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Compiling global examples of music in the Lydian Dominant (‘Overtone’) Scale

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1-2-3-#4-5-6-b7

(C-D-E-F^#-G-A-B^b)

o • o • o • o o • o o • o

• Lydian Dominant: Sounds •

Real-world examples of the scale in action:

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• General: The scale turns up across disparate global genres, ranging from rock instrumentals (Joe Satriani’s Flying in a Blue Dream) to video game soundtracks (Jun Ishikawa’s Sand Canyon 1 from Kirby’s Dream Land 3) – as well as pop songs from the 1960s (Left Banke’s Pretty Ballerina) to the 2000s (Regina Spektor’s Pavlov’s Daughter). It also appears in several jazz standards, often in a ‘secondary dominant’ function (e.g. over the D7#11 near the start of Take the A Train) – but sometimes as a head melody in its own right (e.g. Sonny Rollins’ Blue Seven).

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• Classical: Several composers have experimented with it over the past century or so – notably including Claude Debussy (e.g. the early sections of L’isle Joyeuse, and bars 35-40 of La Mer), Alexander Scriabin (his famous Mystic Chord motif can be expressed as ‘Lydian Dominant no 5’: 1-2-3-#4-6-b7), and Béla Bartók (e.g. the final passages of Cantata Profana: referred to as the ‘Acoustic Scale’ in theorist Erno Lendvai’s landmark Bartók analysis). And more recently, in the epic choral works of American composer Eric Whitacre (Cloudburst: used to invoke the charged tensions of a breaking storm…).

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• India: Prominent in South Indian Carnatic music as Ragam Vachaspati (melakarta scale #10) – translating as ‘Lord of Speech’, indicating its associations with Vishvakarman: a Rigvedic deity described by historian Roshen Dalal as “all-seeing, four-faced, and four-armed; the architect of the universe”. Also borrowed into Northern Hindustani music under the same name from around the 1950s, led by artists such as sitarist Ravi Shankar and sarodiya Ali Akbar Khan – as well as being a perennially popular choice for North-South collaborations (see the spellbinding sitar-venu duet below!).

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• Soundtrack: The Lydian Dominant’s most famous modern showcase is undoubtedly Danny Elfman’s Simpsons Theme, (also seasoned with descending dashes of the Whole-Tone Scale). Elfman, in turn, drew explicit influence and inspiration from Hoyt Curtin’s 1962 Jetsons Theme, which shuffles a similar 1-3-#4-5 motif between multiple keys.

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—Raag Vachaspati (North/South India)—

Kushal Das & Shashank Subramanyam (sitar/venu)

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“Vachaspati’s seven swaras present a curious balance between novelty and primality. As a relatively recent addition to North India, it presents artists with a fresh melodic canvas, largely free of established conventions or constraints… Despite a long Carnatic history (as melakarta #64), the raga’s Northern inception is a 20th-century phenomenon – largely credited to the efforts of Ravi Shankar, who took to performing it from around the early 1950s…” (from my Hindustani Raga Index)

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• Lydian Dominant: More •

Features, classifiers, quirks, etc…

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[analysis: coming soon]

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Known as the ‘Lydian Dominant‘ in jazz-inclined traditions, Vachaspati’s basic scale follows an aforementioned subset of the harmonic series (overtones #8–14: or, if octaves are ignored, just the sum of the first 14). Hear this sequence in action – first in its original ‘pure-tuned’ form, then in its ‘12-tone equal temperament’ approximation:

[overtones audio]

Given this vibrational primality, the scale is evident in any instrument designed around ‘separating out’ different partials from the series – including the didgeridoo, the jaw harp, and the ‘overtone singing‘ traditions of Tuva and beyond (although lower-pitched partials tend to dominate: SGPn). And the tanpura’s characteristic droning sparkle arises from the action of its ‘jawari’ bridge, which is subtly curved to accentuate higher overtones as the string’s vibration ‘grazes’ it.

 

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—Classifiers & Quirks—

• Modes: Melodic Minor set (Melodic Minor; Dorian b2; Lydian Augmented; Lydian Dominant; Mixolydian b6; Aeolian b5; Superlocrian)
• Quirks: Hemitonic; Maximal; Reflectional sym. (imperfect: ♮3, #4, b7; detached: #4, b7)
• Names: Lydian Dominant, Lydian b7, Mixolydian #4, Overtone, Acoustic, ‘Bartok’ (Western); Vachaspati (Hindustani/Carnatic)

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n.b. For more detailed geometric and mathematical analysis, refer to this scale’s entry in Ian Ring’s fantastic Exciting Universe of Music Theory project (for which I am an occasional ‘raga consultant’)

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