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The half diminished scale is a seven-note musical scale. It is more commonly known as the Locrian ♯ 2 scale [1] or the Aeolian ♭ 5 scale, names that avoid confusion with the diminished scale and the half-diminished seventh chord (minor seventh, diminished fifth). It is the sixth mode of the ascending melodic minor scale.
Its tonic chord is a diminished triad (B dim = B dim 5 min 3 = B D F, in the Locrian mode using the white-key diatonic scale with starting note B, corresponding to a C major scale starting on its 7th tone). This mode's diminished fifth and the Lydian mode's augmented fourth are the only modes that contain a tritone as a note in their modal scale.
These modes are sometimes referred to as the whole step/half-step diminished scale and the half-step/whole step diminished scale, respectively. [10] Each of the three distinct scales can form differently named scales with the same sequence of tones by starting at a different point in the scale.
List of musical scales and modes Name Image Sound Degrees Intervals Integer notation # of pitch classes Lower tetrachord Upper tetrachord Use of key signature usual or unusual ; 15 equal temperament
This makes the tonic triad diminished, so this mode is the only one in which the chords built on the tonic and dominant scale degrees have their roots separated by a diminished, rather than perfect, fifth.
This generally occurs in a major key, since the flattening of the sixth degree in the natural minor scale renders a dominant diminished seventh chord fully diminished if played within the scale. Indeed, the VII half diminished chord in a major key is identical to a dominant ninth chord (a dominant seventh with a major ninth) with its root omitted.
These scales contain all three notes of a minor triad: the root, a minor third (rather than the major third, as in a major triad or major scale), and a perfect fifth (rather than the diminished fifth, as in a diminished scale or half diminished scale).
Diminished seventh chords may also be rooted on scale degrees other than the leading-tone, either as secondary function chords temporarily borrowed from other keys, or as appoggiatura chords: a chord rooted on the raised second scale degree (D ♯ –F ♯ –A–C in the key of C) acts as an appoggiatura to the tonic (C major) chord, and one ...