Songs that use the Phrygian mode

this video is sponsored by atlas vpm the phrygian scale or the phrygian mode is exactly the same as our usual natural minor scale however it has a lowered second degree the lowered second degree gives the scale a dark unnerving but also exotic sound a great example of phrygian in action is set the controls for the heart of the sun by pink floyd set the controls as largely based on e-phrygian [Music] although it occasionally travels to a phrygian to introduce a sense of [Music] contrast you can hear how phrygian gives off an elusive mysterious sort of sound it has all the bleakness of the minor scale but thanks to the lowered second degree phrygian also comes with an extra streak of darkness as you can imagine phrygian's dark foreboding sound doesn't really suit typical pop music however there are various other styles of music where phrygian makes for a great choice of tonality for example many metal songs put the phrygian scale to good use the opening guitar riff from metallica's wherever i may roam features that phrygian lowered second if whatever i may roam didn't use the phrygian scale and instead stuck to the natural minor or aeolian scale it would sound like this [Applause] it still sounds fairly bleak and powerful but it lacks that darkness that unnerving phrygian flavor the phrygian scale also features in the intro to metallica's harvester of sorrow here are a few more examples of phrygian used in rock songs listen in particular for when the songs reach that lowered second degree that phrygian note hear the sound of music [Applause] horizon [Music] the clouds [Music] another style of music where phrygian often feels quite at home is hip hop for example snoop dogg's gin and juice is in f phrygian the whole song is based on this two chord phrygian vamp between f minor the tonic chord and e flat minor which features that distinctive phrygian note the g-flat g-flat also appears in the song's chorus melody [Music] phrygian gives the song an unsettled almost intimidating sound humble by kendrick lamar also makes use of phrygian's intimidating sound humble is based on a repeating one bar piano riff which prominently features phrygian's lowered second degree i remember sandwiches and crime allowances but with some counterfeits but now i'm counting this if humble instead used the unaltered second degree of the natural minor scale it would sound like this i remember syrup sandwiches and crime allowances but now i'm counting this as you can hear because humble is such a minimalist song changing just one scale degree massively changes the feel and tonality of the music here are a few more examples of hip hop and r b songs that use the phrygian scale once again i've labeled the all-important phrygian lowered second which is the note that introduces that dark phrygian quality warm it up [Music] now of course what i haven't mentioned so far is that phrygian is a mode a mode is when you take a scale like the major scale but treat a different note as the tonic as the root of the scale by changing which note of the scale you treat as the tonic note it transforms the sound of the scale phrygian is the third mode of the major scale so for example all of the notes of set the control's main melody and chord progression fit into c major however set the controls doesn't treat c as its tonic note as its point of resolution it treats e as its tonic node as you will hear if i drone an e note over the top of set the controls it will sound fully at rest because e is the tonic note if i instead drone a c note it will sound unsettled and unresolved because even though the notes that the song are using all fit into c major the tonic note isn't [Music] the controls so set the controls for the heart of the sun uses all of the notes of the c major scale however treats e as the root as the tonic note therefore set the controls is an e phrygium in one moment we'll look at how phrygian was used in london calling by the clash but just before that i want 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for sponsoring this video and back to the phrygian mode many songs that feature the phrygian scale won't necessarily stick to it for the entire duration of the song this is because the lowered second degree of the phrygian scale makes it harder to get a sense of resolution or cadence for example london calling by the clash is largely based on the phrygian mode with the distinctive lowered second often making appearances in the chord progression [Music] however at the end of the chorus when we get the main hook we get this d major chord [Music] d major doesn't belong in e phrygian as it contains the unaltered second degree the f sharp however by using d major instead of phrygian's d minor we get a far more satisfying resolution to finish off the chorus if the song did stick 100 to phrygian and therefore used a d minor here instead of a d major it would sound like this as you can hear the d minor provides a much weaker resolution back to the e minor d major resolving to e minor is a far more satisfying resolution as the f sharp of the d major chord really wants to resolve up the semitone onto the third of the e minor chord the g [Music] with d minor moving to e minor the f sharp has now been lowered down to an f natural doubling the distance the note has to travel to get up to the third of the e minor chord so we no longer have that strong sense of pulling up to the e minor chord [Music] in the west we often think about phrygian as having an exotic sort of middle eastern sound and this is because phrygian's distinctive lowered second is quite commonly used in arabic music however to say that arabic music uses the phrygian mode is slightly inaccurate and this is because when the lowered second is used in arabic music it's not necessarily lowered by a definitive amount it's not necessarily going to map onto our 12-tone system that we use in the west the amount by which the second degree of