My Whole-tone Journey

[Bob_Ross]

… go onnnnnnn …

Gimme your favorites.

Basically I’ve used lots of symmetrical stuff over longer dominant chords and that sort of thing ...

Definitely longer dominant chords -- although, fwiw, if it's a very long static vamp, I'm likely to start using both whole tone scales -- but also long(ish) sequences of extended dominants...e.g, as you noted, the bridge to Rhythm Changes ...where I'll look ahead to the final resolution (or the final V7) and play whole tone based on that tonal center, and not worry about the changes passing by before that.

As far as "favorites" from a listener's perspective, I love the way Bela Bartok used whole tone material in his string writing. Lots of symmetrical lines over triadic tonalities in his "Divertimento For Strings" and the six string quartets iirc.

[James W]

Definitely longer dominant chords -- although, fwiw, if it's a very long static vamp, I'm likely to start using both whole tone scales -- but also long(ish) sequences of extended dominants...e.g, as you noted, the bridge to Rhythm Changes ...where I'll look ahead to the final resolution (or the final V7) and play whole tone based on that tonal center, and not worry about the changes passing by before that.

As far as "favorites" from a listener's perspective, I love the way Bela Bartok used whole tone material in his string writing. Lots of symmetrical lines over triadic tonalities in his "Divertimento For Strings" and the six string quartets iirc.

The second prelude by Debussy is another favourite that uses this scale...

[Mick-7]

Agree..the Shorter tune Ju Ju gave me alot of ideas... the two aug chords -- they are in the melodic min scales --E and Eb MM so there is alot of WT material there.

Also the six chords in both aug scales can be spring boards in some very hip melodic/harmonic lines.

Yes, the augmented scale is a good adjunct to the whole tone scale, you can use it's leading tones (or whatever they're called) as approach notes in your whole tone phrases. Here are a few phrases that combine the C augmented scale [C-D#-E-G-G#-B] and C whole tone scale (= E & G# augmented/WT scales). The augmented scale is two augmented triads a half-step apart (e.g., B+/C+).

[Mick-7]

It turns out the combination of the C augmented and C whole tone scales I mentioned in my previous post has a name: the "double augmented" scale.

The scale has 9 notes, the 6 notes of the augmented scale plus 3 notes from the whole tone scale [which I've put in parentheses]:
C-(D)-D#-E-(F#)-G-G#-(A#)-B.

Or you could consider it a whole tone scale with 3 passing tones [in parentheses]: C-D-(D#)-E-F#-(G)-G#-A#-(B).

Here's a book about it. The author references Slonimsky's applications of the scale in his Thesaurus.

Double-Symmetrical Augmented Scale for Jazz Improvisation

Book Preview:
Double-Symmetrical Augmented Scale for Jazz Improvisation - Xabier Oro - Google Books

[Christian Miller]

I like the whole tone scale in tritones

[pamosmusic]

I like the whole tone scale in tritones

I just moved to those yesterday. Tough to find smooth fingerings with those.

[James W]

Not sure how much whole tone stuff in this (not much I reckon) but obviously loads of ideas for stuff to play over augmented chords...

[wolflen]

It turns out the combination of the C augmented and C whole tone scales I mentioned in my previous post has a name: the "double augmented" scale.

The scale has 9 notes, the 6 notes of the augmented scale plus 3 notes from the whole tone scale [which I've put in parentheses]:
C-(D)-D#-E-(F#)-G-G#-(A#)-B.

Or you could consider it a whole tone scale with 3 passing tones [in parentheses]: C-D-(D#)-E-F#-(G)-G#-A#-(B).

Here's a book about it. The author references Slonimsky's applications of the scale in his Thesaurus.

