Scales

The Doremi faso lati scale has been a favorite for a few centuries. Many musicians name this scale after their favorite note, the third note MI: major third scale, This distinguishes the scale from their other favorite sclae with an IM: the minor third scale.
The French thought that to be a bit overdone. They stick to 'Majeur' and 'Mineur': 'major and minor'.

Calling a ladder after the size of the third is of course a nice idea. This is how you can indicate many of the 2048 possible ladders: as in: 'major, but with a 'IT', or 'minor, but, er, harmonious.
And then we had those cool Greek names. What about those myxomatosis ladders?

Most scales don't have a name. Only when people want to tell each other about a certain set, only then do they come up with a name for it. Inspiration for the name: How many tones does it have? What other ladder does it look like? What kind of music is it used in? In which country is it popular? Which famous musician ever uses it?

The ancient Greeks simply looked around for scale names. They borrowed the names of the Greek peoples around them: the Ionians, Dorians, Phrygians, Lydians, Aeolians and the Locrians. Their names were subsequently converted into names such as Hypo-Phrygian and Myxo-Lydian, and then linked to yet other tone sets.
In the Middle Ages, the Church adopted from the Greeks a set of scales that the Greeks themselves called 'diatonic': scales where the pitch distances are as equal as possible. The church itself kept it to 'church scales'. The church did adopt the names of the ladders. Wrong indeed, but antiquity was also a long time ago in the Middle Ages. No problem. At least now we can show off, playing a Mixo-Lydian ladder.

Someone who has collected an impressive number of scale names, more than you'll probably want to know, is Ian Ring, on The Exiting Universe Of Music theory..
If you think 'Mixolydian' is a difficult name for a tone set, then he has about thirty other names that you might like better: Ching (China), Mugham Rast (Azerbaijan), Harikambhodji (Carnatic in southeastern India), HypoPhrygian (Ancient Greeks), Ionian (other Ancient Greeks).
On this site: If Ian has a name, you can find his preferred name here.

Not for every possible tone set, a name is known. No problem, William Zeitler must have thought, I'll present a name for the 1490 scales with no steps greater than a major third. You're welcome!
There we are. If Ian doesn't know a name, you'll mostly find Zeitlers name.

For those who think scale names are just a hassle: A less pretentious naming simply reduces each scale to a number: Take the twelve tones, from low to high. Use a 1 to indicate whether a tone is in the scale: '101011010110', for example. Think of that as a binary number: the representation of a numerical value in only ones and zeros. Translate that into a decimal number. Mixolydian? Harikambhodji? 2774!... Or, of course, instead put the twelve notes from highest to lowest, then its binary is '011010110101' and decimal: 1717. Right. Still two names possible...

Here at www.gitaartoonladders.nl, we take an even simpler approach. We express each scale in the doremi-terms of Guido et al. Too bad, only, he didn't have such a simple doremi-name for all twelve tones.
No problem here, we just call the lowered version of  'Re'  is...  'Er',
'Flat Mi'  becomes  'Im'  and so on.
You might know the Major scale: 'Doremi faso lati ',
Now meet the 'Mixolydian' scale: 'Doremi faso lait '.
So, if Zeitler doesn't know a name, then you always have this Do-erre-immi.

If you happen to want to use this: it's the Doerreimmi-notation of gitaartoonladders.nl aka doerreimmi.nl. You'll find a downloadable csv-file, with a binair number, two decimals and two styles of the doerreimmi: here.

Once you've found a nice scale of, for example, seven tones, then you get 6 other options for free. You can start your piece of music on the first tone, But you can also take the second tone as the root note, or another one. Then your scale suddenly sounds quite different. In the Option-section you will find the possibility to show those different modes (modes? moda?). On the right you can see the dining table of the Toon family. This table might make this a bit clearer. It is a round table, with a fixed place for everyone. Everyone can work here, but also relax: There are screens to quietly binge series, bit of gaming. This is necessary, because 12 tones in one room, that's a racket.
Mater Familias Dorothy is already here. For her, those screens do have a disadvantage. If you press the green button, you'll see why

Here you can see the standard set-up of the Toon family. Dorothy at the head, and clockwise you see Remy, Micha, Fatima, Sophie, Lamar and Titia. They sometimes call themselves 'the Major Ladder', because their names happen to start with the Doremi faso lati tone-names. Seriously, people come up with the weirdest things. A very nice club, having a great time together. A little too cozy, perhaps, because Dorothy didn't see some family members very often in the past, because they were just behind the screens. Nowadays she has found a solution: Dorothy just moves around at the table. The others would like to sit next to each other, so they move up as well. In this way, Dorothy gets to see everyone, in different groups. That's also a lot of fun: Each group has a different dynamic. Try it yourself: the green button shifts Dorothy to Remy's place. And hopefully Remy will move on.

