Joe Bonamassa 'Indian' scale

AJS

I saw a brief clip on you tube of joe Bonamassa jamming around a eastern style or indian scale.  Unfortunately I cannot find the clip anymore.  I also think he uses the scale in Mountain time.

Does anyone know what thw structure of the scale is?

JerkMoans

Could it be the harmonic minor?  That, to my cloth ears, has a vaguely eastern, exotic sound...

 e.g. https://www.justinguitar.com/guitar-lessons/harmonic-minor-the-five-patterns-sc-704 for some noodling ideas...

JM

digitalkettle

Sounds like it might just be a pentatonic variant like 1 3 4 5 b7 which I've seen called the 'Hindu' pentatonic scale.

digitalkettle

Here's a bunch of distinctive sounding 'Japanese' pentatonics:
https://www.musicnotes.com/blog/japanese-scales-in-music-theory/

viz

The other "Hindu" scale is the 5th mode of melodic minor, which is basically an upside-down melodic minor, in other words major on the bottom, Aeolian at the top: 1 M2 M3 4 5 m6 m7 8. This is what's naturally used on the Dominant (V chord) of a minor piece, but when used on the Tonic, it has a lovely Eastern feel. Not as Eastern as the double-harmonic / snake-charmer scale, or Phrygian Dominant or whatever but falls easily to the hands of people who are used to melodic minor. It's also called Mixolydian b6 or Aeolian Dominant. I love it.

digitalkettle

digitalkettle said:

Sounds like it might just be a pentatonic variant like 1 3 4 5 b7 which I've seen called the 'Hindu' pentatonic scale.

I've annoyed myself by saying 'it's just a xxx scale' when, as ever, it's all about note choice and phrasing!

You can get some pretty exotic sounds by pushing the 'plain old' minor pentatonic with certain inflections: b5, bent third, random chromaticisms*, etc. I quite like this approach because you can use the 'plain old' as a basic framework and not have to learn 100 other variations: if you can hear it, you can try and squeeze it out of your fingers...so there is value in getting familiar with, say, those Japanese scales I linked above just so you can absorb the flavour of the intervals.

* I think of this as 'engaging Chris Poland mode' for any old school Megadeth fans

merlin

Harmonic minor and its modes can produce some sexy sounds. 
In the traditional east European Jewish modal music that I play on clarinet (klezmer), the mode starting on the fifth degree of the harmonic minor scale is called Ahava Raba or freygish and starts with a half-step then jumps an augmented 2nd to the major third. This gives an interesting combination of minor tonality that is harmonised major. 

The other varient starts of the fourth degree and puts the augmented 2nd between the 3rd and 4th degree.... this mode is called mishebeyrach and is a prety sacred mode. Has minor tonality and is harmonised minor. 

digitalkettle

Can you post some examples...would love to hear?

merlin said:

Harmonic minor and its modes can produce some sexy sounds. 
In the traditional east European Jewish modal music that I play on clarinet (klezmer), the mode starting on the fifth degree of the harmonic minor scale is called Ahava Raba or freygish and starts with a half-step then jumps an augmented 2nd to the major third. This gives an interesting combination of minor tonality that is harmonised major. 

That's 'phrygian dominant'.

merlin said:

The other varient starts of the fourth degree and puts the augmented 2nd between the 3rd and 4th degree.... this mode is called mishebeyrach and is a prety sacred mode. Has minor tonality and is harmonised minor. 

...and that's 'dorian #11' (had to look that one up ).

viz

merlin said:

The other varient starts of the fourth degree and puts the augmented 2nd between the 3rd and 4th degree.... this mode is called mishebeyrach and is a prety sacred mode. Has minor tonality and is harmonised minor. 

^ That's basically dorian with an augmented 4th - I love that too

edit: oh, like DK said lol

AJS

Thanks for all that.  I will start rto work through some of this

rlw

DamianM

You can make a normal mixolydian scale sound quite 'indian' if you put the bends in the right places and do them quickly like a sitar .