The Phrygian Mode

mosiddiqi

The Curry Master
Staff member
The third mode of the Major Scale..and a personal favourite. So, if we stick to C Major for the sake of our examples, the Phrygian mode is constructed from the third note, E, like so:

E F G A B C D E

.which looks to me like a regular minor scale (given the G and C) but with a b9 (F)..and it's that b9 that is the essence of the Phrygian sound.

We've already established that playing the above scale over C Major...will sound like C Major. To get to the sound of the Phrygian mode, have a look at the first chord you get from harmonising the scale in the usual method..stacking up intervals in thirds...you get

E G B = Eminor

So, we need to play our CMajor notes over an Eminor chord progression to get the Phrygian sound. Remember that F note!..it's going to sound very tense and exotic over the Eminor.

Here's a quick clip of what this actually all sounds like over an Eminor based progression. I've emphasised the E-F semitone sound in a lot of the phrases..sounds very Spanish to me.

A lot of players actually play a G# instead of the G..which gives you the Phrygian Dominant scale..which is a mode of the Harmonic minor scale..but don't worry about that for now. :embarrassed:...try a G# instead of a G in your licks by all means though..it makes the b9 sound even more dramatic. In the clip below, I stuck to playing a G..just so you're clear on what the Phrygian mode sounds like.

http://www.box.net/shared/5o5xm5irphhttp://www.box.net/shared/5o5xm5irph

The backing track is available here.

http://www.fretjam.info/media-files/phryg-ambient.mp3
 
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I really need to do lessons on the Phrygian, Lydian and Locrian modes but I just can't get excited about it...I have been cranking out the music for my new book, though....
 
I really need to do lessons on the Phrygian, Lydian and Locrian modes but I just can't get excited about it...I have been cranking out the music for my new book, though....

Cool :rawk:...yeah, I just thought I'd do quick examples of the actual sound of these modes in some sort of context...I'll leave you to actually teach people something. :grin:..I've just done a Lydian one too which I'll post in a few days. :)
 
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Cool :rawk:...yeah, I just thought I'd do quick examples of the actual sound of these modes in some sort of context...I'll leave you to actually teach people something. :grin:..I've just done a Lydian one too which I'll post in a few days. :)


Your post actually had the basics of the sound, though...good stuff! These are great little lessons...
 
Not that the lead didn't sound good, but the acoustic sounds AWESOME! :love: How did you record that?

I love Phrygian a lot too, but I normally go with the G#. :embarrassed:
 
Not that the lead didn't sound good, but the acoustic sounds AWESOME! :love: How did you record that?

I love Phrygian a lot too, but I normally go with the G#. :embarrassed:

I can't take credit for that :( :grin:...got the BT from fretjam.com :tongue:
 
Mo, I love and miss the jamming over backing tracks! Glad to see you're back at it and I need to get back to playing to them as well. Now to this little ditty...

OK - I know I'm a theory dummy, but if I were asked to solo over that chord change, I'd simply say I was soloing in Am. I mean the Em to FMaj implies (in my pea brain) that it's in Am, so I really wouldn't think about a solo like this "modally" (if that's a word) Then again, that my simply be my own ignorance, seeing as I'm not a jazz player, I'm strictly blues rock guy, but I'd naturally start at the 12th fret with the pattern of (I know that I'm supposed to think notes not patterns, but...):

12 13 15
12 14 15
12 14 15
12 14
12 13 15
12 13 15

Which to me is still Am in my little head. Am I just thinking "modally" without knowing the actual names of the modes??
 
Mo, I love and miss the jamming over backing tracks! Glad to see you're back at it and I need to get back to playing to them as well. Now to this little ditty...

OK - I know I'm a theory dummy, but if I were asked to solo over that chord change, I'd simply say I was soloing in Am. I mean the Em to FMaj implies (in my pea brain) that it's in Am, so I really wouldn't think about a solo like this "modally" (if that's a word) Then again, that my simply be my own ignorance, seeing as I'm not a jazz player, I'm strictly blues rock guy, but I'd naturally start at the 12th fret with the pattern of (I know that I'm supposed to think notes not patterns, but...):

12 13 15
12 14 15
12 14 15
12 14
12 13 15
12 13 15

Which to me is still Am in my little head. Am I just thinking "modally" without knowing the actual names of the modes??

I am the same way, that I see it all off of the minor scale, and not the major...
 
Mo, I love and miss the jamming over backing tracks! Glad to see you're back at it and I need to get back to playing to them as well. Now to this little ditty...

OK - I know I'm a theory dummy, but if I were asked to solo over that chord change, I'd simply say I was soloing in Am. I mean the Em to FMaj implies (in my pea brain) that it's in Am, so I really wouldn't think about a solo like this "modally" (if that's a word) Then again, that my simply be my own ignorance, seeing as I'm not a jazz player, I'm strictly blues rock guy, but I'd naturally start at the 12th fret with the pattern of (I know that I'm supposed to think notes not patterns, but...):

12 13 15
12 14 15
12 14 15
12 14
12 13 15
12 13 15

Which to me is still Am in my little head. Am I just thinking "modally" without knowing the actual names of the modes??

Hey Tricky! :Wave:...to me, it sounds very much like Emin is the "strong" chord and playing the "F" note over that Emin creates that "phrygian/spanish sounding" tension. However, as long you recognise that sound, I don't think it really matters how you get there..after all, Amin (as you see it) has the same notes as C Major..which has the same notes as E Phrygian!...Not sure if I've read your pattern diagram right, but I think it should be:


Just a couple of differences, typo's I'm sure!...and I think in patterns all the time! :facepalm:...the one I used to play most of this was this one:


...which looks a lot like the D "Dorian" shape..my favourite shape..because I love the 1,3,4 fingering pattern on the B and E strings particularly...:facepalm:..but that's probably another topic. :embarrassed:
 
Hey Tricky! :Wave:...to me, it sounds very much like Emin is the "strong" chord and playing the "F" note over that Emin creates that "phrygian/spanish sounding" tension.

+1, it's the harmony that defines the tonal centre. And if you'd substitute then Em for an E (and thus bringing in the Phrygian dominant), then it would really push the tonal centre very strongly towards E.
 
Actually no typos, just stupidity (I inverted the strings :facepalm:) Show you how much I use tab. Anyway, yeah, I never really took the time to "learn" modes in terms of their names because in my mind they were always just "stopping points" for other scales. For example A Dorian is really just Em from A to A, so I never saw the need to think modally.

However, as I move into more complex music, I am starting to see the limitations in this line of thinking. For most of what I always played (again blues and rock) solos rarely if ever modulated from key to key, so once I know what key it was in I could utilize that along with the arp of the chord I was playing over to create my solo. Not that I start trying to play stuff that changes keys, I have to start thinking chord to chord and my standard approach sometimes seems to really limit me there.

Nothing a few thousand of hours of practice can't take care of, eh?
 
+1, it's the harmony that defines the tonal centre. And if you'd substitute then Em for an E (and thus bringing in the Phrygian dominant), then it would really push the tonal centre very strongly towards E.

I totally agree that any solo I constructed would revolve around E, I just would still think in terms of soloing in Am and then utilize the Em7 Arp as my main "stopping points" if that makes any sense.
 
Anyway, yeah, I never really took the time to "learn" modes in terms of their names because in my mind they were always just "stopping points" for other scales. For example A Dorian is really just Em from A to A, so I never saw the need to think modally.

I totally agree that any solo I constructed would revolve around E, I just would still think in terms of soloing in Am and then utilize the Em7 Arp as my main "stopping points" if that makes any sense.

This is just another way of "thinking modally," imo. :)
 
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