diminished scale

[bobg63]

Hello,
 I'm having trouble finding a comfortable fingering for the diminished(H-W-H-W,etc) scale
starting on D.I'm kind of OK starting on C & Db.
 Is there a definitive fingering for these scales and is it absolutely necessary to practice them
with both hands?

Bob

[Bob]

I haven't seen any.  I didn't search a lot for them though.  I did try to make some myself a long time ago but that project slipped away.

I ended up making fingerings for whole tone scales and that turned out to be really helpful.  I just haven't seen a lot of music with diminished scales. 

[ramseytheii]

Try 1-2-1-2-3-1-2-3-4.

I know this scale as the "octatonic", but guess that you call it "diminished" because the intervals form interlocking diminished chords.  I think most people would identify it as octatonic.

Walter Ramsey

[bobg63]

Thanks Walter,
 Your fingering suggestion feels better than what I had, also the wikipedia entry
for octatonic was very interesting.

[Bob]

Only three patterns for each hand to work out, right?  Discounting "rounding off" the tops and bottoms when you turn the scale back around.

[bobg63]

I'm thinking of it as 3 patterns with 4 starting points per pattern plus arpeggios(still
working through these)I've been changing the fingering so often that this scale
is taking forever.

[Petter]

Try 1-2-1-2-3-1-2-3-4.

I know this scale as the "octatonic", but guess that you call it "diminished" because the intervals form interlocking diminished chords.  I think most people would identify it as octatonic.

Walter Ramsey

Almost every jazz musicians thinks of it as "diminshed scale"

[bobg63]

my ex-teacher referred to the H-W-H-W mode as "inverted diminished"
 He is a classically trained jazz pianist.I found the most info when I
googled octatonic.Searching "inverted diminished" didn't come up with much.
I haven't started on the W-H-W-H mode yet