We’ve all played pentatonics … standard major and minor scales … maybe even modes … but what about hexatonic scales?
As the name implies, hexatonic scales are scales with six notes (instead of pentatonic’s five or the major/minor scales’ seven). There is no one hexatonic scale, but it can refer to any six-note scale. This includes jazz favorites like the whole tone scale, blues scale, and augmented scale, as well as more obscure classical scales like the Prometheus scale and tritone scale.
The question is—how do you use these in a creative way to improve your improvisation? Let’s get playing and find out!
Contents
Triad pairs
The easiest way to look at a hexatonic scale is as the sum of two triads that are a whole step apart. For example, if we made a hexatonic scale using the chords of C and D major, we would combine C, E, and G with D, F#, and A to get the hexatonic scale C, D, E, F#, G, A. Compared to a C major pentatonic scale, this scale includes a #4, which can be useful with #11 chords.
A key piece is picking two chords of any quality that do not share any tones—this lets you construct a six-note scale.
We’re going to talk about two things you can do with this—how you can put together triad pairs to match a certain harmony and some exercises to get you comfortable with the concept.
Keep in mind that this is a fairly advanced concept, so don’t be discouraged if you need to take this slow. Something that Chad LB likes to remind students is that he started his first Charlie Parker solo at 10 years old—not because he was an especially gifted 10-year-old, but because he had the patience to take it note by note, measure by measure, until he built up the full solo. Challenging yourself is good as a musician, but it takes discipline and patience to make sure you don’t overwhelm yourself.
Make sure to check out our PDF package 17 Exercises on Triad Pairs and Hexatonics for jazz musicians. This has all that we’re going to talk about and more in PDF form written out ascending and descending. Plus, we’ve got a video that you can follow along with, too!
Triad pair exercises
Exercise 1
We’re going to start with an easy pairing, again, it will be two major triads a whole step apart.
Let’s look at F and Eb. This makes a hexatonic scale of F, G, A, Bb, C, Eb. Of course you can use this when playing over the chords we built from, but there are more choices, too. Let’s play it over F7 and Cm7.
Often, it works well to play the upper triad (in this case, F) before the second (Eb).
A good way to practice this is to mix up the shapes and directions of these triads throughout your range.
In this example, we’re going to criss-cross the triads so we have a really smooth connection from triad to triad.
We’ll start by playing up the F major triad, then down the E-flat major triad. From there, we’ll play back up the F major from the third (or the second note in the F chord—A). Descend again through the E-flat major, this time in second inversion.
The inversions aren’t as important for this exercise, but it does help create the voice leading that we want to make this work smoothly, because you’re reaching for the closest note in the next chord.
Here’s what it sounds like descending.
Exercise 2
In this last exercise, we ended up using triplets. Triad pairs are a nice opportunity to incorporate some triplet practice into your improv. That’s not to say you can’t use straight eighth notes, either! This next exercise will look at the most straightforward way we’d do that—repeating one of the notes from the triad.
In this exercise, we’ll start from a low A, then play C and F, then A again on top—making an F major triad in first inversion. We’re repeating the first note on top so that we can fit it into the eighth note figure.
As with all concepts, you’ll be more comfortable if you can take these exercises through all 12 keys and eventually start memorizing some of it, too. For memorization, it’s helpful to look at the first measure, play it, look away and play it again. Then play the second measure, look away and play it again. Then string the two together, without looking at the page. Repeat this going forward, and you’ll notice that by the end, you’ll have the entire first part completely committed to memory, with the rest not far behind.
So using the four notes for a triad by repeating one note, while using the criss-cross voice leading, our exercise will sound like this.
And here it is descending.
Exercise 3
In this next exercise, we’ll use a triad pairing of two major triads a half step apart, but you’ll see how we mix up the shape.
So within the triad, we’re going to start by going up and jumping past the third—from root to fifth, but then come back down to the third, and back to the root. We’ll continue this pattern through the inversions of each chord.
Here’s what that looks like ascending and descending.
Exercise 4
This next exercise is going to turn it up a notch—we’re going to have two triads that are a tritone apart, and we’ll mix up the grouping of the notes within each triad.
We’ll start with four notes from the first triad, then three notes from the second. That’s going to create this vibe or motif, where we have this grouping of seven rhythmically throughout the exercise.
Let’s check this out—we’ve got an F major starting from A, then we’re pulling in three notes from a B major triad. We’ll go right back into our F major again, but starting from the fifth and on the “and” of 4. The reason we’re starting on the “and” of 4 is because of our seven-note figure. The figure repeats a little early, which makes an interesting effect.
So from this “and” of 4, we’ll play that second inversion, followed by three notes from the B major triad. Now, we’re starting the F major triad on beat four! As we continue this pattern, the pattern will shift by an eighth note.
This is a really great way to practice triad pairs, since it creates both interesting harmony and rhythm combinations.
With this pair, we’ll play it over an F7 or B7, but there will be friction created when we go back and forth. However, we can get a really cool effect if we play it over C minor—so that’s what we’ll do here.
Now if this is confusing at all, remember to take it slow and check out our PDF package and video for some extra guidance.
Scale-based exercises
Next up, we’re going to get a bit more straightforward. These next two exercises will be a bit more scale-based.
So instead of approaching these exercises as triad pairs, we’re going to approach it as a more classic scale, just this time with six notes.
Exercise 1
For this exercise, we’ll do a repeated pattern where we step up the scale degrees, then skip a degree.
Now let’s take our two chords, F minor and E-flat major—this gives us F, G, Ab, Bb, C, Eb, and F.
This scale will work great on an F minor chord, as well as the E-flat.
Hexatonics give a good middle ground between pentatonic and full seven-note scales, and they can work well for two-chord combos.
Like all scales, you can take different shapes with the scales and build new exercises. In this exercise, we’re going to do a step-step-skip pattern. That’s 1, 2, 3, and 5. Then, we’ll step all the way back down and continue back up from each degree.
Here’s what that ends up looking like.
And here it is descending.
Exercise 2
For our last exercise, we’ll play these blocks of triads in triplets. This can sound really effective and driving.
To do this, we’ll take the eighth note shape from before and adjust it a bit to apply triplets.
We’re coming in similar to how we had the step-step-skip, but when we step back down, we’ll take one note out and just go back to the original note and start the next pattern from the next degree.
Here’s that shape ascending, and we turn it around to descend.
How’s that feel? Hexatonics and triad pairs are very flexible and can give you a lot of mileage while staying inside the two chords.
If you want to get some more practice and really nail these concepts, check out the PDF package 17 Exercises on Triad Pairs and Hexatonics or check out our video to hear Chad play through these exercises.
We’ll see you next time!