Double-Symmetrical Augmented Scale for Jazz Improvisation

Book Preview:
Double-Symmetrical Augmented Scale for Jazz Improvisation - Xabier Oro - Google Books

Ahh..the author digs deep into Coltrane / Giant Steps and has great regard to Holdsworth..the scale breakdowns do explain alot and playing
just a few examples shown and playing around with them I can hear some hint of Coltrane and Holdsworth..and of course it gets really
crunchy when played over altered harmonic progressions..weave this stuff with the MM scales..as he does in some examples
and you can create some fantastic lines that sound both in and out of harmonic sequences.

[Al Haig]

I like the wt scale in all intervals.

[DonovanT]

Remember that the melodic minor scale has 5 out of 6 notes of a whole tone scale, starting from the 3rd of the mm scale. For example,
Db melodic minor (E-Gb-Ab-Bb-C), played over C7 has the 3rd, b5th, #5th, b7th & root, and over Gb7 it's diatonic + #4th(#11th).

right! I’ve heard of people referring to that as the diminished whole tone scale

[wolflen]

This link is a intresting study of the augmented scale and its relation with the diminished scale



Augmented Scale Theory — Javier Arau

[Christian Miller]

I just moved to those yesterday. Tough to find smooth fingerings with those.

I would finger all on adjacent strings and go 2-4 1-3 when descending for instance


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[Christian Miller]

right! I’ve heard of people referring to that as the diminished whole tone scale

Whole tone can sub in for melodic minor because of this.

A nice example of Wes taking advantage of this connection can be found in the way he plays the F# whole tone scale (using a series of augmented triads ascending in whole steps) over Gm at 0:42

This lick itself seems derived from a monk figure (sorry can’t remember which recording off the top of my head.)


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[pamosmusic]

There’s a nice little whole tone run in his Misty solo from Smokin too

[bako]

It is one thing if you look only at notated dominant chords to use the whole tone scale. iIn general, my easiest go to path to expand note choice against minor and major chords is to grab notes from an approach dominant chord that is not in the basic chart. Whole tone is just one variant of that. C Whole tone having a b13 (Ab) anticipates the minor 3rd of Fm. In that it is symmetrical ir resolves to 6 minor chords. Likewise Ab can resolve upward to A of F major or symmetrically to 6 major scales. Back cycling would involve moving from G whole tone to C whole tone to Fm or F.

[DonovanT]

Whole tone can sub in for melodic minor because of this.

A nice example of Wes taking advantage of this connection can be found in the way he plays the F# whole tone scale (using a series of augmented triads ascending in whole steps) over Gm at 0:42

This lick itself seems derived from a monk figure (sorry can’t remember which recording off the top of my head.)


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yep! a pianist showed me that whole tone use over jazz minor or a minor major 7, I was referring to the 7th mode of jazz minor(melodic minor) as the diminished whole tone rather than the 'altered' scale, because you start of playing a half-whole diminished scale for 4 notes and then you have 3 whole steps. It's so cool that you can find ways to use whole tone scale to slip out of a parent scale like Wes did, logically and beautifully, genius.

[Christian Miller]

yep! a pianist showed me that whole tone use over jazz minor or a minor major 7, I was referring to the 7th mode of jazz minor(melodic minor) as the diminished whole tone rather than the 'altered' scale, because you start of playing a half-whole diminished scale for 4 notes and then you have 3 whole steps. It's so cool that you can find ways to use whole tone scale to slip out of a parent scale like Wes did, logically and beautifully, genius.

Yes!

It's the similarity between the melodic minor and whole tone in general that I see as the reason it works, so that's what my brain was thinking. There's only one note in it - which is the G# as opposed to the F# and G in this case (As the WT has only six notes.)

I mean the chord is more of a modal G-7 type sound but Wes don't care lol. He was pretty relaxed about minor chords - min-maj7, min7 and m6 interchangeable. Check out his solo on Nica's Dream (live) as well. Lots of m7 stuff over m(maj7) so the other way round.

[pamosmusic]

I mentioned that I've had some whole-tone stuff going on but that it's all very gimmicky -- playing a thing that just descends in whole steps in sequence. That stuff is cool, but I want to get a little more versatile with it. One idea I had was to see if maybe using asymmetrical fingerings for the scale would make me less inclined to fall back into the patterns.

