Olivier Messien Modes of limited transposition in Scaler 2?

Scaler 2 Feature Requests
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Hi Davide and everyone,

This is my first post here. After 15 years, I’m back to making music and I’ve completed my first orchestral composition with some help from Scaler 2.

First of all, I have a personal curiosity, Davide: your name sounds Italian to me. Are you Italian or of Italian descent? Sorry for the personal question.

Now, back to my request: I have fallen in love with Messiaen’s scales invention and music. In this video, Rick Beato (another Italian?) showcases the beautiful sounds of some of Olivier Messiaen’s modes:

So, I double-checked the scales available in Scaler 2, and to my surprise, I didn’t find even the first mode (the whole tone scale), famously used by Debussy, among others ?!

My proposal is to add of course ALL Olivier Messiaen Modes.
This request matches in part with this one: Scaler2 - Add/Import Custom User Scales

My request might seem a bit niche, because these modes sound pretty atonal and are outside common tonality. Nevertheless, I think these scales allow for creative and amazing modulations, a topic that Scaler 2 already covers. This could be very useful for composers working in cinematic/neoclassical music.

Last but not least, I’d also like to ask for support for the chromatic scale. In general, even though I know Scaler 2’s main audience might be in pop mainstream music, I kindly ask you to consider also including elements related to classical modern music.

Thanks a lot for this amazing software.

BTW, glad to know other user thoughts / suggestions of any sw could help to build progressions using Messiens’s modes.

Thanks
Giorgio (from Genova, Italy)

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Ciao Giorgio and thanks for linking us to that video. You can get close to some of these scales and modes by entering the single keys into detect mode. So for whole tone scales and modes there are a few options like the screen attached. But I will add these to our potential scale inclusions. We have a nice list which we will be addressing soon so thanks for feedback.
PS - Yes on the Italian, both my mother and father are Italian.

2 Likes
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Thanks Davide, for your feedback.

You can get close to some of these scales and modes by entering the single keys into detect mode.

yes, I thought about that even if I not tried. So by example I could play in detect mode, a chord in say, Messiaen’s Mode 4 and see what Scaler 2 would suggest as next chords (that I presume will not belong to the mode4 but with something “near”. That’s exactly my expectation: mix atonal (in this case Messiaen’s scale based) chords to more tonal chords that Sacler “knows”.

So for whole tone scales and modes there are a few options like the screen attached.

I don’t see any screen attachment but I understand what you suggested.

But I will add these to our potential scale inclusions. We have a nice list which we will be addressing soon so thanks for feedback.

That’s could be great. I have here a minor visual feature request. It could be useful, when scrolling scales, that the box woul show not just the notes names, but also the intervals, so, by example, for the whole scale on C

togheter with

C D E F# G# A#

also:

W W W W W W

where by example:
W = whole tone
1/2 = step tone
3m = minor third
3M = major third

just an idea. Minor point,

PS - Yes on the Italian, both my mother and father are Italian.

Great! But you lost the Italian practice, because when you pronounce AMORE, you say AMOOORE with the common English-speaker accent with long wovel. I’m joking!

Thanks a lot for your effort in this great project.
I’ll submit in this forum some ideas to enhance Scaler 3 to be useful also for experimenting in atonal stuff… (I’m a bit obsessed with 900 classical composers (Debussy, Starvinsky, etc) chords progressions.

Thanks again

giorgio

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Just FYI (for those interested in these scales, or “modes” to respect the composer’s terminology), I’ve finally shared a GitHub repo where I try to unpack what Messiaen’s modes are. My focus is to create files and tools for the REAPER DAW, but the general concept might be useful overall, and the list of scales is perhaps clearer—just in case Scaler 2’s next release includes them.

The public GitHub repo is here:

It would be very kind of you if you’d like to star the project on GitHub.

By the way, I’d like to revise my previous feature/change request about naming scales in REAPER by adding the W H notation (Whole, Half steps). I’d reformulate the request as follows:

Please add the interval in semitones between each note and the next. For example, for the C major scale:

C D E F G A B

is equivalent to:

2 2 1 2 2 2 1

In my humble opinion, it would be useful to include the interval sequence along with the note name sequence.

What do you think?

Thanks,
Giorgio