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Scales › Phrygian dominant (Spanish)

Phrygian dominant (Spanish) scale

Spanish flamenco ♭9

7 notes

guide tones (3rd & 7th — the heart of the sound) avoid (strong clash)

C · Db · E · F · G · Ab · Bb

What color?

The Spanish/flamenco sound par excellence: dominant major third but b9 and b13, with the augmented second between b9 and 3. This is the scale for V7b9 in minor, the one you draw for a fiery Iberian color.

Origin & history

The fifth mode of the harmonic minor, it can be heard all around the Mediterranean and in the Near East. It is the color of flamenco (over the Andalusian cadence) and, under the name freygish, a pillar of the klezmer music of Eastern Europe.

Listen

Which chords to play it on?

The jazz consensus (Aebersold) recommends it on:

dominant seventh chord

Sibling modes

The Phrygian dominant (Spanish) scale is one of the modes of the harmonic minor : it shares exactly the same notes as the modes below, but built on a different degree of the parent scale (harmonic minor).

harmonic minor classical minor, augmented second Locrian ♮6 half-diminished with major thirteenth Ionian ♯5 (augmented major) major with augmented fifth Dorian ♯4 (Romanian) Romanian Dorian ♯4 Lydian ♯2 crystalline Lydian ♯2 super-Locrian ♭♭7 (ultralocrian) diminished Locrian, bb7

Try it in a real chart

Paste a chord chart into the tool: Pentania tells you, chord by chord, when this scale fits — and what other colors are open to you. Open the tool →