D Prometheus Scale
D Prometheus contains 6 notes: D, E, G♭, A♭, B, C. It has 2 flats: G♭, A♭. The step pattern is W–W–W–W+H–H–W.
A mysterious 6-note scale that was Alexander Scriabin's personal musical signature. It's the basis of his famous "mystic chord" and sounds intellectual, searching, and ungrounded — like a question that never quite gets answered.
The formula is 1, 2, 3, #4, 6, b7. Similar to Lydian dominant but without the 5th, which removes the grounding anchor. Scriabin derived it from his "Prometheus chord" (mystic chord) and believed it had synesthetic properties — he associated specific colors with each note. It works over dominant 7th #11 chords.
The missing 5th means standard dominant shapes don't quite apply — think of it as a Lydian dominant skeleton with a gap. Use it over static dominant 7th #11 vamps for an intellectual, floating quality. The 6-note sparseness makes intervallic leaps sound more idiomatic than scalar runs.
- Prometheus: The Poem of Fire - Scriabin