Symmetrical Connections

AS GUITARISTS, WE’RE always seeking out comfortable, convenient scale fingerings that also help us best visualize shapes on the fretboard. To this end, fingering schemes built around repeating patterns appeal to us. The eight-note half-whole diminished scale, which follows a consistent pattern of alternating half steps and whole steps, ideally satisfies these criteria, with symmetrical fingering patterns and fretboard shapes. The scale is also a favorite of many musicians for spicing up lines played over dominant-seven chords.

Soon after I discovered this finger-friendly entity, fluidity came delightfully quick. But to my dismay, the neatly recurring patterns in half-whole diminished — along with other symmetrical harmonic-melodic structures, namely the whole-half diminished scale, the whole-tone scale, the augmented scale and the diminished seven and augmented triad arpeggios — proved to be the quintessential double-edged sword. While playing these crystal-like entities up and down the fretboard by rote offers a fast track to fluidity, the challenge of creating lines that don’t sound predictable and pattern-like becomes paramount.

In this lesson, I’ll show you how I’ve learned to avoid melodic monotony and predictability while