E Natural Minor Scale on Sitar

Play the E Natural Minor scale on Sitar with fretboard diagrams that map the pattern across the neck. The Natural Minor scale has 7 notes per octave and belongs to the common family.

All 2 of Sitar's open strings fall inside E Natural Minor — C (the flat 6th), G (the flat 3rd) — though E itself has to be stopped. Open, the strings cover C3 to C5.

It is also known as the Aeolian scale.

The standard natural minor scale — melancholic, introspective, and deeply emotive. The most common minor sound in Western music.

Heard in: Pop, rock, classical, metal — the default minor sound of Western music.

Sitar is tuned C–G–C–G–C, with 15 frets to work with.

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 Natural 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.