Originally, I thought I could keep up with my Exercise of the Week lesson, but I just don't have the time to be doing that on a weekly basis. So here is a toned down version - the Exercise of the Month. You can expect to see quite a wide variety of exercises here that will help you in many areas of your playing.

As if there aren't enough scale exercises on my site... Of course, I always am stressing the importance of mastering scales, and this exercise certainly has that aim in mind.

You may have heard people refer to symmetrical scales. These sorts of scales are characterized by some sort of repeating pattern. The notes in the Whole Tone scale, for instance, are all spaced a whole step apart. One of the most interesting properties of this scale is that there are no associated modes. If you recall your modes lessons, modes are essentially formed by starting a scale at each of its notes. With the Major scale, start on the first note, you have the Ionian mode, start on the 2nd note, you have Dorian, etc. These modes all have a distinct quality, because of the very asymmetry that comprises the Major scale. You with me? Well, if you try starting the Whole Tone scale on each of its notes, it is still following the constant flow of whole notes - all the modes sound the same!

After experimenting with this scale, I think you will find it to be somewhat of an enigma. It doesn't seem to want to resolve to anything (though there are certainly chords well suited to it). It exists in a world unto itself, always at the periphery of understanding. This enchanting nature of the scale may indeed get you hooked...

Here we see one possible layout of the scale on the fretboard. More commonly, you will see shapes for this scale that alternate between 2 and 3 notes per string. But I personally feel that if there is musical symmetry in a scale, then one should alsways try to match that to physical symmetry on the fretboard.

What I have done for this exercise is taken a common scale pattern (used extensively by the likes of Paul Gilbert, Al Dimeola, etc), and applied it to the Whole Tone scale. As you can see from the fretboard image above, traversing this exercise takes a good deal of coordination, as you are constantly shifting. So as with all exercises, take it slow and build up to speed. This pattern lends itself well to triplets or sextuplets (6 notes a beat). So get out your metronome and get to it!

Note: I only recorded this at a fast speed. It just takes too much time making the other recordings, and it is the content of the exercise itself that is more important. If you want to play along slower, just use the midi file.