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0 pointszhemao9y ago0 comments

Not quite. It's actually a hexatonic scale, AKA the whole tone scale. Each note is a whole step up from the last one. The outer circle is a C whole tone scale and the inner circle is a B whole tone scale (i.e. they're offset by a half step). The circles and lines are used to highlight other harmonic relations, like the circle of fifths. The following blog post explains it in more detail.

https://roelhollander.eu/en/blog-saxophone/Coltrane-Tone-Cir...

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9 comments · 3 top-level

jameshart9y ago· 4 in thread

Is it me, or did he screw up the V highlight on the left hand side of the wheel? He has a G# on the outer ring partnered with its neighboring G and A on the inner ring - but to fit with the pattern it should be the A on the inner ring partnered with the G#/Bb on the outer ring.

evanb9y ago

I noticed that straight away---and I hardly know anything about music! It just breaks the symmetry pattern, so it couldn't be right.

anentropic9y ago

yes it must be a mistake

it seems in other drawings which appear to also be by Coltrane they are drawn as you suggest, A + Ab/Bb preserving the symmetry

https://roelhollander.eu/en/blog-saxophone/Coltrane-Tone-Cir...

zhemaoOP9y ago

Huh, yeah you're right, there's a mistake in Coltrane's original version.

Gormisdomai9y ago

Is there a chance it was on purpose. To give the music a particular sound?

brooklyn_ashey9y ago· 2 in thread

Nice blog post citation. Jazz musicians absolutely love to dig into these structures from https://www.worldcat.org/title/thesaurus-of-scales-and-melod...

moogly9y ago

McCoy Tyner has said that Coltrane carried Slonimsky's book with him almost everywhere he went for several years.

I have a copy but I'm way too stupid/musically uneducated to grok it. Back when I started with music at the age of 12 I thought it was "cool" to be autodidact and not know theory and I have regretted it ever since, because try as I might learning it now, it doesn't really stick. You need those 8-10 hours of practice a day I suppose, and they're hard to come by in your adult life.

brooklyn_ashey9y ago

You only need to be great at the thing YOU do to be a great musician. Ornette and Chet Baker did a lot with "not knowing theory". Ornette has his own theories, as did Monk. Chet Baker was notoriously bad at playing changes from a sheet- but he was great at hearing them in tunes and hearing what he wanted to play. Ella had no idea about music theory. I'd say you are in great company. The best musicians develop their own things, and the good news is: it is never too late for you. You go ahead and make something you love- you will be the expert at that. :)

pavement9y ago

Well fancy that! I stand corrected.

Thanks for pointing that out!

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