I tend to just mess around and play things by ear a lot when I'm writing, rather than thinking about music theory (which I have trouble with, not being very mathematical), and sometimes I end up using exotic scales. And then sometimes I have no idea what scale I'm using at all, but the way something sounds fits my mood at the time. Here's a progression of drawn-out notes (harmony?), played on an organ, that I can't really figure out. Do I need to know what scale I'm using? I suppose I do, for the sake of my band, right? This has a sort of melancholy sound. I use each note to figure out how to sing each short line of lyrics, as a guide. The lyrics are more of a melody. The actual keyboard player in the band embellishes what I write, so that it's not so droney, but I like to start out with a sort of background drone as a guide. Would this drive you crazy if you were a musician?? She's been very patient so far...
A---C#---G---B
I'm probably doing this backwards, right?? It's just that when I write a song using the vague rules I've learned about chord progressions, I end up being bored with it, or it sounds exactly like something else...