Whole-tone scale

In music, a whole tone scale is a scale in which each note is separated from its neighbors by the interval of a whole step. There are only two whole tone scales, both hexachords, each using half of the pitches in the chromatic scale:

• {C, D, E, F#, G#, A#, C}

Whole tone scale on C

• {B, Db, Eb, F, G, A, B}.

When one of these scales is played on a piano or especially a harp, starting from a low octave and moving up to a high octave, while at the same time pressing the sustain pedal, the result is a "dreamy" sound, such as are used in movies to signal the change from "reality" to a dream, or back from the dream to reality. 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.

Use of the melodic whole tone scale can be traced at least as far back as Mozart, in his Musical Joke, for strings and horns. In the 19th century Russian composers went further with melodic and harmonic possibilities of the scale, often to depict the ominous; consider the endings of the overtures to Glinka's opera Ruslan and Ludmila and Borodin's Prince Igor, the Commander's theme in Dargomyzhsky's The Stone Guest, and the opening theme of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherezade.

Claude Debussy, who had been influenced by Russians, along with other Impressionist composers made extensive use of whole tone scales. The whole tone scale was also used by Alban Berg in his Violin Concerto, and by Béla Bartók in his String Quartet No. 5. Ferruccio Busoni used the whole tone scale in the right hand part of the "Preludietto, Fughetta ed Esercizio" of his An die Jugend.

The scale is also used extensively in modern jazz writing. Wayne Shorter's composition "JuJu" features heavy use of the whole-tone scale, and John Coltrane's One Down, One Up is built off two augmented chords arranged in the same simple structure as his earlier tune Impressions. However, these are only the most overt examples of the use of this scale in jazz. A vast number of jazz tunes, including many standards, use augmented chords and their corresponding scales as well, usually to create tension in turnarounds or as a substitute for a dominant seventh chord. Art Tatum and Thelonious Monk are two pianists who used the whole-tone scale extensively and creatively.

This is not to say that other musical styles/genres do not use the scale. The progressive rock band Kansas uses it at the end of the song Journey From Mariabronn, which can be found on their eponymous debut album. Another more famous usage is by Stevie Wonder in the keyboard intro/bridge in You Are the Sunshine of My Life. You will often hear an Augmented V chord in Blues and Blues-Rock; Country artist Dwight Yoakam uses an augmented V chord, D, in the title song from his album If There Was a Way. There are also instances of the whole tone scale in the theme of The Simpsons.

The whole tone scale is interval cycle 2, or C2. Since there are only two transpositions of the whole tone scale it is either C2⁰ or C2¹. For this reason, it is the first of Olivier Messiaen's modes of limited transposition. The whole tone scale is also maximally even and may be considered a generated collection.

Interestingly, the raga Sahera in Hindustani music uses the same intervals as the whole-tone scale. Ustad Mehdi Hassan has performed this raga.

See also

• List of pieces which use the whole tone scale
• Pythagorean intervals
• List of meantone intervals

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External links

• The whole tone scale for piano