The whole tone scale

Like diminished chords, the whole tone scale is not very widely used, but when you need that specific vibe, nothing else will do. Whole tone scales are easy to understand, because there are only two of them total. Whichever key you are in, there is a whole tone scale that includes the tonic, and another one that doesn’t. I have never seen a useful naming system for these two scales, so I call them yin and yang.

Notice that the notes not found in yin are all the notes in yang, and vice versa. Another fun thing is that when you write the whole tone scales on the circle of fifths, they look exactly the same as they do on the chromatic circle – all the yang scale tones just switch places with their counterparts a tritone away. Symmetry! Continue reading

Biggie Biggie Smalls Is The Illest

I always enjoy when hip-hop artists sample themselves. It makes the music recursive, and for me, “recursive” is synonymous with “good.” You can hear self-sampling in “Nas Is Like” by Nas, “The Score” by the Fugees and many songs by Eric B and Rakim. The most recent self-sampling track to cross my radar is “Unbelievable” by Biggie Smalls, from his album Ready To Die. Here’s the instrumental.

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