The Whole tone scale reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Jul-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

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 pitcheses in the chromatic scale:

• {C, D, E, F#, G#, A#}
• {B, Db, Eb, F, G, A}.

When one of these scales is played on a piano, 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.

Claude Debussy and other Impressionist composers made extensive use of whole tone scales; since they are symmetrical, whole tone scales don't give a strong impression of the tonic.

See also

• An die Jugend
• String Quartet No. 5 (Bartók)
• Symmetry
• Tone row
• Violin Concerto (Berg)

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