Phrygian Scale Question

Thanks for explaining why I do what I do. I just do it and don't think too much about it. I usually play G# Phrygian since, as you kindly remembered, I tend to play in E.
Phrygian E looks the same as C or Amin so what is the point if only the starting note is changed?
 
Phrygian E looks the same as C or Amin so what is the point if only the starting note is changed?
If you play the E Phrygian and the C Ionian, they have the same notes but they sound really different because the order of the half steps and whole step intervals is different.

Also, here's something I realized within the last two months or so: in terms of improvisation, I group notes based on how they are laid out on a fretboard. I will put together notes that are on the same fret but different strings or notes that are on the same string. When you use a mode, you have the same notes but they are jumbled a little bit so that new relationships pop up and new melodies are made.

As an addendum I want to point out that a good musician can take the 7 notes of a key and arrange them as he will. I suppose I have to admit I am not a good musician; i cannot see all my options. So these modes and how they alter the order of the notes and the intervals really opens my eyes.
 
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As Phrygian is a relative mode of both Ionian (major) and natural minor (Aeolian), the fretboard patterns you use for Phrygian are the same as for those modes. In other words, Phrygian offers no advantage in that respect. If I recall, you like to play in the "key of E" and if you also favor Phrygian, that would mean E Phrygian, which in scale pattern is identical to C major and A natural minor.

Because such patterns are movable, the same patterns are essentially used in every key in major, minor, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian and (should you ever have a need) Locrian modes. The patterns just shift and cycle on the neck.
After having posted this topic, exploring phrygian and reading everybody's input, I would agree.

I originally thought phrygian would add some interesting scale progressions like blues scale does by adding additional intervals, but it seems I've already been jamming in phrygian and all other modes without knowing it as I tend to move all over the fretboard depending on my interpretation of the mood of the piece I'm jamming with.

Mahalo everybody for your contribution to this discussion!
 
From the listener's point of view, if you're jamming in E Phrygian over a chord progression in A minor, what they hear is you playing in A minor! The notes are the same, and the harmony removes any sense of E being the tonic. (Are there any well-known Phrygian chord progressions?)
 
From the listener's point of view, if you're jamming in E Phrygian over a chord progression in A minor, what they hear is you playing in A minor! The notes are the same, and the harmony removes any sense of E being the tonic. (Are there any well-known Phrygian chord progressions?)
That's what I figured. Thanks for confirming. Are you aware of other scales, like blues scales, that change up intervals?
 
I know there's two families of modal jazz scales which work like that - one set based on different notes of the harmonic minor scale, the other on different notes of the melodic minor ascending scale. Not sure how you'd go about actually using them!
 
From the listener's point of view, if you're jamming in E Phrygian over a chord progression in A minor, what they hear is you playing in A minor! The notes are the same, and the harmony removes any sense of E being the tonic. (Are there any well-known Phrygian chord progressions?)
That's not my experience. I agree that the notes are the same and that someone could get a phrygian vibe from playing the appropriate notes in the aiolian. But they don't usually. And in my un-scientific observation of using modes of the harmonic and melodic minor for the past few years, I think it is all about the presentation...at least it is for me. When you are presented with a mode, certain interval combinations are foremost in your vision. Yes, those combinations could have been derived from the basic minor scale but they weren't.

For example when I play E harmonic minor and then B phrygian dominant, they sound very different although they contain the same notes. (same thing with E melodic minor and the B mixolydian b6). And since they sound different, the melodies derived from each are different.

so although these modes contain the same notes, those notes are ordered, organized, and phrased differently and that makes a big difference on the ear of the auditor.
 
That's not my experience. I agree that the notes are the same and that someone could get a phrygian vibe from playing the appropriate notes in the aiolian. But they don't usually. And in my un-scientific observation of using modes of the harmonic and melodic minor for the past few years, I think it is all about the presentation...at least it is for me. When you are presented with a mode, certain interval combinations are foremost in your vision. Yes, those combinations could have been derived from the basic minor scale but they weren't.

