Here we encounter the octave pedal-tone exercise starting on the third note of the C Major scale, aka the Phrygian mode.
The ancient Greek region of Phrygia is known to have a couple of very famous figureheads and was constantly at war! The Phrygians participated in the Trojan war; they were for a time led by Gordius, famous for his Gordian Knot; and Midas, the mythological King who’s touch turned everything to gold are all part of the Phrygian story.
In the Phrygian mode we discover some very exotic tensions and, interestingly enough, the mirror image of the Major scale in terms of the perfect intervals (4th, 5th and of course octave) all remaining steadfast in their qualitative resolve but all of the Major intervals present in the major scale, the 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 7th, shift to their minor quality. So where’s we can represent the Major scale as the numbers 1 through 8 with no modifications, we represent the Phrygian mode as follows: 1 b2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 8. Try to enjoy the changing character of each different modal pedal tone exercise while you embrace the possible challenge of learning the location of these notes and the technique required to play it. I promise you your hands will be more agile than ever and you WILL know your fingerboard better than you ever thought possible!
Here is the Tab:
While there are a multitude of pathways we can choose to navigate through any octave pedal tone exercise, I decided for some reason to make this one a little challenging. We begin on the upper octave and shift the low voice to the off beats, creating a need to articulate in such a way that we don’t displace ourselves from the downbeat. If you’ve listened to the demo video you will hear that it’s all too easy for the ear to reorient itself within the pulse when the lower voice is the one that is moving–even though it’s on the offbeat–we just naturally want that to be where the beat is. In the interest of humility I will say I could have done a better job delineating that by accenting the beat and playing the offbeat with a softer dynamic. Something to work on, for me and for you!
After this we go from the almost darkest of the modes to the very brightest with the Lydian. Things get progressively darker moving through Mixolydian, Aeolian and finally Locrian before we finish our elementary investigation into the octave pedal-tone exercises.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, we’re not even halfway there yet. Stay tuned for the E Phrygian played in alternating low/high triplets: COMING SOON!
Thanks for visiting and as always, Happy Practicing!
Pattern Generation 