To begin, we’ll first deal with the unique sound and feel of the diminished scale. We won’t be thinking too hard about intervals and scale shapes, but simply trying to hear how it sounds and how it feels under the fingers. 

I’d recommend learning this scale on one string to start with. Even if you already know some shapes, this can be very liberating when it comes to improvising, as you won’t be relying on muscle memory/learned shapes. This is more about sound; really listen for which notes create tension and which ones sound more ‘consonant’ over the backing track.

This one string scale shape can be thought of four different ways: E H/W, G H/W, Bb H/W or C#/Db H/W. These are also interchangeable over each of the dominant 7 chords, which will give the scale some context. Don’t worry about this just yet, as I’ll break this down in future lessons.

For now, try practising the scale over each of these 7th chords to get used to the sound. In the next lesson we’ll be using a backing track.