A Half Whole Diminished Scale — Baritone Ukulele

The A Half Whole Diminished scale has 8 notes per octave and belongs to the symmetric family. Here it is mapped onto the Baritone Ukulele's DGBE strings, position by position, with the root highlighted so the pattern anchors to A wherever you play it.

Tense, symmetrical, and slightly sinister — alternating half and whole steps pack in the b9, #9, #11, and 13, so it sounds like a dominant chord stretched to breaking point. Edgy, jazzy, and restless.

Heard in: Jazz lines over 13b9 dominant chords, fusion, film-noir and horror scoring — the sound of a V chord that refuses to settle.

On the Baritone Ukulele's linear DGBE tuning the pattern climbs string to string in pitch order, so runs flow straight across the neck.

Play each position slowly against the audio until the shape and the sound lock together, then take it to the progressions in A to use it over real changes.