The Scales and Modes Around the World

Scales and modes are the building blocks of music. This is true for all the many music cultures of the world. This compendium covers the different scales as they are used in the Western tradition, including ie. the Greek, Byzantine, Octamodes, Takemitsu modes, Heptamodes, Octamodes, as well as modes in religious music and jazz, and synthetic scales created by some the most famous composers of the western music. Non-western scales cover Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Indian Ragas, Bali, Thai, Laos, Burma and the scales of some ethnic minorities in South East Asia. 


The wealth of information in this book is organized geographically, introducing and explaining over 500 different scales and modes. The use of the scales, the interval relations and structures are explained in illustrations. 


This compendium is an invaluable resource to everyone interested in the theory of the world’s music cultures, be it an individual musician, composer, arranger, musicologist, theorist, or jazz musician finding inspiration for the solos. 



See the sample pages for more information. 



Herman Rechberger is a Finnish composer and musician of Austrian origin, currently making his home in Greece. His current interest is the Byzantine music and its notation as well as the traditional music from all over Greece.