Guitar Secrets: Symmetrical Scales Revealed (Diminished and Whole Tone Scales): Guitar Book & Online Audio

Mock writes for guitarists, not music theorists. He strips away the unnecessary historical context and gets straight to what diminished and whole-tone scales do in real musical situations: create tension, flavor solos, and open up substitution possibilities. The combination of written notation, tab, and a CD means students can hear exactly what these symmetrical scales sound like in blues, rock, fusion, and jazz contexts before they ever play a note.

Diminished and whole-tone scales have an unsettling, sophisticated edge. Diminished scales crackle with tension and movement, while whole-tone scales float in ambiguity, refusing to resolve to a traditional tonal center. Working through this material opens up darker, more modern textural possibilities that transform a player's harmonic palette.

This book serves guitarists working toward jazz, fusion, and rock improvisation who want to move beyond pentatonic shapes and explore the sophisticated sounds available through symmetrical scales. Students at the intermediate level and higher will find the licks and substitution strategies immediately usable in their own playing and soloing.

• Start with the CD examples. Listening first lets your ear absorb the character of diminished and whole-tone sounds before your fingers chase the patterns on the fretboard.
• Practice the licks in multiple positions. Symmetrical scales repeat every few frets, so learning a phrase in one spot gives you access to several others.
• Apply one new substitution idea per practice session. Trying to integrate everything at once dilutes the learning; mastering one substitution in a familiar solo or progression cements the concept.

Assign this to individual students preparing jazz or fusion repertoire where they need to voice solos beyond basic pentatonic vocabulary. Teachers can pull specific licks from the book to demonstrate scale substitution concepts during group lessons or studio sessions, then have students apply the same techniques to tunes they're learning.

• Reading diminished and whole-tone scale applications in standard notation and tablature
• Soloing using scale substitution strategies in jazz, blues, fusion, and rock contexts
• Recognizing and executing symmetrical scale patterns across the fretboard
• Building vocabulary through memorized licks that demonstrate harmonic tension and resolution
• Understanding the sonic character of diminished and whole-tone sounds in contemporary styles