the scale is lowered can vary not only within the same piece of music but across different styles of music for example the song hadi kedbarbena by moroccan singer najet atabu features this lowered second degree in its main melody [Music] however as you may have noticed these aren't regular flat symbols here these are half flats unlike the western phrygian scale that lowers the second degree by a semitone in this song the second degree has only been lowered by roughly half a semitone what we could call a quarter tone this achieves a sound close to our phrygian scale but with a slight difference a micro tonal quality to it also if you recognize this song it's probably because it was sampled by the chemical brothers in 2004 for their hit galvanize a song that is often incorrectly cited as being phrygian is misalu the best known version of mr lou is dick dale's 1962 surf rock version [Music] however the song began as an arabic folk song with the earliest known version recorded in 1927 the reason misalu is often mistakenly described as phrygian is that it's based on a very similar scale to phrygian the double harmonic scale or what is known in the arab world as hijaz's car this scale has a similar exotic flavor to phrygian because it also features that distinctive lowered second the phrygian note however the double harmonic scale differs from phrygian by having a major third rather than a minor third and double harmonic seventh degree has not been lowered like it would be in [Music] phrygian another scale which is often confused with phrygian is phrygian dominant as the name suggests this scale is very closely related to phrygian in fact it's exactly the same apart from it features a major third rather than a minor third so you could think of phrygian dominant as phrygian major an example of phrygian dominant in action is the opening of white rabbit by jefferson airplane the opening of white rabbit sort of swings between phrygian and phrygian dominant by switching whether it's using the major or minor third on the first occasion in the song that we hear the third it's the minor third initially setting us in a regular phrygian sound but then only a few bars later the guitar lands quite prominently on the major third instead switching us into a phrygian dominant sound [Music] another song that blends phrygian and phrygian dominant is radiohead's pyramid song in any given line of pyramid song we will find both moments of phrygian dominant with its major third as seen in this f sharp major chord and moments of just normal phrygian with its minor third as seen in this a6 chord [Music] there are even moments in pyramid song where we momentarily leave phrygian entirely and switch to aeolian instead this is thanks to this e major add 9 chord which contains aeolian's unaltered second degree [Music] the blending of phrygian phrygian dominant and aeolian results in a kaleidoscopic sound that washes between different flavors and colors sometimes whether or not a song is in phrygian can actually be to a certain extent subjective like we discussed earlier modes like phrygian take the notes of a given scale like the major scale but treat a different note as the tonic so for example the only differences between a flat major and c phrygian is which note they treat as the tonic they both use the exact same notes in the exact same order however what if the song doesn't actually make it clear which note is the tonic new person's same mistakes by taemin parlour definitely uses all of the notes of the a flat major scale [Music] however i hear the tonic note to be c not a flat so to me new person's same mistakes is in c phrygian [Music] however some other people i've asked about this instead hear a flat as the tonic note and therefore they are perceiving this song to be in a flat major not c phrygian [Music] because modes share their notes with other scales if the music doesn't make the tonic note unambiguously clear then different listeners may hear the same song in a different tonal context now this doesn't really matter of course the song is still the exact same notes in the exact same arrangement so the song ultimately sounds the same it's just the tonal context that's changing and if anything this sort of contributes to the sound of the song the ambiguity of the tonic note is part of what gives modal music its sound of course do let me know in the comments whether you hear this song in c phrygian or a flat major it will be really interesting to see if there's a consensus i'll leave you today with this piece that i've composed that stays 100 within the e phrygian scale which on the piano means it's all of the white notes but with e as the tonic note if you can think of any other pieces of music that use the fridging mode then do let me know in the comments below and thanks as always to everyone who supports me on patreon including all of the names you see on screen right now and andrei sanchez diageo andy deacon andrew andrew brown andrew sussman austin barrett austin russell bob mckinstry britney parker cameron orville colin aiken chris cabell christopher ryan david rivers donald howard dr darren wicks elena scorchenko espen hansen eugene leroy fd hodor greg kobowski guillermo latona hamish brothelbank hi nick kutcher hugo miller james ko j.a kochensparger john dye josh sandalin justin vigger lee larritzen mark zegenhagen max o'keefe melody composer squared melanie schoner michael vivian nancy gillard nathan lawrence nathaniel park paul muller paul hazel peter dunphy richard pride roger clay sam lin sean kennedy steve daly stephen lazzaro tim beaker toma aharoni trish adams tim payne victor levy vidad flowers vladimir kodakov and volte [Music] you

Channel: David Bennett Piano

Views: 538,878

Keywords: phrgian, mode, scale, phrygian dominant, major scale, music theory, explained, examples of, songs that use, analysis, metal, hip hop

Id: -DzGlzdbkDI

Length: 18min 20sec (1100 seconds)

Published: Thu May 27 2021