Here are some more scale facts....
Whole-tone ScaleThis scale is pretty sweet, not only when you listen to it, but also when you pay attention to how it's constructed. This scale is symetrical. It is based around off a consecutive notes a whole step apart. Consequently, this scale is also built on a tritone....
C-D-E, F#-G#-A#
...The first three notes are from the major scale of C and the second group of notes are from the major scale of F#. Sweet. What else does this show us?
Let's look at the tritone. If you know your tritones, you'll understand that there are 6 distinct tritones, if you don't use the notes twice. Ok. The whole-tone scale is built on a tritone, and since six notes are being used, there can only be two possible distinct whole-tone scales, without repeating any notes.
C-D-E, F#-G#-A#
C#-D#-E#, G-A-B or Cb-Db-Eb, F-G-A
TritonesThis lead me to look at how tritones are built. Tritones are symetrical. The definition of a tritone is a that it is "an augmented fourth, consisting of three whole steps". If you look at it deeper, a tritone is also part of a diminished 7th chord, which is also symetrical. There is a lot of symetry going on here! A diminished 7th chord is built off of two tritones a minor 3rd apart. This lead me to revisit the whole "tritone substitution" idea. Maybe a "tritone substitution" is just a "minor third substitution" and applies to all the tritone's companion notes in the diminished 7th chord? When I tried this out, most of the time it worked. It sounded kind of disonant sometimes, but for me it's playable, so not only can you substitute a V7 chord for a bii7 chord, but it's also interchangable with a iii7 or bvii7.
EX.
Key G
D7 is replaced by Ab7, B7, F7
Augmented ChordsAfter playing with minor 3rd substitutions, this lead me to augmented chords, which are also symetrical, because part of that minor 3rd relation forms a major 3rd with the tonic. G and B. This chord is based off of two major 3rd steps, or 4 whole steps. I tried the same thing as before but using major 3rds, so instead of V7 I tried iii7 and #V7.
D7 is replaced by B7 or D#7
...I played the D#7 chord over and over again, but my ears still can't handle the sound yet. It might need the right approach chord....but...I noticed one thing.
D#/Eb falls a major third below G, so this is our magic key that builds all the modes for G. This may be the reason why it's so disonant....
This lead be back to playing
modes. I tried all of G's modes over this D#7 chord. This sounded nice. I still can't figure out what to do with this chord though.
