Whole tone scale

[musicjohnny]

I'm just a bit confused as to when I would use this scale.

In what musical situations do you guys end up using this one?

[JohnW400]

Listen to Monk. The intro to Round Midnight and the ending to Ruby My Dear for two examples.

The other place is against Alt 5 chords or aug7 or 7b5. The problem for most people with this scale is the natural 2 with the b/# 5. Most of us tend to think Alt 9 when we see ALt 5 as well so the natural 2 becomes a problem.

However there are lots of things to find in this scale. You just have to spend some time doing interval studies and arpeggio excercises and stuff will start to present itself.

[timscarey]

Originally Posted by musicjohnny

I'm just a bit confused as to when I would use this scale.

In what musical situations do you guys end up using this one?

Solo Breaks, Altered dominants sometimes, and Dominant b5 chords, but mostly I use it when the harmonic struture of the music can only be desribed as "whole tone" for example, playing over just a bassline that outlines a whole-tone scale, or over a unison line type of groove oulining augmented trids, or well, whenever, if I'm playing solo.

The way I hear it, the whole tone scale sort of takes away a "center of gravity" so to speak, in the same way the diminished scales do.

[BMaag]

Originally Posted by timscarey

The way I hear it, the whole tone scale sort of takes away a "center of gravity" so to speak, in the same way the diminished scales do.

Yes. I often use the whole tone scale when I want to "go outside" of the progression. A very simple and effective trick.

[derek]

I only ever use it over dominant chords. Probably should expand my use of it.

[BMaag]

Originally Posted by derek

I only ever use it over dominant chords. Probably should expand my use of it.

When I was first introduced to the whole tone concept I only played it on dominant chords, but after playing around with it, it yielded some interesting patterns in different harmonic situations.

Researching whole tone stuff led me to another interesting scale: the augmented scale. It consists of the pattern of a minor third plus a minor second the whole way through the scale. For example the C augmented scale would be C D# E G Ab B C.

I like to create lots of different intervallic patterns from these two scales and sometimes I even sort of mesh them together to get some really hip sounding stuff over major chords.

[derek]

Originally Posted by BMaag

When I was first introduced to the whole tone concept I only played it on dominant chords, but after playing around with it, it yielded some interesting patterns in different harmonic situations.

Researching whole tone stuff led me to another interesting scale: the augmented scale. It consists of the pattern of a minor third plus a minor second the whole way through the scale. For example the C augmented scale would be C D# E G Ab B C.

I like to create lots of different intervallic patterns from these two scales and sometimes I even sort of mesh them together to get some really hip sounding stuff over major chords.

Guess I need to spend some time poking around with these two. Thanks.

[peterja]

I like to play the wholetone scale in one position, more like an arpeggio with only one or two notes per string. This way you can get a strange "nonsense" sound without really going outside, and the scale sounds less like a .. well...scale.

Sorry I can´t remember exactly where I picked these licks up, but it´s a couple of my favorites:

On A7



--------------------------------5-------------
--------------------6-------------------------
-----------6-------------------------7---------
------------------------5-h-7-------------------
----------------6-----------------------------
--5-h-7-----------------------------------------





And E7


--8-p-6-----------------------------------------
----------7-----------------------------------
-------------7--------------------------------
----------------8---------8--------------------
-------------------7-----------7---------------
----------------------6-----------------------

[Dookychase]

Don Mock has a book/cd about diminished and whole tone scales. He plays examples on using them.