Betcha Can't Play This: Marty Friedman Explores the Phrygian-Dominant Mode

Here's a fast one one that mostly uses the Phrygian-dominant mode. It’s in the key of C.

I start with a C power chord as a pickup to the first bar. Sometimes I like to include another fifth below the chord itself.

This brings out overtones that give the illusion of a lower root note, especially when you’re using heavy distortion. Even though the tempo marking is shown as "Freely," the lick is meant to be played as fast as you can.

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So in bar 1, I ease into it by starting off relatively slow and move into full speed by the third beat, sort of what it would sound like if a snowball started rolling down a steep hill and got larger and faster on the way down.

I like the Phrygian-dominant mode because of its exotic Eastern flavor; you can also think of it as a harmonic minor scale, which in this case would be in the key of F and starts on the fifth scale degree (C).

Notice how I play most of bar 1 legato—there’s nothing wrong with making it easy on yourself. At the end of bar 1 going into bar 2, I go into a series of five sextuplet patterns that gradually descend the neck. The fretboard shapes are a bit more familiar—the first two are minor (C minor and Bb minor), the third is major with an added #4—Ab(#4)—and the last two return to minor (F minor and C minor).

“By the time I get to the third bar, the C minor tonality is firmly established and I riff all the way through until the last beat, where I downward sweep a quick F#• arpeggio (I upstroke the seventh at the end). I use this to lead into the end, which is a bluesy run based on C9 and incorporates the very familiar blues box pattern.”

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