The Diminished scale is another harmonically ambiguous scale, just like the Chromatic and Wholetone Scales.
The scale is directly constructed from a Diminished 7th Chord. Each note of the 4 chord tones is given it’s own leading note creating an 8 note scale.
Lets have a look at the scale, compared to a Major scale.
The symmetric nature of the scale means that 4 of the notes can be treated as root notes. This means that there are only 2 fingerings of the scale, when laid out with 3 notes per string. The notes highlighted in black are the root notes.
Enjoy!
Hey Lenny,
your site is a great resource; I keep checking back as I try to accomodate to new tonal material. Recently I came up with a progression for a solo that I thought would not only make the song more interesting but also would force me out of “autopilot”. Well it did well on that last part – I just don’t seem be able to figure out something that outlines the progression AND sounds good. It goes like this: Esus2-G#m-Emaj7-C#m-F#maj7-Cm7b5-G#m-C#sus4-C#. I wanted it to sound interesting and a little “outside”; no pentatonics. Which scales would you apply over this? I’d really appreciate your input! Jan.
Sorry for screwing up the names; I was gonna ask the admin about the progression but somehow got it wrong. No harm meant!