12 Scales That Sound Egyptian, Spanish, Spooky or Dreamy

Phrygian dominant (E F G# A B C D) is the scale that sounds most Egyptian or Arabic to Western ears, with the double harmonic scale close behind. Spanish flamenco leans on Phrygian, Japanese koto music on the In and Hirajoshi scales, spooky music on Locrian, diminished and whole-tone scales, and medieval or dreamy music on Dorian and Lydian. Each entry gives the notes and a chord or drone to hold under them.

Most of these flavors come from one or two unusual gaps between neighboring notes. The Middle Eastern sound is a gap of three semitones (an augmented second, like F up to G#), often right after a half step above the home note. That half step, the flat 2nd, is also what darkens Phrygian, Locrian and the Japanese In scale. Four entries are modes: the seven notes of an ordinary major scale started from a different note, so moving the home note is enough to change the mood.

What scale sounds Egyptian or Arabic?

All three scales in this group have the three-semitone gap. They differ in where it sits and whether there is one gap or two.

1. Phrygian dominant (Egyptian, Arabic, klezmer). 1 b2 3 4 5 b6 b7; on E: E F G# A B C D. The half step from E up to F, then the leap from F to G#, is the sound people usually mean by “Egyptian”. Arabic and Egyptian music call it maqam Hijaz (a singer tunes it a little differently from a piano), klezmer players call it freygish, and some versions of “Hava Nagila” are built on it. To hear it, hold a low E and play E F G# A G# F E slowly, leaning on the F, or vamp between E major and F major and end each phrase on F falling to E.

2. Double harmonic (snake charmer, Byzantine). 1 b2 3 4 5 b6 7; on E: E F G# A B C D#. Phrygian dominant with the 7th raised, so it has two three-semitone gaps (F to G# and C to D#), and its top four notes (B C D# E) copy the shape of its bottom four (E F G# A). Hold E major under it: the D# sits a half step below E, so phrases pull hard back up to the root. “Misirlou”, the eastern Mediterranean folk song that Dick Dale recorded as a surf-rock instrumental in 1962, runs up and down this scale in E.

3. Harmonic minor (a Middle Eastern tinge in a minor key). 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 7; on A: A B C D E F G#. A natural minor scale with the 7th raised a half step, which opens a three-semitone gap between F and G#. Most Western songs use harmonic minor only for its chords: it is where the major E chord comes from in A minor, so rocking between Am and E already hints at it. Play the scale from E to E and you are playing Phrygian dominant. Gelato Synth, our synth for iPhone, has Harmonic Minor among its nine scales but no Phrygian dominant, so set the root to A in Notes mode and land your phrases on E.

These are piano versions. Arabic music has dozens of maqams, and several of them use notes that fall between a piano’s keys, so a keyboard gives you the outline. Slides and quick trills between E and F get you a little closer.

What scale sounds Spanish?

Phrygian dominant already carries the nickname Spanish gypsy scale. Flamenco mixes it with plain Phrygian, often in the same phrase.

4. Phrygian (Spanish, flamenco, metal). 1 b2 b3 4 5 b6 b7; on E: E F G A B C D. These are the white keys from E to E. It keeps the flat 2nd of Phrygian dominant but has G where that scale has G#, which makes it darker and less exotic. Flamenco melodies slip between G and G# while the guitar strums an E major chord underneath, and the Andalusian cadence (Am, G, F, E) walks down the same notes to that E. The A minor key page plays that cadence as one of its progressions. Metal uses the same half step as a riff on the low E string: palm-mute E E F E and you have it. Megadeth’s “Symphony of Destruction” is a well-known example.

What scale sounds Japanese or Chinese?

The Japanese scales are five-note scales with half steps in them. The Chinese sound comes from a five-note scale with none.

5. Hirajoshi (Japanese, koto). 1 2 b3 5 b6; on A: A B C E F. It comes from a koto tuning of the same name, and Western books disagree on which notes it has; this is the version in Kostka and Payne’s textbook Tonal Harmony. Every version has the same gaps (2, 1, 4, 1, 4 semitones) started from a different note: two half steps (here B to C and E to F), each followed by a four-semitone leap. Play it over an A drone or an Am chord with a short, twangy sound such as a pluck or harp patch.

