PANDIATONIC PROGRESSIONS

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Use of all notes of a diatonic scale freely without traditional harmonic function

Pandiatonicism avoids functional harmony by treating all diatonic scale degrees as equally valid, creating a floating, modal quality.

18 progressions

WHAT IS PANDIATONICISM?

Pandiatonicism is a compositional technique that uses all notes of a diatonic scale (like C major's 7 notes) without following traditional harmonic progressions or functional harmony. Instead of V→I or ii→V→I, all scale degrees are treated as equally valid, creating a floating, ambiguous tonality. This was pioneered by composers like Stravinsky, Copland, and Debussy.

#	NAME	SCALE	PATTERN	DESCRIPTION	EXAMPLE
1	Linear Pandiatonic - Ascending	C Major	All 7 notes ascending in various orders	Simple ascending motion through all diatonic degrees	CDEFGABC
2	Linear Pandiatonic - Descending	C Major	All 7 notes descending	Descending through all diatonic degrees	CBAGFEDC
3	Skipping Seconds	C Major	Skip by thirds, fill with seconds	Thirds with stepwise returns	CEDFEGFAGBAC
4	Stepwise Clusters	C Major	Adjacent diatonic clusters	Overlapping diatonic clusters	CDEDEFEFGFGAGABABC
5	Quartal Stacks	C Major	Stacked fourths from diatonic scale	Quartal harmony using all 7 notes	CFBEADGC
6	Pentatonic Expansion	C Major	Pentatonic + added degrees	Major pentatonic with F and B added freely	CDEGAFBC
7	Avoid-Note Inclusion	C Major	Traditional avoid notes used freely	F over Cmaj7, B over Fmaj7 - no avoidance	CFBEADGC
8	Modal Mixture	C Major/Minor	Free use of parallel major/minor	Major and minor scale notes combined	CDEbEFGAbABbBC
9	Wholetone-Diatonic Hybrid	C Major + whole-tone elements	Diatonic with added chromatics	F# added to C major creates ambiguity	CDEF#GABC
10	Parallel Diatonic Motion	C Major	Parallel intervals through scale	Parallel thirds, no voice leading rules	CEDFEGFAGBAC
11	Diatonic Ostinato	C Major	Repeating diatonic pattern	Ostinato pattern using all degrees	CDECDECDEFGAFGAFGA
12	Symmetric Diatonic	C Major	Symmetrical arrangement of degrees	Mirror symmetry using diatonic notes	CBDAEGFEGADBC
13	Diatonic Wedge	C Major	Expanding from central pitch	Wedge pattern using all 7 degrees	GFAEBDCG
14	Triadic Fragments	C Major	Incomplete triads floating freely	Triadic shapes without harmonic function	CEDFEGACBDC
15	Non-Functional Sevenths	C Major	Seventh chords without resolution	Diatonic sevenths treated as colors	CEGBDFACEGB
16	Melodic Cells	C Major	Short cells using different degrees	Motivic cells covering all degrees	CDCEDEFEGFAGBAC
17	Harmonic Rhythm Liberation	C Major	No harmonic rhythm, free pitch content	Pitches unbound from harmonic time	CGDAEBFC
18	Post-Tonal Diatonic	C Major	Diatonic collection as pitch class set	Diatonic set without tonal center	BCDEFGABC