The Phrygian scale is a minor scale with a flat 2nd, and that half step above the root gives it a dark, tense, Spanish sound. It's the third mode of the major scale, loved in flamenco, metal and modal jazz.
Formula
| 1 | b2 | b3 | 4 | 5 | b6 | b7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | Bb | C | D | E | F | G |
Steps: H W W W H W W. The reference key is A Phrygian, and it's what the diagrams below use. It has the same notes as F major, starting from A. Compared with A natural minor (A B C D E F G), only one note changes: B drops to Bb.
Sound and character
Phrygian is darker than natural minor. The b2 sits right on top of the root and wants to fall back onto it, so every Bb-to-A move sounds like a sigh or a threat, depending on how hard you play it. Slow and clean, it's Spanish and mysterious; loud and palm-muted, it's pure metal.
Where it's used
Flamenco and Spanish-flavored guitar, thrash and death metal riffs, film scores, and jazz over minor chords. It fits m7 chords that aren't the home key's i chord, most of all the iii chord of a major key (Am7 in F major), and minor chords where the bass moves up a half step. The key chords built from it are Am, Bb, C, Dm, Edim, F and Gm. The move that makes it sound Phrygian is Am to Bb (i to bII) and back.
How to move it
The root is the amber dot. Slide the whole pattern so the amber dots land on the new key's root: move everything up 2 frets for B Phrygian, or up 7 frets for E Phrygian, the metal favorite (which you can also play from the open low E).
Related scales: Phrygian is natural minor with a b2. Raise its 3rd and you get Phrygian dominant, the sound of Spanish and neoclassical metal.
Play the first exercise slowly with a metronome, then the second one, which sets every note against the open A so you hear each interval.