@elenathanasiadou I don’t know how much you know about the major scale so this may or may not make sense.
The Major scale uses the 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 scale degrees the Phrygian mode uses the 1 b2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 scale degrees of the Major scale.
If you write out the notes you are playing and compare then to the C major scale you’ll be able to figure out if that is the mode your playing. It’s a minor mode with a middle eastern sound.
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Slightly above my musical knowledge but it makes sense so I’ll dig it a bit more. Thanks a lot!
Sounds more like G harmonic minor to me.
Not sure how to describe it for guitar, but from a piano perspective, Phrygian is the scale you get if you play all the white keys from E to E (instead of C to C). E minor has just 1 sharp: F#, the 2nd scale degree, so you can also think of it as a natural minor scale but with a flatted 2nd.
For guitar, it will probably make more sense from an interval standpoint. A half step is the distance between one fret and the next on the same string, and a whole step is twice that. The intervals between the notes of a natural minor scale are:
whole, half, whole, whole, half, whole, whole
For Phrygian, that flat 2nd makes it:
half, whole, whole, whole, half, whole, whole
Harmonic minor, on the other hand is a natural minor scale but with a sharp 7th, and the intervals for that are:
whole, half, whole, whole, half, minor 3rd, half
Where a minor 3rd is three half steps. Starting at G, that makes:
G, A, Bb, C, D, Eb, Gb, G
And from what I can hear, your very cool riff starts at the D and Eb of this and stresses that sweet sounding Gb and its relation between the Eb and the G, which is what I think gives it that Middle Eastern flavor.
Maybe there’s a name for this scale when it starts at D, but I wouldn’t know.
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Oh ha, we are both (partly) right! I looked it up, and there is indeed a name for the scale starting from the 5th note (the D here) of a harmonic minor scale: the Phrygian dominant scale!
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Very interesting stuff, thanks for sharing!
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That was a great bit of improv Helen. I loved the Arabic feel it had.
Very cool to just let loose and let it flow. Nicely done.
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Sounded awesome Helen, as others have said very arabic / middle eastern. I’d like to hear a longer take sometime!
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I think that you’ve done really well figuring this out for yourself, the main thing that most have missed is your ear for what sounds right!
To me when you’re improvising it’s really important to have a sense of what sounds good, it’s all too easy to get tied up in the theory but your ear is the best judge if you’ve got that sense of what’s good and what’s not. I agree with some of the others that it would be great to hear you elaborate on this some more, say up to 2:30 to 3:00, it could be your first piece, maybe you could even add some words to it as well!
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Once again, a huge thank you to everyone for your kind words and input.
In terms of composing sth longer I’ll definitely give it a shot. I’ve already started transcribing some licks so I’ll keep you updated:)
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