E Gypsy Minor Scale on Octave Mandolin

Play the E Gypsy Minor scale on Octave Mandolin with fretboard diagrams that map the pattern across the neck. The Gypsy Minor scale has 7 notes per octave and belongs to the world family.

E is available as an open string on Octave Mandolin, and 2 of its 4 open strings are scale tones — G (the flat 3rd), E (the root). The D and A strings sit outside the scale. Open, the strings cover G2 to E4.

It is also known as the Hungarian Minor scale.

Harmonic minor with a raised 4th — two wide, yearning steps (b3 to #4, b6 to 7) give it a smoldering, theatrical intensity. Dark, exotic, and full of drama.

Heard in: Hungarian and Romani folk, Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies, gypsy jazz, klezmer, and neoclassical metal.

Octave Mandolin is strung in four courses of two, so each stopped note here sounds as two — which is why the shape rings thicker than the same grip on a single-strung instrument.

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 Gypsy Minor 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.