C Phrygian Scale on Guitalele

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

C is available as an open string on Guitalele, and 2 of its 5 open strings are scale tones — G (the 5th), C (the root). The A, D and E strings sit outside the scale. Open, the strings cover A2 to A4.

Very dark minor with a half-step above the tonic. Spanish, Flamenco, and metal flavor — exotic, tense, and mysterious.

Heard in: Flamenco, metal, dark film scores — Carlos Santana solos, Joe Satriani's "War", Moorish and Andalusian music.

Guitalele is tuned A–D–G–C–E–A, with 15 frets to work with. Guitar shapes work unchanged on guitalele — finger them exactly as charted; every shape sounds a perfect fourth higher than on guitar.

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 C Phrygian scale to the chords it harmonizes and to progressions in the key of C 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.