Horrid F*cking Scale Degrees
Horrid f*cking scale degrees are, as their name indicates, intervalic scale degrees that absolutely suck. Scale degrees like a π«5 (double flat fifth) or πͺ4 (double sharp fourth) are immensely stupid, pointless, superfluous and shouldn't exist at all because they can be easily simplified to their enharmonic equivalents. They only exist thanks to mischeivous music theorists, like Johann MattheSON or Leopold Mozart, for the sole purpose of sabotaging the performer's understanding of notation.
It's been noticed that even followers of Zen Fizz secretly hate this thing.
An example of horrid fucking scale degrees in a scale could be scale 699 - Ultralocrian π«5 (the Kertishean scale in the KyjMUC space). This is the step formula (with T for 3 semitones):
H W H H W W T
The scale degrees will then look like this:
1 β2 β3 β4 π«5 π«6 π«7
Absolutely disgusting. Luckily, we can simplify it in this way:
1 β2 β3 3 4 5 6
Much less scary now, isn't it? Using horrid scale degrees without including equivalents (at least in brackets) is the same as asking a musician to play the 9th mode of Chlamydian β5 β6 β7 in the key of Aπͺβ― - which would in full understanding result in simply playing a f*cking C major scale.
An allegory for a layman's view could be telling someone to do 560-80*[(β7)(β7)]+(0,39900000 + 0,601000βΉ) sommersaults 29827637890 times. The number of sommersaults done would then be 1.
This is one of the main problems of western music notation listed by Tantacrul in his video essay "Notation Must Die : The Battle For How We Read Music".
Another, even more severe example of horrid fucking scale degrees in a heptatonic scale is the Altered π«3π«4π«5π«6π«7 scale (Parabriggsian in KyjMUC). This is what the unsimplified scale degrees look like:
1 β2 π«3 π«4 π«5 π«6 π«7
Or even worse, the "Incoherent" scale (Horrible in KyjMUC), which is, however, a horrible scale on it's own, where common notation isn't to blame:
1 β2 π«3 π«4 π«β5 π«π«6 π«β7