.. This group may seem the same, but still: as Dorothy puts it: I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore'. That's right. This is no longer the 'Major Scale'. Micha, for example, has made way for Imme. Good guy, that Imme, just like Micha a tastemaker, but a bit more melancholy. Titia has also disappeared behind a screen. Instead, we now see Itske, a more dissonant type. The quirky Lamar has stayed and that always causes some tension for Imme, Imme prefers to hang out with Lamar's twin sister: Alita. Well. She's behind a screen. This is Lamar. This is what the Greeks called a Dorian arrangement, probably because Dorothy invented it.

... In this ladder you can see almost all family members who were still bingeing in the Major Ladder. Right next to Dorothy we see dreamy Erron. We don't see him often. Mostly here. Imme has his Alita back. This group loves to go on holiday together in Spain and Portugal. Their first vacation together was to Phrygia.

In this group we finally meet the 'heavenly' Oswald. It is almost the normal 'major scale', only Fatima is missing: she has given her place to Oswald. What else is there to tell. In his spare time, Oswald gets 'Lydian' about a girl named 'Maria'.

This group is also almost the normal 'major scale'. Here, only Titia and Itske have swapped places. Elsewhere on this site this club is called '1717' aka 'Mixolydian'. Or, of course, Doremi faso la it.

Here is the group that calls itself the 'Minor scale'. A group that likes to press a garlic or two, hence perhaps the nickname 'Aiolic'. Oswald and Erron are back behind a screen, Itteke is in da house and Imme and Alita are having the time of their lives.

Dorothy silently thinks this is a somewhat unhingy group within the family. Of course it's nice that all the people who are missing in the major ladder are together here.
But she misses Sophie's support. However, Oswald is now available. Not a bad word, but it's different. To quote Cruyff: That's Locric.

Good question.

Fundamental tone
You can see a melody as a description of a journey: Many trips end with returning home. But not all. Sometimes you get to a better place and you stay there. Or you visit your parental home, and that actually feels even more like home. A melody often ends with the opening note, but sometimes with a different tone that marks a new beginning or returns to more basics. There's nothing more fun for a composer than shifting the tonic.

Tone set
Nothing more pleasant for a composer than the thought of arguing later about whether this part of the melody is 'major from C', or 'phrygian from E'. Delicious.
You may of course wonder what the composer intended. It is sometimes dead for a few hundred years. If you could ask, he would say: Well... Do you think it's a nice melody? Nice. It is better to ask yourself what works best for you, who is going to play it, to understand how the melody goes.

Search the Tonescript library for songs you like and discover which tone sets they use. You can also look it up on YouTube and sing along,
You can click on the tone blocks to hear the tone, and of course play along on an instrument.
Even more fun: choose a song yourself.
Even more fun: use a backing track and play the ladder yourself.

'I find playing up the ladder and down the ladder a bit boring.'
Then you are not really discovering the tone set.

This may help. if you promise to deviate from it often.

0. You can tell a story with tones. About how you left home a few times and came back. How you ended up having great adventures, far from home, and yet coming back. Or approximately.
You can emphasize, slide to notes, mute syllables, pause, speed up, slow down, play louder or softer, repeat: Everything a good storyteller does to convey his story.

1. Decide what the special notes are in the tone set, for example compared to the major or minor scale.

• A: Start with the root note. Play a simple pattern with 2 to 4 notes. It is the first sentence of the story. Maybe you already give away the special tone, maybe you wait.
• A: Play the sentence again, a little bit differently, maybe adding a new tone,
• B: Play the beginning of the sentence with a significant extension: one or two new notes
• A: And go back to the root note.

2. Play the entire set of AABA again

3. Play the Bridge: something completely different, two sentences, a bit crazy, which makes you happy with the next step:

4. Play AABA 1 more time. End with the root note.

And done. Text on it and the rest is well-known: release-earn money-tour-drugs-argue-cult-hotel bath. Going up and down the ladder is not such a bad idea.