones etc. Perhaps the important thing here is to recognize the musical potential of a particular element, in this case "chromatic enhancement", and choose what aspects of it works to create your sound, use of it whatever enables you to articulate your musical ideas and create your artistic statement, always keeping in mind that what is super hip for you today, might only be hip down the road, as the search for ideas evolves from one element to the next.

If by moving through the chromatic color we can emerge in any tonal direction, can employing the chromatic color suspend tonal gravity? And if longer, more purely chromatic passages have the effect of obscuring the tonality and suspending tonal gravity, why would we want to do this? Artistically, the "blurring" of the tonality in one sense creates a suspension of the music within time. We can chromatically "pause" the intent and direction of the music, and because of the chromatic nature of this pause, our options of what is to come next are less dictated by what came before. Thus, motion to a new tonality is less restricted while returning to the original tonality is less direct, a bit more dramatic and may even come as a bit of a nice surprise. Might sound crazy but this type thinking and the nature of the chromatically enhanced musical lines can be way, way advanced, and a real challenge in making artistic sense. If all else fails, find the groove, then simply sing the line, play the line. If that doesn't work, try throwing out a blues anchor.

Earlier in this discussion of the chromatic scale, the concept of a musical "turn" was brought forth in regards to the chromatic coloring of the musical line. A "turn" is simply a way a particular player uniquely phrases common melodic and harmonic situations that occur frequently throughout the music they perform. Oftentimes these "turns" are chromatic in nature. They sort of become a player’s cliché way of doing things. Cliché might not be the best word here because many times it is associated with artistic ideas that are a bit worn out by too much repetition, they sound "tired", overdone whatever. But cliché is perhaps a good choice of words in that it could be used to describe a particular player’s own unique way of phrasing. All of our American music heroes have their unique way of "turning a phrase." Even Elvis? Yep, even Elvis.

These simple turns, along with tone, articulation, phrasing and lots more, makes a players artistic statement clearly recognizable regardless of the musical setting. When we listen to the sides of Charlie Parker with strings, for the knowledgeable jazz listener, there is no mistaking who is playing the alto sax part in the music. Mr. Parker probably created a hundred "new" cliché licks that have found their way into the permanent language of jazz musicians around the world, and they can still sound cool, fresh and exciting. Many of these cliche licks contain chromatic elements. The triad licks of example 3a, b and c are "Parkeresque." There are and will hopefully always be many other contributors continuing this process of expanding the vocabulary by creating and passing along cool "turns."

Years ago I had a wonderful artistic collaboration with a very melodically orientated percussionist named Peter Kriff, who keyed in on the melodic "turns" of the melodies we were performing. Our jazz quartet sound was huge because of the way Peter would rhythmically set up all of the turns within the melodies of the tunes we played, very much in a "big band" styling. Very simple in concept, rather advanced in execution, but a real "tightening agent" for the collaborative, creative process of our group. So what do it all mean mon, just that there is such a thing as a "melodic turn" and that sometimes they are partly chromatic, sometimes they are a bit cliché, and after a while of doing it we find our own character way of "turning" the phrases to express our thoughts and emotions with our own artistic signature.

So in review, can we extract all of our equal tempered colors from the chromatic grouping of pitches? Lets try. the following chart bases all of the scale groups on the pitch C. Example 8.

Chords too? But of course, click here to go there. Is there a chromatic palette of colors? Of course, we have almost everything here.

Where to next?

review new ideas

"If a man does his best, what else is there?" General George S. Patton