Scale Atlas

Every scale shape in 12-tone tuning

A scale is a choice of notes from the twelve in an octave. Start that same choice from a different note and the pattern of steps stays the same, so C major and D Dorian are one shape seen from two places.

Counted that way there are 351 shapes. This atlas draws each one on a clock face, lists its modes, and plays it back.

Each note keeps its own color and mark everywhere on the page, so you can see at a glance which notes two scales share. Most music lives in a few corners of this map. The six recordings at the bottom come from the parts almost nobody visits.

351scale shapes in total

228with no gap wider than a major third

59of those have seven notes

9of those 59 have a common name

Selected shape

Steps in semitones

Note colors, around the circle of fifths

Modes: the same shape started on another of its notes, played from the root

Root

The atlas

No gap wider than a major third Named only

How the count splits

all shapesno gap wider than a major third

Notes per scale, with playable over total above each column.

Field recordings

Six shapes nobody named

Each is a playable seven-note shape with no common name. The sketch is generated in your browser from the shape. The prompt is a starting point for a music generator.