For example when I play E harmonic minor and then B phrygian dominant, they sound very different although they contain the same notes. (same thing with E melodic minor and the B mixolydian b6). And since they sound different, the melodies derived from each are different.

so although these modes contain the same notes, those notes are ordered, organized, and phrased differently and that makes a big difference on the ear of the auditor.
I guess one difference would be if you rested a lot on the first and fifth notes of the E Phrygian mode, rather than the first and fifth of A minor. Fewer long "A"s than expected, and more long "B"s?
 
I guess one difference would be if you rested a lot on the first and fifth notes of the E Phrygian mode, rather than the first and fifth of A minor. Fewer long "A"s than expected, and more long "B"s?
I biggie for me would be avoiding the C in the E Phrygian. If you avoid the C then the ear hears the E as the tonic, but once you hit that C, the true tonic of the key, then everything shifts back to C major. At least that's how my ear works, but it may be merely the power of suggestion because when I'm playing I know what I'm playing. However, a listener may not have preconceived notions.
 
I thought I would share something that seems germane to this thread. Modes are rather fragile, false economies that exist at the discretion of the tonic. But it is possible to efface the tonic.

I was playing in F# Dorian b2, the second mode of E melodic minor. After jamming for a while, I went down to the E on the 4th fret, totally expecting the normal: once you hit the E things will sound resolved and you're back in E melodic minor. However, the E just sounded like a bump in road that you're supposed to pass and not look back at.

I don't know what I did, but I was totally in F#. I just wanted to point that out. Even though I cannot offer a road map, it is possible to make the mode less transitory.
 
I thought I would share something that seems germane to this thread. Modes are rather fragile, false economies that exist at the discretion of the tonic. But it is possible to efface the tonic.

I was playing in F# Dorian b2, the second mode of E melodic minor. After jamming for a while, I went down to the E on the 4th fret, totally expecting the normal: once you hit the E things will sound resolved and you're back in E melodic minor. However, the E just sounded like a bump in road that you're supposed to pass and not look back at.

I don't know what I did, but I was totally in F#. I just wanted to point that out. Even though I cannot offer a road map, it is possible to make the mode less transitory.
Sometimes an unresolved ending can sound good!
 
I thought I would share something that seems germane to this thread. Modes are rather fragile, false economies that exist at the discretion of the tonic. But it is possible to efface the tonic.

I was playing in F# Dorian b2, the second mode of E melodic minor. After jamming for a while, I went down to the E on the 4th fret, totally expecting the normal: once you hit the E things will sound resolved and you're back in E melodic minor. However, the E just sounded like a bump in road that you're supposed to pass and not look back at.

I don't know what I did, but I was totally in F#. I just wanted to point that out. Even though I cannot offer a road map, it is possible to make the mode less transitory.
Intriguing! Clearly, there's a lot more to learn about this than I thought. When I've used modes in the past, it was in a rather naive and straightforward way where the tonic of the mode is the same as the root of the home chord.
 
I found in my music binder a harmonization of the phrygian. I don't know whence I obtained it nor how long I've had it, but here it is for your use. I will dispense with the formula and just give the chords for the E phrygian:

Emin--Emaj--F#maj--Amin--Bdim7--Bmaj--C#min

So, it you want to play the ubiquitous I-IV-V with a phrygian twist, it would be Emin, Amin, Bdim7.
 
Something that I have been toying with composition-wise is to use the mode as more of an extension of the parent scale rather than a freestanding mode. You lose the characteristic of the mode but it allows you to erase the lines between scales, to double the voices you have for your picking, and to create new melodies because of the proximities of the notes.

All I'm doing is not restricting myself to the mode which is kind of new to me. Usually if I say I am playing in E Phrygian then I stick to the mode. In this instance I start off in E Phrygian on the 9th fret, play a few notes or a riff in that mode then slide down a few frets to the C Ionian on the 5th fret.

I started doing this because I am playing the modes of the melodic minor in E. There's a mode in the middle of the fretboard, the G Lydian #5, which I don't like. But once I realized I don't have to commit to it--that I can just play it a little and then move down to a F# Dorian b2 or move over to a D# Super Lokrian, then my life was improved.

Same thing with C major and E Phrygian.
 
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