TSJMajesty
Rock Star
- Messages
- 8,017
Play an F chord in its first inversion on the top 4 strings. (The "Cowboy Chord" shape, on the 1st fret, if you don't know the inversions, or what that means.) Then drop the top note to open e, so it becomes F Maj7. Then play it as an ascending arpeggio, (each note individually 
), but add in the next-higher note on each string before playing the next-higher string. That is the 5th mode of the Double Harmonic Minor scale. Sounds cool huh?
I used to fool around with that after discovering it by accident, before I even knew what it was, or that it could be used musically.
Well guess what? John Petrucci wrote Night Terror around that scale, and discussed it in detail at his last camp.
So if you start on a low F, and play the F minor scale, but raise the 7th a half step, you get the harmonic minor scale. Raise the 4th a half-step and now it's a Double Harmonic Minor Scale. Sometimes called Hungarian or Gypsy, although I believe it needs to stay in the mode of how the notes ascend in my first paragraph: 1 b2 3 4 5 b6 7 to have that name, by I digress.
So go back to F minor: F G Ab Bb C Db Eb F. Raise the 4th and 7th a half step: F G Ab B C Db E F and you have the Dbl Hm scale. Start on E instead of F, and you get the mode that John wrote Night Terror in.
Cool huh?
Here's a part in the song where he's using the notes in succession, so you can clearly hear the tonality:
By the way, he asked if anyone knew the 1 time in the song where he resolved it to its F note root. I was pissed I didn't know.
The very last note of the song.
Pretty damn cool how you can write songs around all sorts of interesting scales! I think it is, anyway.
), but add in the next-higher note on each string before playing the next-higher string. That is the 5th mode of the Double Harmonic Minor scale. Sounds cool huh?I used to fool around with that after discovering it by accident, before I even knew what it was, or that it could be used musically.
Well guess what? John Petrucci wrote Night Terror around that scale, and discussed it in detail at his last camp.
So if you start on a low F, and play the F minor scale, but raise the 7th a half step, you get the harmonic minor scale. Raise the 4th a half-step and now it's a Double Harmonic Minor Scale. Sometimes called Hungarian or Gypsy, although I believe it needs to stay in the mode of how the notes ascend in my first paragraph: 1 b2 3 4 5 b6 7 to have that name, by I digress.
So go back to F minor: F G Ab Bb C Db Eb F. Raise the 4th and 7th a half step: F G Ab B C Db E F and you have the Dbl Hm scale. Start on E instead of F, and you get the mode that John wrote Night Terror in.
Cool huh?
Here's a part in the song where he's using the notes in succession, so you can clearly hear the tonality:
By the way, he asked if anyone knew the 1 time in the song where he resolved it to its F note root. I was pissed I didn't know.
The very last note of the song.
Pretty damn cool how you can write songs around all sorts of interesting scales! I think it is, anyway.
