Other than scale-degree 7, do other scale degrees have names for their altered forms?

Question

In a major key, we have names for all seven scale degrees: - Tonic - Supertonic - Mediant - Subdominant - Dominant - Submediant - Leading Tone To this we can add the subtonic, scale-degree ♭7 that rests a whole step below tonic instead of the leading tone's half step. We might also say that we colloquially refer to ♭2 as the Neapolitan scale degree. I'm wondering if there are names (however rarely used) for other altered scale degrees. Scale-degree 6, for instance, has two common forms, yet to my knowledge we call them both "submediant." This reaches a point of diminishing returns very quickly—surely there's no name for the raised third scale degree in major, since that's just enharmonic to the subdominant—so I'm mostly curious on whether common alterations like ♭3 or ♭6 have specific names.

Answer 1

Hello!

To my knowledge, there are not standard names for your mentioned alterations other than "flat-3" etc. I suppose this is due to the large amount of musical contexts that we may refer to when discussing these notes. In other words, saying the same word may have different meanings to musicians in different cultures or groups. A simple example is saying "dominant seventh" vs C7 (which could also mean the note C in the 7th octave). I would try to keep it is simple as possible, which I suppose is your goal, but be clear about the context or starting point. :-)