Music Theory - The Whole Tone Scale

In this short scale tutorial we will be discussing the Whole Tone Scale.
The Whole Tone scale is a six-note or Hexatonic scale. It has no half steps and thus no leading tone. All six notes are separated by a whole step or whole tone. There are only 2 different whole tone scales. The scale is used in both classical music and jazz extensively. Many film scores rely on it's ambiguous nature to create dream like effects with it. Claude Debussy used the scale extensively as did other impressionist composers between 1875-1925.
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[@tristangianelli]

I’ve noticed the whole tone scale works really well with Lydian dominant because Lydian dominant has 4 consecutive whole steps. It sounds super cool

[@Myuzishin]

Proof that Google spies. I was literally noodling a whole tone pattern minutes before opening KZbin.

[@vicferrari89]

You have a Droid? Its listening. No B.S. It's scary.

[@smellyreally2562]

me too but i searched for whole tone scale

[@kwamekamaujames3986]

If you still need proof, read Bruce Schneier’s Data and Goliath (2015). No worries; just wisdom.

[@telsonater]

Man, I was talking to a buddy about how no one explains whole tone scales and boom! Here I am

[@manny75586]

I love that everyone (myself included) makes a universal "you are about to hear this voice leading resolve nicely" face when playing piano chords.

[@TimV93]

5:45 the C+/D+ Chord sounds like "The Desert and the Robot Auction" from Star Wars

[@trevorganoe748]

I think it sounds like the theme of the apartment building from Ghostbusters.

[@kubaurbanski4388]

I thought the same. Star Wars

[@wanderingrandomer]

A lot of the noodling reminds me of Ocarina of Time

[@realobama1100]

Read my mind

[@vleaky3430]

YESSS I literally just noticed

[@thesunbehindthesun1574]

Love the whole tone, has such a surreal feeling to it. I really love the way Danny Elfman especially uses it in "Batman" and "The Simpsons".

[@BusinessZeus]

Yes the Simpsons love the whole tone scale

[@Arycke]

The simpsons is really a better example of lydian dominant though

[@Cephalonimbus]

King Crimson did a couple of tunes that were almost entirely in the whole note scale: Fracture, and Elektrik This is a fantastic channel BTW. Thanks for sharing the knowledge, Rick!

[@aarnialeksis]

Also the song "Red" is heavily based on whole-tone/octatonic-scales

[@TalkingSandvich]

How does it work, though?

[@malevolentsound]

One more red nightmare

[@oldcowbb]

@@TalkingSandvich we really are everywhere huh

[@agapeleone5847]

They are an amazing group!!! Very underrated.

[@minemilx2702]

Sounds like music from the good disney era. The one with D+ over C+ sounds like when someone is rolling down a hill stuck in an expanding snowball.

[@cybrunel1016]

Rick is barre none the best educator on KZbin, period.

[@bloodflowerrrs1555]

The beginning of Sorceress by Opeth is a really good use of the scale IMO.

[@maxonmendel5757]

This scale always reminds me of characters traveling through a space time portal.

[@setadriftonfishandchips]

The band Cardiacs used whole tone a lot to great effect.

[@bullerfugl]

The whole note window

[@particlejim]

I came here to say this, Tim Smith really was a true musical genius in my opinion, his music touches me in a way that no other music even comes close too RIP Timmy - The Leader of the Starry Skies

[@gaiusdrusus]

FYI bought the book a year ago...the videos with the Beato book keep me waayyyy sharper than if left alone to my own tried and true noodling cul de sacs.

[@normanspurgeon5324]

Knowing what notes make up a whole tone scale is easy. Going from a tonal context, which is what music is generally, to a non tonal, symmetrical scale, and then back again, is difficult. I'd like to see the chord progressions prior to the scale, and how the scale leads back to a tonal situation.

[@sapiensfromterra5103]

One example would be to go from A minor to C/E whole tone and back, very basic idea.

[@enkiitu]

You could listen to Puccini’s three last operas, he goes back and forth all the time masterfully. Madama Butterfly, Turandot, II Trittico. Lots of examples. And especially in Turandot, bitonal music blending it with beautiful more traditional harmony. Really a master.

