Ab Altered Scale

Character

A scale that carries every altered tension a dominant seventh can take: ♭9, ♯9, ♯11 and ♭13, all at once.

It is the same as starting on the seventh note of the melodic minor, which is why it is also called the super Locrian.

There is no perfect fifth and no fourth. Only the chord's skeleton — root, third and ♭7 — remains, with everything else filled by altered tones. It is the sound of maximum tension.

Use it over a dominant resolving to a minor chord. Playing it over a V7 in jazz greatly strengthens the pull into the next chord.

Diatonic chords in this key

Seventh chords built on each scale note, using only notes from the scale. These do not clash with one another, so they are the reference set when you build a progression.

Practice

This is a passing place, not somewhere to stay. Practise using it within a bar and resolving straight away.

It helps to think of the parent melodic minor a half step up — C altered has the same notes as D♭ melodic minor.

The original app displayed both ♭9 and ♯9 as “9”. These pages keep the accidentals, so you can see which tension each note actually is.