The mystic chord

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

SooOOoo, I know we forum members like to play the lydian dominant scale over dominant chords, especially 7#11 chords:

C lydian dominant: C D E F# G A Bb C

And if there is an "avoid note" (forgive me) over a 7#11 chord, it is that natural fifth, so omit it:

C D E F# A Bb C

Guess what? That collection of pitches has a name: the mystical chord, or Prometheus scale: Mystic chord - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Who know? Scriabin seemed to dig it:

Scriabin himself called it the akkord pleromy (аккорд плеромы) or "chord of the pleroma",[1] which "was designed to afford instant apprehension of -- that is, to reveal -- what was in essence beyond the mind of man to conceptualize. Its preternatural stillness was a gnostic intimation of a hidden otherness."[2]

[danjw]

Minor triad + aug triad a forth up to put it another way.
great sound! thanks for sharing, will spending my afternoon getting inside it!

[JonR]

Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles

SooOOoo, I know we forum members like to play the lydian dominant scale over dominant chords, especially 7#11 chords:

C lydian dominant: C D E F# G A Bb C

And if there is an "avoid note" (forgive me) over a 7#11 chord, it is that natural fifth

There is no avoid note in lydian dominant; provided the 5th is voiced below the #11. That's one reason jazz players like the scale so much: it shares the quality of "no avoid notes" with lydian, dorian, the altered scale, and the diminished scale.
In fact, lydian dominant and altered are both modes of melodic minor and act as tritone subs for one another.
(Of course you can produce "avoid notes" by certain voicings from those scales, but in the main they don't contain the awkward notes present in the usual diatonic scale/mode choices.)

Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles

, so omit it:

C D E F# A Bb C

Guess what? That collection of pitches has a name: the mystical chord, or Prometheus scale: Mystic chord - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Who know? Scriabin seemed to dig it:

Scriabin himself called it the akkord pleromy (аккорд плеромы) or "chord of the pleroma",[1] which "was designed to afford instant apprehension of -- that is, to reveal -- what was in essence beyond the mind of man to conceptualize. Its preternatural stillness was a gnostic intimation of a hidden otherness."[2]

Bah, mysticism...
We're back in the world of "diabolus in musica", by the sound of it...

BTW, one mistake often made with the lydian dominant scale is its alternate (older) name of the "overtone scale". In fact, in equal temperament, it doesn't represent the harmonic series any better than either ionian, lydian, or mixolydian (the other close contenders for the title).

Personally I like lydian dominant - I love the sound of the chord with the 5th included; a little less dissonant than Scriabin's chord, I guess, at least if the F# is moved up the octave.

BTW, the voicing of the mystic chord is crucial: a stack of 4ths: C-F#-Bb-E-A-D.
On guitar, it's easy enough:

-10-
-10-
-9--
-8--
-9-
-8-

It is indeed a beautiful sound, but I don't think I get any of what Scriabin claimed to get from it...

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

Originally Posted by JonR

There is no avoid note in lydian dominant; provided the 5th is voiced below the #11.

To be honest, I stumbled across that Wikipedia article and was trying to find a way to work it into a thread here.

Originally Posted by JonR

It is indeed a beautiful sound, but I don't think I get any of what Scriabin claimed to get from it...

Well, mysticism, Madame Blavatsky and all that were big in his day.

[JonR]

Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles

To be honest, I stumbled across that Wikipedia article and was trying to find a way to work it into a thread here.

No problem. Always cool to inject this kind of thing occasionally. (Sometimes jazz or rock players think they've invented something, and it usually turns out some classical dude did it first. I remember when I thought I'd invented the maj7 chord... )

Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles

Well, mysticism, Madame Blavatsky and all that were big in his day.

And in many areas today...

[danjw]

Have been messing around with it and am really digging it as a sound.
Am quite into the idea of creating pent and Hexatonic scales from 7 noters at the moment. For me this kind of reductionist approach helps me to get inside the
sound of the harmony and throws up some interesting interval shapes.
I like the sound created by alternating different pentatonics from the same parent scale over modal tunes.