G Half Whole Diminished, Banjo Side

8 notes to the octave, mapped below onto this reader's GDGBD fretboard, with every G called out. Those markers are the useful part mid-bar: a chart moves under you, and the thing you need is where the root went — not where the pattern started.

Tense, symmetrical, and slightly sinister — alternating half and whole steps pack in the b9, #9, #11, and 13, so it sounds like a dominant chord stretched to breaking point. Edgy, jazzy, and restless.

Heard in: Jazz lines over 13b9 dominant chords, fusion, film-noir and horror scoring — the sound of a V chord that refuses to settle.

A pattern that never stops still has to be made of notes, and the ones it is made of are chosen from this set the moment the written number changes under it.

Play it slowly against the audio until the shape stops being a shape, then take it to a chart counted in G and let the numbers pick their own notes out of it.