Creating Killer Guitar Solos with Phrygian Dominant

Click the following two links for lessons covering Harmonic Minor...

In this quick video guitar lesson, I will show you how to improvise using the Phrygian Dominant mode by using your familiar harmonic minor scale forms.

By watching this quick little improvisation and talk about the Phrygian Dominant mode, you will learn that it is simply a mode of the harmonic minor scale. More specifically, it is the 5th mode of the harmonic minor scale.

Using that knowledge, I will quickly demonstrate how to locate the Phrygian Dominant mode in all keys using some simple scale theory.

After that, you will be able to improvise with this very interesting sounding scale. You have probably heard this scale many times if you are a fan of hard rock and metal music. Many famous guitarists including Kirk Hammett, Marty Friedman, Dave Mustaine, Steve Vai and Joe Satriani have used it extensively to give their soloing a very exotic and musically satisfying flavor.

Hopefully, after you watch this video lesson and review the harmonic minor lessons cited above, you will also be able to add this super cool sound to your arsenal.

Good Luck!

Carl..

[metaldad]

weird story, I was researching the Phrygian dominant scale for a project I'm working on. I came across this and my name is also carl brown

[drexlspivey]

When I was in college the lecturer taught us the E Phrygian scale then immediately asked us each to improvise over him strumming chords, I hadn't taken in what he showed us but I new if I noodled licks with the E Harmonic Minor scale the effect would be exactly the same, totally blagged it and there was him thinking I was paying attention lol

[philipkarovski]

Yngwie made a career out of the phrygian dominant scale

[DanielVerberne]

Am I the only guitarist here who struggles with the theory and instead has visualized the pattern of this mode (along with other modes) in several positions and can "connect" those scale patterns?  I realise this is a possibly a poor-man's way of learning music ... but it works for me.

[lexvdw]

I find it easier to think of Phrygian Dominant as just Phrygian mode with a major third

[sttarch]

The reason Kirk uses this mode is that he took lessons from Satriani. Joe is the man.

[WijnandN]

I love the exotic sound of this scale, awesome lesson, thanks!

[valdapuing]

!!! NICE !!! Thanks for explaining that. So, I can play harmonic minors and mentally push it up to the fifth note and call it a Phrygian Dominant! Sweet!

[waldemarrojas]

opening part sounds alot like Metallica where ever I may roam

[Eflatmajorsharp]

Note that this scale is "dominant" because of the presence of the 3/b7 tritone, similar to the Lydian Dominant scale (4th mode of Melodic Minor) which also has the tritone.

[filipemartins]

This is an absolutely brilliant lesson! Thank you so much for the lesson mate!

[lokeleenP]

My fav mode i play with this all the time

[sassaman]

Thanks for the great lesson like always, your videos make everything clear and easier to understand. Which IMO is not an easy thing to do.

[aingealc]

Thanks Carl great lesson now I know what I need to study next I just memorized the pentatonic scale to play blues rock. I just needed this info to progress in the right direction for playing metal leads in my new band everything always changes and Im just trying to keep up thanks for the guidance. You rock!

[rock]

George Lynch uses this scale a lot in his solos.  I like the exotic sound.

[guitarttimman]

You can really do a lot of cool stuff with the phyrgian mode. It's very cool. I use it. What's weird is that you either get a fusion player or a rocker. I do both.

[ItsMikey]

Sounds very Yngwie-esque too. Well that's probably because it's based in Harmonic Minor.

[kkarx]

I find it quite easy to play something tasty in this mode. Everything sounds just fine. It is way harder to make natural minor or pentatonic scale sound good.

[Flavum]

I ran across this mode the other day just by chance. The quick way of describing it (so that a dolt like me can understand), is if you're playing in the key of A, just play a harmonic minor scale that starts on E, a fifth above. Ta-da.

[JesusSavedMyLife]

its just the best sounding scale ever - no doubt.