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I am making some notes on scales and patterns and I am wondering what is the term for these types of scale repetition patterns? Interested to know because I want to categorize them

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Interested to know the general term for them so that I can also categorize

12-23-34-45-...

12345-23456-34567-...

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    In German this is called Quartgang or Terzgang. It seems that there is no term in English. s. dict.leo.org/forum/…
    – Albrecht Hügli
    Commented Apr 28, 2020 at 13:57
  • Tell me when you have labeled your series. I’m trying to do the same with all kind of motifs. music.stackexchange.com/questions/95594/…
    – Albrecht Hügli
    Commented Apr 28, 2020 at 14:06
  • Do you mean the single motifs or the group of the motifs (their sequenced repetition)?
    – Albrecht Hügli
    Commented Apr 29, 2020 at 9:23
  • @AlbrechtHügli, do Quartgang or Terzgang mean four (or three) step-wise notes?
    – Michael Curtis
    Commented Apr 29, 2020 at 12:47
  • I mean taking a sequence of notes from a scale and diatonically transposing them up on step for every time it is played
    – peanut_butter
    Commented Apr 29, 2020 at 15:12

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I have seen such patterns referred to by a few different names, and I think that depends on context. Albrecht is correct in identifying the tetrachord and motif, the first is pretty specific the second more general. In guitar exercise books I've seen them calls sequences and diatonic patterns, or diatonic sequences. That assumes they are played on the diatonic scale but such patterns could be played on the pentatonic or chromatic as well. Such patterns can be very musical, designed to emphasize specific difficulties on a particular instrument, and get very wild. On guitar it is quite common to see these sequences with a string skip in them (as that is an achilles heel for many). Other than that I am not aware of any deeper meaning.

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I think the term you are looking for is melodic sequence (similar to, but distinct from harmonic sequence) where some melodic unit is transposed and repeated...

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If you are studying scale patterns and sequence, this may interest you. You can take one beat permutations of the line...

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...deriving these four elementary figures (notice the 1st, 2nd, and 4th decorate the interval of a third and the 3rd figure decorates a single tone)...

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...each of which can be treated sequentially...

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Use those kinds of figures (and their inversions) with repetition or melodic sequence, with simple quarter and whole notes - with or without dotted values - and it gives you endless ways to elaborate a basic harmonic framework.

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  • It`s interesting to show that the the different patterns can be derived from the one 1234 as permutations. And that the series are a sequence is also clear. I thought the question was: is there a name for the group. Now we could name them 1234 a, b,c,d. My idea is that I give them a name of well know songs or pieces like "2342"( =1234 b) is the "piggies motif" (Beatles) and othe sequences are named by me after well known passages of Bach inventions or concertos.
    – Albrecht Hügli
    Commented Apr 29, 2020 at 9:21
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    I got it from 'Figuring Out Melody' by David Fuentes a while back. The book was free online for a long time, but not any longer. I thought it was a very practical book.
    – Michael Curtis
    Commented Apr 29, 2020 at 12:43
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    I too wasn't sure about the question. But with the number written out, incrementing up in sequence, I guessed that is the main concern. Maybe.
    – Michael Curtis
    Commented Apr 29, 2020 at 13:19
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I'm not sure what you are looking for exactly. If you want a term for the sort of exercise you play repeatedly in order to improve your fingering technique, etc., I'd call that a "drill".

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This could be called 4th-passage (actually a scale passage of 4 notes is a tetrachord analogous the 3 notes passage within a scale must be a triachord.

But I would just call it a 3 or 4 note motif. (Knowing in this case they are in a ascending row opposite to e.g. 1231 2342 etc.)

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Scale runs. Running scales. +++

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