You probably know Rick Beato from videos of his kid with the crazy good ear – he can hear and sing all the notes of insane polychords that his dad plays on the piano, and other crazy cool tricks he can do with absolute pitch and extensive ear training and theory.
In this new video, Rick shows us what he calls “the darkest scale ever”, the Double Harmonic Major scale. It’s a scale that features a b2 and major 7, which puts a cluster of 2 half steps right in a row (so 3 notes right next to each other), which makes it sound pretty gnarly. If you’re familiar with the 5th mode of harmonic minor which is called Phrygian Dominant (just think Yngwie Malmsteen), you can just raise the 7th from that mode to achieve this scale.
I think calling it the “darkest scale ever” is a pretty bold statement, especially considering it has a major third, but hey, it’s pretty damn dark otherwise, and this is a really fun and interesting musical thought exercise.
If you want to learn every scale on the guitar in just one hour, check out my RelationShapes scales course here.
Gabriel Moreira / January 9, 2018 7:34 pm
It’s awesome that they managed to create such a beautiful and complex piece of music in 6 hours.
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Jen / January 10, 2018 1:51 am
the first mode is like sharing a slow dance with the spiders crawling out of your skin.
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