6. In scale (Japanese, “Sakura Sakura”). 1 b2 4 5 b6; on E: E F A B C. Also called the Miyako-bushi scale, and sometimes the Sakura scale, after the folk song “Sakura Sakura”; koto and shamisen music both use it. It has the same five white keys as Hirajoshi on A, but with E as home the half step sits right above the root, so it sounds more mournful. It has no 3rd, so hold an open fifth (E and B) underneath and skip full chords.

7. Major pentatonic (Chinese, and a lot of folk). 1 2 3 5 6; on C: C D E G A. Chinese music theory calls this the gong mode, and the black keys of a piano form one (Gb Ab Bb Db Eb). It has no half steps, so no two notes rub, which is why the major and minor pentatonic scales are so easy to improvise on. The same five notes run through Scottish, country and gospel tunes, so the Chinese flavor comes from the sound and the phrasing. Hold C and G low, pick a plucked or bowed tone, and slide up into the notes of the melody.

Scales that sound mysterious, evil or spooky

None of these three has a major or minor chord on its home note, so the music never gets a place to rest.

8. Locrian (evil, unstable). 1 b2 b3 4 b5 b6 b7; on B: B C D E F G A. Its home chord is diminished (B D F), because the 5th is flattened into a tritone. No other mode has an unstable home chord, so whole songs in Locrian are rare. Metal bands such as Slipknot and Gojira use it, and the heavy bass line of Björk’s “Army of Me” is in C Locrian. To hear it, keep a low B sounding under both chords as you rock between Bdim and C.

9. Diminished (spooky, suspense). Whole step, half step, repeating; on C: C D Eb F Gb Ab A B. Eight notes built from two interlocking diminished seventh chords (C Eb Gb A and D F Ab B), a chord composers have used for danger and mystery since Baroque opera. Hold Cdim7 (C Eb Gb A) and let a melody climb the scale over it. Only three different diminished scales exist, so a riff moved up three semitones lands on the same notes. Jazz players start it with the half step instead (C Db Eb E F# G A Bb) to play over dominant chords such as C7.

10. Whole tone (mysterious, weightless). Six whole steps; on C: C D E F# G# A#. Every gap is the same size, so no note feels like home and the music seems to float in place. There are only two whole-tone scales: this one and the one on C#. Debussy’s piano prelude “Voiles” stays almost entirely inside one, and since the 1930s the whole-tone sound has been a stock effect in Hollywood film scores. Stevie Wonder uses it in bars 2 and 4 of the opening of “You Are the Sunshine of My Life”. To try it, alternate Caug (C E G#) and Daug (D F# A#), which between them hold all six notes.

Scales that sound medieval, dreamy or ethereal

Each of these is one note away from an everyday scale: Lydian from major, Dorian from natural minor.

11. Lydian (dreamy, ethereal). 1 2 3 #4 5 6 7; on F: F G A B C D E. A major scale with a raised 4th (B where F major has Bb), which makes the chord a step above home major too: G instead of Gm. Rock slowly between F and G with a soft pad and long reverb. In F major the Bb wants to fall to A; the Lydian B has no such pull, so melodies seem to hover. In Gelato Chord, Lydian is one of the ten scales, and the melody plate then shows only its notes, so a sweep across the strings is a Lydian run.

12. Dorian (medieval, folk). 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7; on D: D E F G A B C. A minor scale with a major 6th (B where D minor has Bb), which keeps it sad without sounding heavy. Medieval church music had a Dorian mode that ran D to D on these same white keys. “Scarborough Fair” and “Drunken Sailor” both use the Dorian mode, and so does Miles Davis’s jazz tune “So What”. For a medieval feel, hold D and A together as a drone and keep the melody moving by step.

Phrygian, Dorian, Lydian and Locrian all use the white keys of C major, so you can hear all four without a new fingering. Open the online chord player, pick C major, and rock between two chords while treating the first one as home:

Locrian is the pair that fights back: on chords alone the C soon takes over as home, and that pull is why so little music stays in Locrian.