My copy of the “Lexicon of Musical Invective” is inscribed: “To a music critic who unfortunately is too intelligent to contribute more invectives to this little book — Nicolas Slonimsky, Baltimore, ...

I first learned about the double diminished scale in the 1970s, inspired by pianists like Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock. At that time, I was studying a book by Nicolas Slonimsky called Thesaurus of ...