E Locrian Scale on Banjolele

Play the E Locrian scale on Banjolele with fretboard diagrams that map the pattern across the neck. The Locrian scale has 7 notes per octave and belongs to the modes family.

Banjolele's tuning sits inside this one: all 4 open strings are scale tones and one of them is E itself — G (the flat 3rd), C (the flat 6th), E (the root), A (the 4th). Open-string drones cost nothing here. Open, the strings cover C4 to A4.

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 banjo head on a ukulele neck, which is why it cuts through where a wooden ukulele does not.

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 E Locrian scale to the chords it harmonizes and to progressions in the key of E 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.