The Spanish Minor And Her Angry Cousin
Phrygian is probably the easiest mode to recognize due to its semitone intervals between the root – b2nd as well as between the 5th – b6th. These semitones give it a flavour that lends itself well to fast and aggressive playing.
Should you play Phrygian with a lot of distortion and play it very quickly, you would fit well into the heavy metal scene. On a nylon-strung guitar, you would enter the wonderful world of Flamenco music.
Whatever style you prefer, Phrygian will always appear naturally every time you play over chord III.
For a guitarist, the best way to approach Phrygian is to add notes to the five Minor Pentatonic shapes.
To build Phrygian from the Minor Pentatonic using intervals looks like this:
Minor Pentatonic: | 1 | m3 | 4 | 5 | b7 | ||
Phrygian: | b2 | b6 |
Practice Phrygian
You know the drill by now:
- Start with the individual shapes, in all keys of course!
- Next, connect the shapes. In all keys!
- Finally, move to the closest shape possible using the cycle of 4th.
All exercises for doing this are available in the playlist above.
Phrygian Improvisation
When you learn how to play all modes, it’s very tempting to rush through it and get on to the next one in order to find a sense of completeness.
But this would be missing the point, you must discover the feeling of each mode, not just be able to play it up and down in all shapes and keys.
When it comes to Phrygian, it is a very defined sound, best experienced by noodling around without any chords. Start with the Minor Pentatonic, add the b2, then go back, then add the b6.
Take your time and don’t move on until you really can distinguish between Phrygian and the other two minor modes, Dorian and Aeolian.
As you next play songs, know that every time you come across the III chord, you can play a Minor Pentatonic and expand it into the b2 and b6.
When you feel as if you can’t take any more Phrygian, let me introduce you to her even angrier cousin…
The Angry Cousin – Phrygian Dominant
Now then, we’re not done yet. Very often, the III chord has been modified from minor to major, it happens all the time and makes the pull towards chord VI stronger.
Whenever this happens, Phrygian has to do the same, change from minor to major.
Even though Phrygian Dominant is a major scale, due to its similarity to Phrygian, it’s easier to practice it as a variation of Phrygian.
Since the scale only appears when a chord has been modified from a normal III chord into a IIIx chord, this approach makes more sense.
This is what both scales look like using just the intervals. Notice how it is only the 3rd interval that differs.
Phrygian: | 1 | b2 | m3 | 4 | 5 | b6 | b7 |
Phrygian Dominant: | 1 | b2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | b6 | b7 |
Connect Phrygian Dominant Shapes
When you can play it on all shapes, it’s time to connect the Phrygian Dominant shapes in A. When you can do this, try all other keys and push that BPM!
This is much more difficult than previous modes due to the more angular layout of Phrygian Dominant. Use the video lessons above to see how this is done.
When you can do it in A as the video demonstrates, try it in D, G, C, F, and all other keys as well.
The Final Step – Cycle Of 4th
Your final variation takes the Phrygian Dominant mode and runs it through the cycle of 4th. This is an important step when teaching your hands the shapes of the mode.
Should you get stuck in a shape, go back and practice that shape individually. Think of this exercise as a test to see which shape you don’t know well enough.
The full exercise flows like this:
A Phrygian Dominant – E(m) shape, D Phrygian Dominant – A(m) shape, G Phrygian Dominant – D(m) shape, C Phrygian Dominant – G(m) shape, F Phrygian Dominant – C(m) shape.
Since there are so many video lessons, not to mention taking them all through every single key, this is going to take a while.
However, you know how to achieve this, by making it a daily routine.
When you can do it, that’s playing any exercise without making mistakes, you’re ready to move on to the final step, the master exercise…
Phrygian Dominant Improvisation
I understand that by now it’s very tempting to move to the final step and see if you know all your minor scales.
But don’t rush ahead, you must first improvise with the Phrygian Dominant scale, without any chords supporting you.
What it really comes down to is to visualize all intervals in relation to the root.
For example, can you play a Minor Pentatonic lick with a major 3rd instead of a minor, and target the b7? Then add the b9, then a b6? Can you go to a new key and shape, think of what intervals you want to use, and come up with a lick?
When this feels like it’s possible and you’re not making mistakes, start applying it in real songs.
If you start playing Phrygian Dominant up and down every time there’s a IIIx chord you know you’ve missed the point. You may know the scale but you’re not making music with it.
The trick is to not use all notes all the time, maybe just b9, b7 and major 3rd is enough for a lick.
Remember, playing music is not a scale exam!
Phrygian + Phrygian Dominant Guitar Lesson | Related Pages
Minor Scales | Step-by-step guitar course

Using the CAGED system and the Minor Pentatonic as our foundation, we can build all possible minor scales.
The minor scales course takes care of this in just 8 steps. All you have to do is put the time in, following the step-by-step format.
Advanced Acoustic Course
In the Advanced Acoustic Course, we find huge chord extensions and unique chords using open strings. A few solos are incorporated as well.
Perhaps most importantly, we create 2nd guitar parts for most of these tunes, enabling you to play along with me and the singers as if we were a band.
Minor Pentatonic | Minor Scales
This is where it all starts. You must learn all five positions of the Minor Pentatonic. Without this, the guitar will never make sense,
Using the video lessons demonstrating this in Am, you can move on once you have practised in all other keys as well.
Min7 | Arpeggios
In this first step, we practice the min7 arpeggios in all CAGED shapes. This is easy if you know your minor pentatonic shapes.
Video lessons are available starting on an A. To complete this step, you must play starting on the remaining 11 notes as well.
Guitar Chords | The CAGED System
With traditional music theory, the stave, and a piano, you’ll get easy-to-understand chords but they will not help if you want to play chords on the guitar.
Instead, on the guitar we use chord shapes derived from the five open-position chords, C, A, G, E, and D, hence CAGED.
Chordacus
Spytunes chords, scale, and arpeggio software, Chordacus is a refined version of the so-called CAGED system.
Now available as both a chromatic (original version) and “within a key”, developed with the help of a Spytunes student.
About me | Dan Lundholm
This was a guitar lesson about Phrygian & Phrygian Dominant, by Dan Lundholm. Discover more about him and learn guitar with Spytunes.
Most importantly, find out why you should learn guitar through playing tunes, not practising scales, and studying theory in isolation.