In 1981 I was practicing my scales: ionian, dorian, phrygian, lydian, mixolydian, aeolian, locrian, melodic and harmonic minor. Then I got a copy of the “Mahavishnu Songbook”. In it John McLaughlin showed a list of 13 (what he called) “Synthetic Scales”. I tried to practice these, but didn’t really know what to do with them – and a few really do sound very exotic. Eventually, in 1981, I wrote 13 short etudes, one for each scale. Ten years later I composed 14 more. None of these is hard to play, but written in their respective key signatures most of them are incredibly hard to read.
This book contains three versions of each piece:
The original version, notated in the applicable key signature(s).
The same, but without key signature, all accidentals are written out.
The original version with TAB notation.
Interesting is that some of these synthetic scales are modes (like lydian, mixolydian, etc are modes of the major ionian scale). For example Super Locrian and Overtone are related in that way, as are Neapolitan Major, Major Locrian, Lydian Minor, and Leading Whole Tone.
156 pages. Standard notation and TAB.