So instead of playing three notes per string, which keeps the scale fingering repeating across string sets, I've been alternating two and three notes per string, so I get two scale fingerings -- 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3 and 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2

So far I've playing scalar sequences of three, four, and five notes, ascending, descending, and alternating. Major thirds ascending, descending, and alternating. And I'm currently working on tritones ascending, descending and alternating. They're the hardest so far and the one I've been sitting with the longest.

[pcjazz]

So instead of playing three notes per string, which keeps the scale fingering repeating across string sets, I've been alternating two and three notes per string, so I get two scale fingerings -- 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3 and 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2

Or you can play the scale in position as 3, 2, 3, 2, 2, 3 (in your notation).

[Al Haig]

I mentioned that I've had some whole-tone stuff going on but that it's all very gimmicky -- playing a thing that just descends in whole steps in sequence. That stuff is cool, but I want to get a little more versatile with it. One idea I had was to see if maybe using asymmetrical fingerings for the scale would make me less inclined to fall back into the patterns.

So instead of playing three notes per string, which keeps the scale fingering repeating across string sets, I've been alternating two and three notes per string, so I get two scale fingerings -- 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3 and 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2

So far I've playing scalar sequences of three, four, and five notes, ascending, descending, and alternating. Major thirds ascending, descending, and alternating. And I'm currently working on tritones ascending, descending and alternating. They're the hardest so far and the one I've been sitting with the longest.

That's where I'm at too. I obviously started with gimmicky patterns, but now I'm starting to be able to improv more musical lines. I find it helps to just view it chordally and add in some chromatics to the 'chord tones'.

[pamosmusic]

That's where I'm at too. I obviously started with gimmicky patterns, but now I'm starting to be able to improv more musical lines. I find it helps to just view it chordally and add in some chromatics to the 'chord tones'.

Right on.

Also, to be clear, the gimmicky symmetrical patterns are, indeed, awesome.

Just trying to break out of that.

[Al Haig]

Agreed

[Mick-7]

I mentioned that I've had some whole-tone stuff going on but that it's all very gimmicky -- playing a thing that just descends in whole steps in sequence. That stuff is cool, but I want to get a little more versatile with it. One idea I had was to see if maybe using asymmetrical fingerings for the scale would make me less inclined to fall back into the patterns.

And why are fingering patterns a bad thing? I would like to find and adopt the most efficient ones, which may require me to change my fingering habits.

I find it hard to adopt symmetrical fingerings like some of the ones I've used in the examples below.

[pamosmusic]

And why are fingering patterns a bad thing? I would like to find and adopt the most efficient ones, which may require me to change my fingering habits.

I find it hard to adopt symmetrical fingerings like some of the ones I've used in the examples below.

I think you misunderstood me. One useful thing about the whole tone scale is you can play the same pattern from the whole tone scale and just move it around. Like over …

D7 G7 C7 F7 …

I could play

D E F# … Eb F G … E F# G# … F G A …

Which is really cool, but very device-y. I just want to get more into the scale so I’m able to build lines that are less dependent on that sort of structural repetition.

I was just wondering if using scale fingerings that weren’t so symmetrical across string sets would help me break out of that stuff. So far it seems to be helping a bit.

[Mick-7]

I think you misunderstood me. One useful thing about the whole tone scale is you can play the same pattern from the whole tone scale and just move it around. Like over … D7 G7 C7 F7 … I could play D E F# … Eb F G … E F# G# … F G A …

Which is really cool, but very device-y. I just want to get more into the scale so I’m able to build lines that are less dependent on that sort of structural repetition.

I was just wondering if using scale fingerings that weren’t so symmetrical across string sets would help me break out of that stuff. So far it seems to be helping a bit.

So you're really talking more about note patterns than fingering patterns? It's interesting how the two go together, for me it's more of a technical shortcoming than a musical one, more chromatic phrases often demand unconventional fingering patterns so I'm fighting old habits.