[@raulcaldeira8071]

I really use this scale on for example II7 , like on take the a train for example and going from the 9 or 3 of II7 to the b3 of ii-7 is a cool way to "come back"

[@SteveAstronaut]

I like to throw in a bar or two of whole tone to add an instant 'Gong' factor to an improvisation. I'm thinking more of the Hillage era Gong but Holdsworth played in a later incarnation of the band.

[@Truth-Speaker13]

Thank you for this awesome tutorial Mr. Beato

[@ConspiresTo]

Best music tutorials I have seen for a long while! Giving me some cool new things to think about

[@Wyrdo999]

Great video rick. I like the way you went from the piano right to the guitar, giving us the sounds to play or consider based on the instruments tonal and harmonic qualities.

[@mauriciomadrigal3389]

You are awesome Rick. I feel very happy I found this channel. Thanks a lot for all your wonderful videos!

[@Classic_H_Radio]

This "five minute series" video feels twice as long to me... lol

[@meanjon13_illusions]

Play the Whole Tone scale a half step down from the root. I picked that up from an old Guitar Player magazine. It has a really unique in/out type of sound

[@justdope1963]

D augmented over C augmented and then reverse is clearly what was used by Elmer Bernstein in The Ghostbusters soundtrack. First shows up in library scene. Great scale lesson here.

[@alvfaria]

Great video Rick! Thanks!

[@mr.kilpatrick2991]

another great video Rick - Thanks

[@yeshonbk5831]

Amazing.....your lesson is straight to the points..

[@DavidOliveiraUfc]

mind blow. Thank you so much Rick!!

[@DavidDavrosWhite]

When you did D+ over C+ and then changed to C+ over D+, I instantly thought of Ghostbusters near the end. Absolutely brilliant sound.

[@davebrent01]

ha yes! same

[@SuperBaby_2]

I came here looking for this comment.

[@RecordingStudioRockstars]

You rock Rick! Love your videos. 👍

[@voronOsphere]

Thanks, Rick! I just found this! I'm gonna be all over this lesson!

[@stilllife4u]

The set looks good here .Good picture . Bight clean , Dig the gear in the back ground .Nice shirt . And the Whole Tone is why I watched . Thank ya .

[@olivierherment1188]

Merci pour tout le savoir que vous partagez avec clarté et simplicité

[@ashandesilvaguitarist]

thanks for demoing it on guitar too rick! you're the best!

[@akymrinkovsky289]

That was hot. Thanks Rick

[@richardsmith8704]

Thanks for the lesson!

[@Giselle1544]

Loved this lesson

[@valentinlemarchand9947]

Hey Rick, I just discovered your channel yesterday and it's the greatest channel i could find on youtube at the moment, you just give me answers about musical questions i had for a long time! I got a suggestion for a video : As a fan of soundtrack; i would like to understand the mechanics behind the dissonances (hope the word is correct..), how I could play with them in a logical way on a piano or why not, how to build dissonances in a strings section. Hope you'll read me, and keep it up!

[@RickBeato]

Will do Green Lantern. Thanks!!

[@ezraabbey]

great video, rick! didn't know you were a holdsworth fan. rip allan, one of the greatest to ever do it.

[@bernab]

Parts of Elektrik and Fracture from King Crimson. Also few parts of Steve Hackett, i think Lost time in Cordoba and one tune from Defector has the whole tone scale. Few moments in Henry Cow's music.

[@markparee99]

Every 1950's horror b-movie score I've ever heard.has a lot of this

[@Don.G.Prince]

Robert Fripp of King Crimson composed the great masterpiece entitled "Fracture" using these scales. Very hard song to master on the guitar!

[@crimfan]

King Crimson rides again! Rick, I really like the tone you get from that guitar. Mind talking a bit about your rig sometime?

[@321Borny]

crimfan I agree! I'm hoping Rick will eventually do an entire studio run down

[@markopolo2224]

he did 2 years later

[@fiacchi]

Awww, the beautiful sound of whole tone scale! Eveytime I heard this sound my mind goes to the beginning of "Pelléas et Mélisande" by Debussy: for me one of the best use of whole tone scale in the last century.

[@s.w.3604]

Sounded like a King Crimson riff for a second at around 10:00 in. Good stuff!

[@pipeline555]

Thanks for your vídeos !!!!

[@CoffeeBreaks]

Hi Rick! What DAW do you use?

[@RickBeato]

ProTools

[@andreicucu8230]

Don t spend money on things like this!

