Hungarian minor scale

The Hungarian Minor scale,Double Harmonic minor scale, or Gypsy minor scale, is a type of combined musical scale. It is the fourth mode of the double harmonic scale. It is the same as the harmonic minor scale, except that it has a raised fourth scale degree. Its tonal center is slightly ambiguous, due to the large number of half steps. Also known as Double Harmonic Minor, or Harmonic Minor ♯4, it figures prominently in Eastern European music, particularly in Romani music. Melodies based on this scale have an exotic, romantic flavor for listeners accustomed to more typical Western scales.

A clear way to see this is the Hungarian Minor scale in the key of B. The notes in this scale would be B C♯ D E♯ F♯ G A♯ B. In this example the E♯ is the raised 4th and the A♯ is the raised 7th.

Its step pattern is w - h - + - h - h - + - h, where w indicates a whole step, h indicates a half step, and + indicates an augmented second, which is played as a minor third on a keyboard but is notionally distinct. It may be seen that the scale contains two augmented seconds, one in each tetrachord. It also contains an augmented fourth (tritone) between the first and fourth degree. Intriguingly, this scale (and its modes like the double harmonic scale) is the only seven-note subset of the equally tempered chromatic scale that is perfectly balanced; this means that when its pitches are represented as points in a circle (whose full circumference represents an octave), their average position (or "centre of mass") is the centre of the circle.

The scale may be used with minor or m+7 chords. See: chord-scale system. Chords that may be derived from the B Hungarian Minor scale are Bm, C#7♭5, Daug, F#, G7 and A#m6.

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