F# Whole Half Diminished

The scale displayed with its numeric formula, intervals and scale degrees.

The scale formula can alternatively be written as 1 - 9 - b3 - 11 - b5 - #5 - 13 - 7.

The F sharp Whole Half Diminished scale consists of eight notes. The name is reflected by the notes, or steps, organized on the guitar fingerboard as whole, half, whole, half, whole, half, whole, half.
This scale is also called F sharp Fully Diminished scale because it is constructed by a merge of diminished seventh chords.
There are two scales primarily known as “Diminished”, the other one is F# Half Whole Diminished scale.
A third “diminished” scale is the Diminished Whole Tone (see the Related scales tab below).

This scale is typically played over a diminished or half-diminished chord.
A feature of diminished scales is that they are symmetrical, which results in overlapping note relationships. The F# Whole Half Diminished has the same notes as A Whole Half Diminished, C Whole Half Diminished and D# Whole Half Diminished.

Chords are not very often built from Diminished scales, but some possible chords with matching notes are:

• F#dim
• F#dim7
• G#dim7
• Adim7
• Bdim7
• Cdim7
• Ddim7
• D#dim7
• Fdim7

Although the tones in these chords correspond to the tones of the F# Whole Half Diminished, creating progressions with these chords will seldom sound pleasant.

Related to this scale is the F# Diminished Whole Tone scale, also called F# Dominant Altered or F# Super Locrian. The Diminished Whole Tone include seven notes instead of eight as in the Whole Half Diminished. Also, the intervals differ. It can be displayed as follows:

Start the audio and play along! Use notes from the scale in the diagram above.