[@christopherprim1973]

lol

[@keiromultiverse3608]

Whenever someone plays me on Spotify, I get a notification, and I have to bring my whole orchestra over to perform it.

[@atomdent]

Thanks Rick

[@angusorvid8840]

I was just thinking, "This reminds me of Holdsworth" and sure enough at the end he mentions Holdsworth. Rick is the man!

[@kanaK2Nakal]

Reminds me of old black n white movies

[@bradford_shaun_murray]

Hammer Horror/1950s sci fi style?

[@ThinPicks]

This scale doesn't turn up very often in pop music but Stevie Wonder used it brilliantly in the turnaround on You Are The Sunshine Of My Life, it sounds just right!👍

[@acialist]

Love It!!

[@leo.israel]

Rick you look like a nice beaver! love your lessons!

[@tomasrusso2285]

Awesome!

[@detlevgebers]

Great as always. I'll start right now writing some film scores. Hollywood here I am ;-)

[@bluarcher5941]

There is a break in the middle of the Eruption suite by Focus (about 9 minutes in) that is a good example of this scale (as played by Thijs Van Leer and Jan Akkerman). I often wondered about it but now I see that it's an ascending and descending whole tone scale.

[@M139NG]

Beatoful sound:)

[@chris_geeeh]

Odds that what Rick talks about occurs in... (dramatic pause) ...jazz: 100%

[@telsonater]

I love your channel

[@walterholland1251]

On Squibb Cakes, Lenny Pickett uses a whole tone scale starting on the mirror third. Very cool.

[@Elricwulf]

6:56 Star Wars - John Williams' Desert themes.. same key and everything.. the John Williams score alternates between those 2 C and D Augmented in a kind of soft, lilting pattern and has some other little trills and things mixed in here and there.

[@negritokimba1614]

thank you, vero good musicsian you are good profesional.

[@seanandben]

Larry Carlton uses it very tastefully on "Emotions Wound Us So" from the Last Nite album.

[@Paul_demian]

cool , im practising arabesque right now!!

[@cofieleven]

I like this one

[@aghaanantyab]

sounds like the music in john williams's star wars or indiana jones

[@kaminandamusic253]

I heard Desert scene stuff in Star wars for sure. Those 2 stacked aug chords..

[@vesellin]

The Bb augmented chord has both a flat and a sharp in it because the fifth BF is diminished, unlike all other fifths which are perfect. You could also say that the BbF is a perfect fifth, whereas all other perfect fifths either have 2 natural tones, 2 flat tones, or 2 sharp tones. So the augmented fifth from eg. C would be CG#, D would have DA#, but Bb has BbF#, or B has BFx.

[@TomGoldsmithguitar]

Shame you can't modulate on it) : knowing Rick though he'll find a way. What a lad!

[@joedragich]

Does that D+ over C+ remind anyone else of Ghostbusters? I swear, they did exactly that at one point in the movie score.

[@tigerlight430]

"ZUUL...!"

[@don_rosales]

Reminded me of Saturn by Gustav Holst, I don't know if those are chords he used. Thanx for all the lessons, cheers!

[@M3Z4C]

Hey Rick awesome lesson, I learnt a lot. I just wanted to point out two tiny errors while filming. You accidentally said 3 white keys (instead of 4) at 4:25 and also at 4:35 you misspelled "Ab" in Db triad. You could put corrections in annotations. I don't want to be a know-it-all, I really appreciate all the work you do, so I just wanted to let you know :)

[@RickBeato]

You can't put corrections in anymore otherwise I would have. It's the music that's important not typos. The Db+ chord was played correctly so no need to do anything.

[@jeymz361]

You should check out Shady Cicada’s video where he made a metal song using only the whole tone scale. He doesn’t break any of it down but he gets a lot of great sounds, riffs, and chords out of it!

[@falloutfan2502]

Every Star Trek TNG episode, ever.

[@RandallLakedogpix]

Thanks

[@instrumentalistjade8367]

Thank u..

[@LH-iz1ul]

I can hear this in Cannibal Corpse - From skin to liquid. Also a lot of movies like you said and they seem to use it a lot in Zelda games and other video games.

[@6u174r808]

5:43 - 5:55 reminds me of Ghostbusters

[@quentinkain4367]

6u174r808 reminds me of holst's saturn

[@TheBoglodite]

Dream Theater has a song in this scale called Overture 1928

[@koreboredom4302]

It sounds so "enchanting"...

