I first learned about the double diminished scale in the 1970s, inspired by pianists like Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock. At that time, I was studying a book by Nicolas Slonimsky called Thesaurus of ...

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 ...

Augmented and diminished chords have something of a bad reputation. Whenever anyone makes a joke about an overly complicated piece of music, they’re usually part of the punchline. In actual fact, ...

Here’s my go-to practice routine for tackling altered dominant chords—especially those spicy #5/#9 voicings—and the diminished whole-tone scale (aka the 7th mode of the melodic minor). These sounds ...