Related

ScaleOctatonic ScaleConsonance and DissonancePerfect Intervals

The whole-tone scale in one line: six notes to the octave, every step a whole tone.

C whole tone: C D E F♯ G♯ A♯ C

Two immediate consequences:

1. No semitones → no leading tone, and no sense of "leaning" in any direction. Every interval is the same width, so the ear hears something blurred and suspended. 2. Only two keys → one starting on C, one starting on C♯; beyond that it repeats. Twelve semitones divided into steps of two gives six notes, so there are only two whole-tone scales, mirror images of each other.

Why it has no tonic

Tonality depends on unequal distances: semitones create pull, whole tones create stability, and their alternation produces a centre. Flatten every distance and the tonic loses its footing — any note can be a start, and none is an end.

That is exactly why Impressionism reached for it: the point is the drifting, directionless quality.

Diagram: six equal parts

Listen: six equal steps

As you listen, try to find the tonic — you will not. That homelessness is precisely its use.

Common misconceptions

• "There are twelve whole-tone scales." Only two (mirror images), because six notes divide the octave equally.
• "It can serve as an ordinary scale." It lacks the unequal structure tonality needs, so dominant-to-tonic relations are hard to build; it is usually a colouring device.
• "Debussy invented it." Earlier theory and scattered use exist; Debussy made it a signature vocabulary.
• "No semitones means no tension." The opposite: tritone relationships are everywhere in it, so tension is constant.

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Sources

• 全音音阶由六个全音构成、八度被等分为六份，属乐理通则
• 全音音阶在印象派（尤其德彪西）中的使用，为音乐史通行记载

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.