A# Locrian Scale on 5-String Banjo

Play the A# Locrian scale on 5-String Banjo with fretboard diagrams that map the pattern across the neck. The Locrian scale has 7 notes per octave and belongs to the modes family.

1 of 5-String Banjo's 3 open strings belongs to A# Locrian: B (the flat 2nd). The g and D strings fall outside it, and A# is not available open. Open, the strings cover D3 to G4.

The most dissonant, unstable mode — the tonic chord is diminished (b5), making a true Locrian tonal center rare. Used for color and passing harmony.

Heard in: Metal riffs, jazz (half-diminished ø7 chords in ii°7 – V – i), horror and tension film scores.

It has a drum head rather than a wooden top, so notes bloom and die fast.

Each position shows the scale notes and their intervals from the root so you can connect the shape to its sound, hear it with audio playback, and practice it in any register. Movable patterns let you transpose the same fingering to other keys once it is learned.

Once a position is under your fingers, link the A# Locrian scale to the chords it harmonizes and to progressions in the key of A# to start improvising and writing with it. Working a scale alongside its chords is the fastest way to make it stick and to hear how it colors a progression.