What is the double harmonic scale?

This page is a lesson, not a poster. Read it top to bottom; every section has something to press, and the whole page follows one root and one octave — change either and everything below changes with it. If the low keys are hard to hear on your speaker, use Octave + to lift the whole lesson.

1. First, hear it

The keyboard below is locked to E double harmonic. Keys with a green number are in the scale and play; keys with a red dot stay silent. Press Play. If a film wanted you to know a scene was set somewhere “east,” this is the scale it reached for — and the reason is audible in the first three notes: a cramped half step, then a leap wide enough to feel like a jump.

2. Counting from home: two flats around a major third

Every scale has a home note, the root — here E, and the picker above moves it. The other notes are named by how far above the root they sit: their scale degrees. Count keys to the right, black and white alike; each key is one half step. The plain numbers 1 to 7 belong to the major scale; a flat (♭) means “that note, one key lower.”

Two flats, and they sit in odd company: a ♭2 next to a plain 3, and a ♭6 next to a plain 7. Each pair is three keys apart. Click a chip to hear each degree in E.

3. Move one key: freygish becomes double harmonic

Start from freygish — the klezmer and flamenco scale, also called Phrygian dominant — in E. It already has the ♭2-to-3 leap. Now raise its ♭7, D, one key to D♯. Flip the toggle and play both. Freygish ends its climb with a relaxed whole step; double harmonic ends with a second leap and a leading tone that snaps shut onto home.

4. Two augmented seconds

A step of three keys between two neighbouring scale degrees is an augmented second. Most scales have none; the harmonic minor and freygish each have one, and it is the most recognisable thing about them. Double harmonic has two, in the same place in each half of the scale: ♭2 → 3 low down and ♭6 → 7 up top. Press each; they are the same shape a fifth apart.

That repetition is why the scale is built the way it is. The four-note cell 1 ♭2 3 4 — half step, leap, half step — is what Arabic theory calls jins (جنس) Hijaz (حجاز); stack it on the root and again on the fifth and you have this scale, which is why Arabic music calls it Hijaz Kar (حجاز كار): Hijaz, doubled.

5. It reads the same backwards

Write the steps out in half steps and you get 1 – 3 – 1 – 2 – 1 – 3 – 1: a palindrome. Play the run up and then down and the pattern of small and large steps is the same in both directions — the only scale on this site with that property. It is part of why the scale sounds so closed and ornamental: it has no lopsided side.

6. About the name “Arabic scale”

Guitar books call this the Arabic scale, or the Byzantine scale, or — in older books — the Gypsy major. None of those is what the musicians who actually use the pattern call it. In Arabic music it is maqam (مقام) Hijaz Kar; in Turkish music, Hicazkâr; in North Indian music the same seven notes are Bhairav (भैरव), the morning raga and one of the ten parent scales. Those names are listed under this page’s title, and searching any of them brings you here.

One honest caveat. Twelve equal keys are a Western convenience. In Arabic practice the Hijaz leap is usually played smaller than written — the ♭2 a little higher, the 3 a little lower — and the same goes for the upper leap, so what this keyboard plays is the shape of Hijaz Kar in a tuning that is close but not the same. The augmented second is one of the intervals players are known to adjust by ear. The Rast page shows what it takes to bend a piano toward those pitches.

7. What to do with it

Keep the lock on and hold the root. The two leaps are the whole colour, so lean on them: ♭2 → 3 and ♭6 → 7 → 1 as phrase shapes, ♭2 → 1 to close. If it starts to sound like a cartoon, slow down and let the ♭2 sit — the scale is dramatic; it does not need help.

Quick reference

Formula

1 – ♭2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – ♭6 – 7

In C

C – D♭ – E – F – G – A♭ – B