Hey, what type of chords/progressions could you use the wholetone scale?

Thrashboy might have something better to say than me on this, but I always saw the "wholetone" scale as just a [set] version of an a-tonal scale. ....A-tonal meaning there is no set scale and everything is basically it's own key.

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Yeah, i heard that the wholetone scale fits well with certain chords? Anyone know anything about that?

-amerok

Yup. Its a-tonal. Not having any variation in the intervals causes each note to have equal importance.

If you wanted something written with a whole tone scale to have a "key", it would be possible, just alittle tricky. For each note in the scale, there is no perfect 4th or perfect 5th. Just an aug version of each. This will get you an interesting sound. But to pull it off, you would only want to focus on the root and 5th, maybe the 4th. By focus I mean don't hang around on the other notes for longer then a quarter beat. You stay on another note for longer then that and chances are it will become your new tonal center. I would be careful with the 5th as well, it has equal power to become the tonal center. You would have to massively focus on that root note more then the others, and then have the 5th be focused on second most.

The dim scale is simular. Since this pattern goes whwhwhwhw it has 4 of the 8 notes in it that can become a tonal center because of the symetrical pattern.

As far as chords in the whole tone scale. You only really have one chord. The none changing interal pattern means a chord from each step of the scale will have the same interval structure.....

Every single chord would be a major aug 5th. i.e C+5(or just C+)

in C some of your chords would be...
C+5
Cadd9+5
Cadd9add+11+5
Cadd9add+11add+13+5
Csus2+5
Csus+4+5
C+5add+6

You can change that C to any other note in the scale/key and it won't change the chords.

The interval degrees for whole tone are

1,Root
2,Major second
3,Major Third
4,Augmented 4th
5,Augmented 5th
6,Augmented 6th
7,don't have one, thats why no 7th, and the 9's and ups are all adds

Wow, you know your theory man! Good post. While it may not be of much importance now, if you want some ideas of how whole tone stuff is used in metal check out some newer Cannibal Corpse. Songs like Sickening Metamorphosis, the intro to Hung and Bled, and other stuff written by Alex Webster has some stuff that use cool whole tone patterns.

Thrashboy - thanks a lot for the help, i appreciate you giving so much info.
Sun - alright, ill check them out, thanks.