The notes
- A♭1
- C♭♭3
- E𝄫♭5
The A♭ diminished arpeggio is A♭, C♭, E𝄫.
You may also see it called 1 ♭3 ♭5.
On the staff
On a bass staff, the A♭ diminished arpeggio is written A♭ C♭ E𝄫.
The solid notes are the A♭ diminished arpeggio. The pale notes are the rest of A♭ locrian, the larger scale it is carved out of, so you can see which notes it leaves out.
Why the A♭ diminished arpeggio has these flats
- A♭1
- T+S
- C♭♭3
- T+S
- E𝄫♭5
- 6
- A♭8
A scale is a pattern of steps, and this one is T+S T+S 6: a tone and a half, a tone and a half, 6, and so on. T+S stands for a tone and a half, which is three semitones. 6 stands for a step of six semitones. The pattern is what gives A♭ diminished its sound, and it stays the same whichever note you start on.
This scale has only three notes, so it does not use every letter. It is built on A♭ locrian, and the notes it shares are spelled the same way as they are there.
The pattern still does not fit the plain letters. If you walk the pattern up from A♭, two letters cannot keep up:
- C♭ — the flat third. The pattern needs a tone and a half from A♭, but A♭ to C is only 4, so C has to fall to C♭.
- E𝄫 — the flat fifth. The pattern needs a tone and a half from C♭, but C♭ to E is only 5, so E has to fall to E𝄫.
None of those accidentals was a choice. Once you pick the note to start on, the pattern decides the rest, and a key signature is a record of the result.
The A♭ diminished arpeggio is written with A♭, C♭ and E𝄫. A♭ has its accidental because that is the key, and the other notes need theirs because the T+S T+S 6 pattern of steps cannot be spelled from A♭ with plain letters.
The pattern of steps is the part of a scale that never changes. The letter names take sharps or flats to fit that pattern, and a key signature is a record of those sharps or flats.
On the piano
The keyboard shows the same three notes as a shape you can see. The coloured keys are the A♭ diminished arpeggio, the pale keys are the rest of A♭ locrian, and you can click any key to hear it.
A♭ diminished arpeggio on the whole neck
21 notes of the A♭ diminished arpeggio are marked across four strings.
This is every place the notes of the A♭ diminished arpeggio fall on the bass, with each note's name and its scale degree. The roots are marked so you can find your bearings.
Position by position
The A♭ diminished arpeggio has three playable positions, at frets 4–8, 7–11 and 10–14.
Each shape starts on a different degree of the scale and fits inside five frets, so your hand can play all of it without moving.
One climb up the neck
The climb runs from fret 4 to fret 16 and plays eight notes.
This is one path from the lowest root to the top of the neck, and it plays each note once, never on two strings. It takes two notes on every string. The widest stretch on any one string is six frets.