D Harmonic Minor Scale on Classical Guitar

Play the D Harmonic Minor scale on Classical Guitar with fretboard diagrams that map the pattern across the neck. The Harmonic Minor scale has 7 notes per octave and belongs to the common family.

D is available as an open string on Classical Guitar, and 4 of its 5 open strings are scale tones — E (the 2nd), A (the 5th), D (the root), G (the 4th). The B string sits outside the scale. Open, the strings cover E2 to E4.

Dark and dramatic. The raised 7th pulls hard toward the tonic, and the wide step from the b6 up to it gives the scale an exotic, almost Middle-Eastern tension.

Heard in: Classical minor-key harmony, neoclassical metal (Yngwie Malmsteen), flamenco-tinged rock, klezmer, and Balkan melodies.

It has nylon strings on a wider, flatter neck than a steel-string guitar, which is why it is played fingerstyle rather than with a pick.

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 D Harmonic Minor scale to the chords it harmonizes and to progressions in the key of D 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.