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The Forgotten Diminished of the Whole Tone Scale


caters

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You know, I've heard that the whole tone scale is full of augmented chords, and it is, by alternating notes of the whole tone scale, you get 6 augmented chords. But I would argue that there is just as much diminished within the whole tone scale, which nobody talks about. If you go up a third and then up a second within the whole tone scale, you get a diminished chord with a suspended fourth(or at least an enharmonic equivalent to diminished sus4(which that fourth if you can't already tell, would itself be diminished, so enharmonic to a major third, but wanting to resolve to the minor third, the diminished triad)), because like the fifth, every fourth in the whole tone scale is augmented, ergo, it's a tritone, the minimum you need to get that diminished quality. And like with the augmented chord, there are 6 of these diminished sus4 chords in the whole tone scale. So there is just as much diminished as there is augmented in the whole tone scale.

And yet, absolutely no one that I have heard talking about the harmony of the Whole Tone Scale even mentions the diminished sus4. Why? Why is the diminished within the scale just forgotten about and it is augmented that gets all the attention? That seems unfair, especially considering that the diminished chord in all its variants(seventh, sus4, etc.) is way, way more common in music than the augmented chord. Yes, augmented deserves some attention and it is usually through the Whole Tone Scale that augmented gets that attention, but forgetting to mention the diminished that also exists within the scale, that's unfair. So why is diminished just totally ignored when people talk about the Whole Tone Scale? I for one wouldn't do that.

And just to show that there is as much diminished as augmented in the whole tone scale, here is a PDF of Whole Tone Scale Harmonies I made myself:

PDF
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1 hour ago, gmm said:

But how can you resolve that major third to a minor third if there is no minor third in the whole tone scale???

 

I'm just saying it wants to resolve to the minor third, that the diminished sus4 with its diminished fourth wants to resolve to the diminished triad with its minor third. I'm not saying that it is possible to do it and stay in the whole tone scale. It isn't. You need that seventh note for the resolution to be possible, which, if it is the minor third of the diminished triad, gives you scales like Neopolitan major and Lydian Minor, scales that have aspects of both major and minor(Neopolitan major, minor scale with major sixth and seventh as well as the Phrygian second that makes it Neopolitan, so like a Phrygian form of melodic minor, Lydian Minor, Lydian mode with the upper tetrachord of minor instead of major) But still, ignoring that there are diminished chords within the whole tone scale and just talking about the augmented triads of the whole tone scale when mentioning harmony in the whole tone scale is not right.

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