Flamenco Guitar Scales - The Phrygian And Harmonic Minor

You know, there really isn't such as "flamenco guitar scales". The scales that flamenco guitarists use are also used in many other style of music, it's just the same scales can be used in a variety of different ways to produce different sounding music.

Taking an example of this we could look at blues guitar music which is firmly based around the Pentatonic scale. The word "penta" means five, so pentatonic is 5 tones and indeed the pentatonic scale (in both major and minor form) does contain only 5 notes. We all know what blues music sounds like, it's very distinctive especially when the pentatonic scales is played against dominant 7 chords.

We can however flip this coin on its head. Japanese and Chinese music sounds vastly different in every way to blues music right? But actually traditional Chinese music is also based upon the major pentatonic scale. Here we have a classic example of how the same scale can be used to produce vastly different sounding music.

This is why there's no such thing as a flamenco guitar scale. It is in fact the Harmonic Minor scale and its various modes which are being used along with to a lesser extent the natural minor scale and the major scale.

The Harmonic minor is very distinctive in its tonality and it's where flamenco & Spanish guitar get much of their tonal colour and character from.

Here's how the scale is formed

1 2 b3 4 5 b6 7 8

Which would be

A B C D E F G# A

We have numerous instances of a m2nd (minor second) interval in the scale. Between B - C and E - F and G# - A. These intervals are what give the scale is "Arabian, flamenco" Spanish flavor. During your flamenco guitar lessons try to learn scales in relation to the chords that will be played underneath them. This will help you to not only put both elements together more easily but also help your ear to learn to recognize each scales tonal qualities.