Harmonic Major
The major scale with the sixth degree lowered. One note changes and the scale keeps its bright top half while the middle turns shadowy, which is a specific and slightly unsettling effect that neither major nor minor gives you.
- 7 notes
- 1 2 3 4 5 b6 7
- the flattened sixth
which styles use it
- Film music
- Jazz
- Pop
- Game music
How it is built
Take the major scale and flatten the sixth. In C that means A flat instead of A. The result has the same leading tone as major, so it still resolves strongly, and the same flattened sixth as minor, so it carries some of that weight.
Bright and dark at once. Because the top of the scale is unchanged, it never fully leaves major, and the lowered sixth keeps pulling at it from underneath.
Where to use it
In film and game scoring, where a major key needs a shadow without turning minor. In jazz, as the source of a few specific chord scales. In pop, usually arriving unnoticed as one borrowed chord rather than as a whole scale.
The chords that go with it
Building on the fourth degree gives a minor chord instead of major, which is the borrowed iv that turns up constantly in pop. That single chord is how most people meet this scale without knowing its name.
What it gets confused with
With modal interchange, which is the same sound described from the chord side rather than the scale side. And with harmonic minor, which flattens the third as well.