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Whole tone scale
The whole tone scale is six notes a whole step apart, and there are only two of them. Its notes in every key, on piano and guitar, played, MIDI and WAV to take.
Mika starts the whole tone scale on C and comes home to C.Tap Hear it, or tap any note on the board.
C D E F♯ G♯ B♭
The notes of the C whole tone scale
C D E F♯ G♯ B♭
Formula: 1 2 3 ♯4 ♯5 ♭7. Steps from note to note: 2 2 2 2 2 2 semitones (whole, whole, whole, whole, whole, whole).
Six notes, every step a whole tone. There are only two whole tone scales; this one and the one a semitone up hold every note between them.
The whole tone scale in all twelve keys
| Root | Notes |
|---|---|
| C | C D E F♯ G♯ B♭ |
| D♭ | D♭ E♭ F G A C♭ |
| D | D E F♯ G♯ A♯ C |
| E♭ | E♭ F G A B D♭ |
| E | E F♯ G♯ A♯ B♯ D |
| F | F G A B C♯ E♭ |
| F♯ | F♯ G♯ A♯ B♯ C𝄪 E |
| G | G A B C♯ D♯ F |
| A♭ | A♭ B♭ C D E G♭ |
| A | A B C♯ D♯ E♯ G |
| B♭ | B♭ C D E F♯ A♭ |
| B | B C♯ D♯ E♯ F𝄪 A |
The dream-sequence scale
With every step the same size there is no home note, so the whole tone scale floats: Debussy built a whole piece on it ("Voiles"), and film and TV use it for dream sequences and flashbacks. Over an augmented chord or a dominant chord with a ♯5 it fits note for note.
More scales
Major scale Minor scale Pentatonic scale Chromatic scale Minor pentatonic scale Melodic minor scale
How this page works
Hear it plays the scale up and down at 100 BPM on one of four Brumm sounds. Take it gives the same notes as a MIDI file and a WAV. − and + move the root. Every note here is computed from the formula.
Sources
Scales and modes: Open Music Theory, musictheory.net. Piano fingerings: the standard scale-book fingerings (ABRSM scale books; Hanon, The Virtuoso Pianist, part 3). Trumpet valves: the standard B♭ trumpet fingering chart (Yamaha, Bach). Hz: A4 = 440 Hz, ISO 16.
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