[@israelcosta980]

The intro of Beyond "Expressions of invencibility" is this exactly two chords...

[@emanuellandeholm5657]

I love Debussy and King Crimson.

[@WilliamSlaght]

Dig you as a teacher, keep at it of course! Same thing I want to become. However, I was also taught that the Whole Tone scale isn't only an ambiguous/color scale, but could be seen as dominant harmony of which deceptively or authenticly cadences (or not). It can go to 6 tonics likewise how the diminished scaled can go to 4 tonics. Every tone in the whole tone scale can be seen as belonging to a dom7 b5 or #5 chord. However, I'm not sure if you go into the details of dominant harm., tonic harm., intermediate harm., etc. in this series of yours or if you're avoiding it, or if you see scales more in a modal sense of color. I'm just asking, and if there is a series of you covering this, then I would be interested in checking it out. Cheers, WS

[@RickBeato]

You are correct about the function as a dominant chord with Dom7#5 or Dom7b5 but here I am discussing the scale as a sound not its function. That will be in a future video. Thanks! Rick

[@WilliamSlaght]

Rick Beato I can't wait till you get into that series!

[@WilliamSlaght]

(Or video!)

[@krang07]

7:13 scary ass incidental music. wicked

[@krang07]

Steve Hackett`s `a tower struck down` makes great use of this idea

[@ordinarypablo]

hey rick, I got a question, wich instrument do you think have more posibilities to create, I mean, what instrument do you feel is the one that helps you the most expressing your self and composing what you want to compose, im a guitar player and a drummer but Im looking forward to learn piano, I just want to know your opinion, i,ove your videps btw

[@SelfPropelledDestiny]

I’m hearing Holst’s The Planets. Maybe Uranus or Neptune?

[@philnewton3096]

I think there was a wholetone riff in a mandoline bluegrass break-Poss David Grissman?

[@davidmonroe9214]

I swear some of those chords I hear a bunch in the original Star Wars films....John Williams must've liked the whole tone scale :)

[@renatozanardo9648]

Cheer Rick. Is it permissible to switch from an enharmonic to a harmonious mode? And what modulations can be made?

[@MichaelBurmy]

I remember the whole tone scale we used in choir class: (up) "Charles Ives likes to use whole tones." (down) "Lights are on but no one's home."

[@javiermedina5313]

This is the easiest scale to work imo, even if you play all the 6 notes at once it sounds nice. You can literally do what you want with this scale and it will be sound decent. But you get tired very quickly if you don't use contrast in rythm and all that stuff.

[@senseipaz5019]

Hey Rick can you make a video about King Crimson and its sound??? ...Greetings from Bolivia

[@noobslayeru]

Can you talk about the brightness of this scale like you can talk about the brightness of modes of major and minor? If so, is it darker or brighter than major?

[@cmbestkey8114]

Depends on how you use it

[@excuseyou7198]

I always here whole tone scales in Prokofiev etudes

[@jackmille9787]

at the end, when you were in c+, why did you play a Gb+ scale? for example, if i am in A+, would it sound best to play an Eb+ scale ? sorry if this question is confusing, thanks!

[@johnoconnor7918]

The Db whole tone scale has 4 white notes, not just 3!

[@horseshoe_nc]

The Db/Eb sounds like it is plucked from old B grade movies or The Twilight Zone. What is odd for me. I don't have perfect pitch nor good relative pitch. And both of those scales sound familiar.

[@betolicks4071]

Its reminding me of star wars

[@KingTabor]

5:46 sounds a bit like Ravel's Pavane

[@nightfr09]

Pavane for a dead princess?

[@davidwhitaker2211]

I just realized that the whole tone sounds similar to Lydian since the 4th is raised rather than being normal.

[@pearljaime2]

Metroid 1 Ridley theme. Got it

[@rkshores]

Where can buy your book and maybe study with you .. Thanks

[@cmbestkey8114]

What is it it called where you go semitone, whole tone, and so on? (C, C#, Eb, E, F#, G, A, Bb, C)

[@AgainstTheeWickedlyMusic]

Late answer, but that's the Half-whole diminished scale! One of my favorites

[@propmaster101]

8:04 for all the guitar players out there😂