The Whole tone Scale is one of those musical oddballs. From a listeners perspective, you can hear something strange is going on, but you can’t quite put your finger on it!
The scale itself is comprised of 6 notes each a whole tone apart, hence it’s name. It’s a symmetric scale, and just like the chromatic scale, every note can be considered a root note.
Here it is, written out against the major scale intervals.
As you can see, the first 3 notes line up with the intervals in the major scale. The second 3 in between it’s major scale equivalents, causing the musical oddness.
There are 2 standard guitar fingerings associated with this scale, and frankly I tend to only use the first, as you can slide that shape up and down, a tone at a time, and still be playing an inversion of the scale.
Here are the scale charts (In this case I haven’t indicated a root note, because every note can be considered a root node).
The types of chords that are played against a scale like this are generally Augmented Chords, or alternatively “Alt” Chords.
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Topics: Scales, Symmetric