So you see those five scales and their modes as the derived source of your entire vocabulary? I did not know this, and this is significant. Pat Martino also uses the Dorian as the "parent scale" for most of his ideas.
Yet another incentive to learn all your major scales.
yes, order (tonality) from chaos (atonality), in a consistent and manageable form.
So, do the altered notes C# and Eb give you all the other variants from major/dorian that are needed for jazz, such as melodic minor? Yes, the C# gives a D melodic minor...Eb yields a C melodic minor...and all its modes...
yes, but more than that. each variant (melodic minor, harmonic major and minor, diminished and wholetone, etc) is now
directly related to a diatonic scale, along with its well established functions of modality, key sigs, related chords, the works...
Do these altered notes have to be added in sequence?
nope. colors for the palette, to be used at the player's discretion with regards to taste, harmonic environment, tonal centers both real and imaginary...
As far as the 3-note sets, if you are a "harmonic" thinker, wouldn't these be best considered as "fragments" or incomplete scales? As a "tonalist," how are these of any use to you except as "bizarre warm-ups?" With my looping idea, I have demonstrated that they are best used as "incremental steps towards larger harmonic truths."
well, that's the rub isn't it - whether relating to a specific tonal environment or more simply, pure aesthetic judgment (sp?) they may also be used at the player's discretion in a functional or non-functional context. just as harmonic triads may or may not be considered as subsets of a larger realm, all of these "lesser" sets (meaning lesser than the tonal scales they may or may not be derived from) are there to do with what you will. i mostly use consonant (major and minor) triads and their inversions in a functional (tonal) context but i would never dictate to a player that this must always be so.
edit: many other three-tone sets or triads may be viewed also as incomplete seventh or larger chords from tonal environments. end edit...sometimes, as regards to an analysis of real music, i would always leave myself the option to revert to the potentially oxymoronic truism, "it is what it is." in other words, i use the set theory template to "show me all the possibilities," so that my tonal landscape (my rose colored spectacles if you will) doesn't cheat me out of something that may be real cool, simply because it doesn't fit into a well-defined functional environment. for example, most of the triads do in fact fit into
some kind of tonal context but i still lack the twelve-dimensional vision that may be necessary to see all of the particulars on the fly; therefore, i use the set theory template (all possible pitch sets) as a backup (as you would an encyclopedia) for the tonal perspective previously discussed (as you would a universal translator) - from many, a few; and from a few, many.
and then throw all of this poo out the nearest airlock and play with all of the variations of emotional intensity you can muster with your favorite axe in order to tell a story, make 'em cry, incite a riot or just play some nice and/or memorable music, worthy of the effort...
whew, did i just write that? tell me if i'm making sense
