Phrygian Dominant

Phrygian Dominant, also known as the hijaz in Turkish, is most immediately usable in genres like:

• Metal
• Industrial rock
• Eastern European / Arabic traditional music
• Hip Hop
• Pop

It’s very versatile - it projects a lot of power, and can also be very lush. It’s easy to use. In fact, it’s so versatile that I’d say Phrygian Dominant is the #1 underrated mode for musicians just starting to make their own music.

Phrygian Dominant doesn’t tend to have especially long chord progressions. Instead, you tend to see short loops (“vamps”). Most of what you need to understand is just these two vamps:

• I7 - ♭IImaj7
• I7 - ♭vii7

A note on seventh chords

i.e. why I write "I7" instead of just "I" in these lessons:

Throughout this series, you’ll see me write chords as (for example) I7 or ♭IImaj7 sometimes, even when the example song might technically be playing just simple triads (root, 3rd, and 5th - no 7th). I do this because in modal music, the seventh is always there in the air, implied by the scale, even if no instrument is playing them right this second.

For Phrygian Dominant, here's what that means:

• The I is always a I7: in Phrygian Dominant, the I chord naturally implies a ♭7. If you solo over it, you hit that ♭7.
  • In practice, depending on instrumentation, the seventh will provide more crunch than just the triad, so this will be more or less emphasized depending on how much a songwriter wants that crunch; i.e. you’ll see I7 more in jazz and I (the triad) more in EDM. But this is a fine-grained voicing choice.
• The ♭II is always a ♭IImaj7: the ♭II chord’s major 7 is the scale’s root - the most implied note possible.
  • So when I write ♭IImaj7, I’m reminding you of the full harmonic setting you’re playing inside.
  • Same with ♭vii7.

So, at a first approximation you can view triads as “reduced voicings” of the seventh chords in the same. They get the same idea across with a cleaner, less complicated sound. Often in real music you don’t hear all the chord tones at once. Often you just hear the bass, though the energy of the whole seventh chord is what you feel.

There are a couple interesting exceptions in where this guideline does not apply - where the triad and the seventh chord have a noticeably different character - and it’s more clear and correct to notate it as a triad. I’ll note those individually.