Whole Tone scale:also known as auxillary augmented scale — consists entirely of whole steps.
This gives the scale a very identifiable, exotic sound, to which cetain composers like Claude Debussy and Thelonious Monk have been drawn.
However cuz all the adjacent inervals are major 2nds, the melodic possibilites are somewhat limited and only one mode exists in this scale:
C whole tone scale:
C D E F# G# A# C
Since the scale is made up entirely of whole steps, the notes are enharmonic — that is they sound the ame eve though they maybe written differently.
The notes of the whole tone scale maybe used when improvising on augmented triads of dom 7th chords with any combination of raised or lowered 5ths and major 9ths.
You may also used the whole tone scale over the minor 7th chord a perfect 4th below, although this will yield a certain amount of dissonamce.
C+ = C E G#
augmented traid consists of: tonic, M3, aug 5th.
C7b5 = C E Gb Bb
dominant 7#5 adds a min 7 to the aug traid while the dom 7 b5 replaces the aug 5th with a dim 5th.
C7 # 5 // C7 +
C9b5
–adding a major 9th to either chord creates dom 9th b5 and dom #5.
–notice that both the whole toe and the dim scales contain dim 5ths but only the whole tone scale works well over these chords, with the aug 5th giving he scale its characteristic sound.
Tags: augmented, whole tone