The Whole Tone Scale and the Diminished Whole Tone Scale their uses
The Whole Tone Scale and the Diminished Whole Tone Scale their uses.
From Wikipedia.org:
In music, a whole tone scale is a scale in which each note is separated from its neighbours by the interval of a whole step. There are only two complementary whole tone scales, both six-note or hexatonic scales:
- {C, D, E, F♯, G♯, A♯, C}
- {B, D♭, E♭, F, G, A, B}.
The whole tone scale has no leading tone and because all tones are the same distance apart, no single tone stands out, [and] the scale creates a blurred, indistinct effect. This effect is especially emphasized by the fact that triads built on such scale tones are augmented. Indeed, one can play all six tones of a whole tone scale simply with two augmented triads whose roots are a major second apart. Since they are symmetrical, whole tone scales do not give a strong impression of the tonic or tonality.
The composer Olivier Messiaen called the whole tone scale his first mode of limited transposition.
Due to this symmetry the hexachord consisting of the whole-tone scale is not distinct under inversion or more than one transposition. Thus many composers have used one of the“almost whole-tone” hexachords whose, individual structural differences can been seen to result only from a difference in the ‘location,’ or placement, of a semitone within the otherwise whole-tone series.
The Diminished Whole-Tone Scale
From Wikipedia.org
In jazz, the altered scale is a seven-note scale that differs from the locrian mode in having a lowered fourth scale degree. Starting on C, it contains the notes: C, D♭, E♭, F♭, G♭, A♭ and B♭. (This is the C locrian mode, C-D♭-E♭-F-G♭-A♭-B♭, with F changed to F♭. For this reason, the altered scale is sometimes called the “super locrian mode.”) It is the seventh mode of the melodic minor ascending scale. The scale is sometimes spelled with two thirds rather than a flatted fourth scale degree–e.g. C-D♭-E♭-E-G♭-A♭-B♭, with E substituting for F♭.
The altered scale appears sporadically in the works of Debussy and Ravel (Tymoczko 1997), as well as in the works of recent composers such as Steve Reich (see, in particular, the Desert Music). It plays a fundamental role in jazz, where it is used to accompany altered dominant seventh chords starting on the first scale degree. (That is, the scale C-D♭-E♭-E-G♭-A♭-B♭ is used to accompany chords such as C-E-G♭-B♭, the “dominant seventh flat five” chord.
The C super locrian scale consists of the notes
C D♭ E♭ F♭ G♭ A♭ B♭ C
One way to obtain the altered scale is by raising the tonic of a major scale by a half step; for example, when we raise the tonic of the B major scale, which has the notes
B C♯ D♯ E F♯ G♯ A♯ B
we get the C altered scale
C C♯ D♯ E F♯ G♯ A♯ C
the notes of which are enharmonic (identical, in the equal temperament system) with the notes of the C altered scale as it was first described on this page.
Like the other modes of the melodic minor ascending, the altered scale shares six of its seven notes with an octatonic (or “diminished”) scale, and five of the six notes of a whole tone scale, and thus is occasionally referred to as the “diminished whole tone scale.” (For example, the altered scale C-D♭-E♭-E-G♭-A♭-B♭ shares all but its A♭ with the octatonic scale C-D♭-E♭-E-F♯-G-A-B♭; while sharing five of the six notes in the whole-tone scale C-D-E-G♭-A♭-B♭.) This accounts for some of its popularity in both the classical and jazz traditions.
The Augmented Scale
The augmented scale, also known in jazz theory as the symmetrical augmented scale, is so called because it can be thought of as an interlocking combination of two augmented triads a minor second or minor third apart: C E G♯ and E♭ G B. It may also be called the “minor-third half-step scale” due to the series of intervals produced.
It made one of its most celebrated early appearances in Franz Liszt’s Faust Symphony (Eine Faust Symphonie). While, “possibly the most famous,” use of the augmented scale in jazz is in Oliver Nelson’s solo on “Stolen Moments“, it was also used in the 20th century by composers Béla Bartók, Milton Babbitt, and Arnold Schoenberg, by saxophonists John Coltrane and Oliver Nelson in the late 50s and early 60s, and bandleader Michael Brecker.
