Harmonic major scale

The intervals between the notes of a harmonic major scale follow the sequence below: The harmonic major scale may be used to construct the following chords, which also may be thought of as borrowed from the parallel minor: the dominant minor ninth chord, the fully diminished seventh leading tone chord, the supertonic diminished triad, the supertonic half-diminished seventh chord, and the minor subdominant.

The harmonic major scale has its own set of modes, distinct from the harmonic minor, melodic minor, and major modes, depending on which note serves as the tonic.

Like the familiar major, melodic minor, and harmonic minor scales, the harmonic major scale has the diatonic thirds property, which means that the interval between notes two steps apart (e.g. the fifth and seventh notes) are separated by a major or minor third, i.e. the interval of three or four semitones.

This property implies that chords formed by taking every other note from some consecutive subset of the scale are triadic, raising the possibility of using tertian harmony together with melodic material from such a scale.

[citation needed] Many popular songs have borrowed chords from the tonality of harmonic major but have not been recognized as doing so.