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The Whole Tone Scale
This scale is also called the "augmented scale". It consists of a sequence of whole tones. The scale has a typical sound and can give a very nice variation in your imptovisation.
You can use the scale in your solos on a + (augmented) chord, or a b13 chord.
In C, the scale consists of the following tones:
When you repeatingly go up a whole tone, after six tones you are at the start again (a whole tone on A# is C again). So the scale has six tones, and not all letters are used.
This is how the scale sounds:
The whole tone / augmented scale in C
The Diminished Scale
There can be a bit of confusion about the diminished scale. You could say there are two of them. The one we
will look at first, actually is not a scale, but an arpeggio of the diminished chord.
The other, "official" one is an octotonic scale, which we'll look at after this first one.
The (arpeggio) diminished scale is a stack of minor thirds. When you start on C, the next tone is a minor third: the Eb. A minor third on top of that is Gb.
If you continue like this, you get an unreadable range (after Gb you get Bbb (two flats), Dbb, etc.). We'll use a readable approach instead and choose tones that are "enharmonic" the same (same pitch, different letter).
Doing that, we get the following scale:
C - Eb - Gb - A
Continued after the octave:
C - Eb - Gb - A - C - Eb - Gb - A - etc.
You can use this scale to improvise on a diminished chord or altered chord. This is how it sounds:
The diminished scale/arpeggio in C
Next we'll look at the other "official" diminished scale: octotonic.