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I'm messing around with number sequences and harmony to produce chord progressions.
I've ended up with a progression I really like:
Amin7 - F#min7 - D#min7 - Cmin7
The root notes of each chord outline a diminished scale if you start with F# (F#, A, C, D#).
After noodling around trying to find a melody, I found that Cmin pentatonic works really well with everything.
Can anyone tell me why?
This descent by minor third is pretty common, and these four chords actually combine to create an octatonic collection:
A B♭ C D♭ E♭ E F♯ G
(If you aren't familiar with octatonic scales, it's just alternating half and whole steps.)
C minor pentatonic works okay, because C E♭ G B♭ are in that octatonic collection. F, however, is not, but F♯ is.
You can continue using C minor pentatonic, but using the above octatonic scale gives you more (and more accurate) options.
Furthermore, you can use that same scale over a different chord progression. Keep the roots the same, but change the qualities to dominant seventh, major triad, minor triad, half-diminished seventh, fully-diminished seventh, or mix and match. No matter what you do, as long as you keep the roots, it'll still create the same octatonic scale.
(Come on, that's cool!)
C E♭ G B♭) spell out a diminished chord.