Genre + instrument — curated sets
The working scale vocabulary for each genre, tuned to the instrument's idiom.
The working set for jazz piano. Modes of melodic minor over altered dominants, bebop scales for fast lines, modal jazz over m7 vamps.
The bebop + post-bop alto sax core. Lines over II–V–I, the altered scale for V7 resolution, blues vocabulary for sax-specific phrasing.
Electric blues vocabulary. Minor pentatonic + the ♭5 'blue note', Mixolydian for the dominant-7 colour, major pentatonic over the IV chord.
The diatonic backbone of common-practice classical music. Hanon / Czerny exercises walk through these.
Violin's diatonic working set. ABRSM Grade 1-5 expects fluency in all of these across one and two octaves.
Heavy / neoclassical metal vocabulary. Harmonic minor + Phrygian dominant for the Yngwie sound; whole-tone + diminished for the modern progressive metal colour.
Modern film-score vocabulary. Lydian for the bright floating colour; Phrygian for tension; harmonic-minor modes for mystery.
Acoustic-guitar folk vocabulary. Major + Mixolydian for the modal-folk sound; Dorian for the Celtic minor lilt; pentatonic for universal fingerstyle.
Modal jazz over single-mode vamps. Dorian (Miles Davis 'So What'), Mixolydian for blues-jazz, Phrygian for Spanish-tinged comping.