The Mystery of the Double Harmonic Major Scale 

A single video like this is seriously more valuable than many of the music classes in undergrad.

I've really missed these types of videos. Loving this!

I miss these, Rick. Brings me back to the beginning of my time watching.

This is actually one of the most common interval sets in middle Eastern maqam. It's called Hijazkar/Hicazkar. You can find lots of great instrumental compositions, improvisations (taksim), and songs in this maqam in Turkish and Arabic traditions. Nice work. The derived modes sound amazing in your compositions.

In Hindustani music this structure is called Raag Bhairav.

And this is why Rick's one of the best music channel ever....

Dick Dale's cover of "Misirlou" (Surfer's Choice, 1975) is probably the most recognized song of the Double Harmonic Major. Misirlou is an old-time Greek Rebetiko style song popularized in the early 20th century, it origins are debated about in the reaches of the Eastern Mediterranean. It is actually a slow and sultry lover's lament. Modern day Greek Vocalist "Glykeria" performs a wonderful example of "Misirlou", You Tube videos with the Greek lyrics and English transliteration are worth your time if you would care to listen..

Fantastic lesson. For those interested in the mystical aspect of music it could be added that the double harmonic is a palindromic scale with same pattern of intervals ascending and descending. Rick had covered this in another wonderful lesson.

You should really consider doing soundtrack music for film! If I can win three Emmys, you can certainly win three Oscars!

Ricky, baby… please keep teaching. Music needs you, we need you!

THIS is the rick beato I’ve missed!

A piece co-written by Beato and Nahre Sol! Wonderful!

I wish you went over the chords each scale could make. The flat 2 mode having access to both the major and minor third is trippy to me and I would love for you to revisit the topic and point out other details like that

Never thought I’d see the Locrian double flat 3 double flat 7….anywhere. One of my favorite ultra-obscure scales.

Could you please post the composition alone in a video? It's beautiful!

Why am I hearing Keith Emerson all over this? This is unbelievably beautiful. Otherworldly. Never heard of Nahre Sol before, but I will be doing a deep dive into her music after hearing this.

I love Rick's interviews but this is the stuff I started following him for.

It's all fun and games with the flats until you're on your tricycle with triple flats and no spare phyrygian inner tubes.

Really good stuff here! Missed this kind of "early-Rick" videos but is nice to have a new one. Beautiful composition with Nahre Sol.

This is a beautiful piece that acts as an inspiration and a great resource with the transparency of the accompanying information. Next level stuff. You are at the cutting edge Rick Beato! What a legend.

Really like the G Ultraphrygian starting at 5:00, love those runs. The interchange of the dynamics, playing off each other, that was cool.

Love the unsolved mysteries thumbnail!! Great lesson as always, Rick

In college we called the first scale with the two augmented 2nd intervals a "gypsy minor".

I haven't clicked on a Rick Video in a very long time, but I saw the title and was happy to see some theory application and exploring sounds.

The compositions are off putting or off kilter in a really good way. Tension, suspense, unpredictable sounding. I like it.

Thank you, So Nahre was involved too, didn't realize it before getting to the second half

So outside of my wheelhouse, but damn... Sounds amazing!

Sounds very middle eastern. I like it. Some parts of the epic sax solo from Breaking Glass (Hazel O'Conner single from 1980) has a similar feel. The best sax solo ever IMHO.

I am about to learn something new despite playing guitar for 30+ years! 🎸😃👍

Videos with this type of information are among my favorite of what you do

That Locrian double flat is unsettling… in a cool way!🤘😈

I think this is interesting, inspiring and unique. Nahre Sol’s name a quality guarantee.

It’s like the old soundtrack for Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack.

double harmonic is always so elegant and mysterious

I always really enjoyed what I believe is called the Byzantine scale- I really like how it's kind of a mirror image of itself going up to the octave and how a lot of the shapes look because of that symmetry. I use it all the time- my favorite "exotic" scale

These sounds have haunted me for years, viz Ralph Towner "Oregon Crossing" not to mention countless film sound tracks. I could obviously play them but now I know whats going on !! Thank you very much - months of enjoyment ahead.

That's what I'm talking about. Well done.

This takes me back to my childhood of 70s-era made for TV Movie of the Week suspense/horror/mystery/psychological thrillers. I hope that I can see/hear more new theory and application videos, though I can understand and respect that the reaction and commentary videos pay the bills.

More of this Rick

I thought this was awsome Rick... I don't think I can explain how intricate the notes, and especially the piano playing was... Well done.

Stunningly beautiful!! WHO is playing piano on these? What a beast of a player! ...... ALSO!! As a Nashvillian, I love the "Nashville cameo"! Downtown at Broadway and 4th Street. I lived on 5th Ave for 7 years, on 5th Ave down from the Ryman Auditorium. Thank you, Rick!

I love using the double harmonic major starting on D. Makes this really easy-to-visualise pattern on the keyboard.

Nahre Sol on the piano, what a delight.

That was the most beautiful Locrian sound I’ve ever heard.

This was excellent. Please more like this. I know it was fun as hell to compose that too

Brilliant my man. I was searching the Internet for references to this scale a few weeks ago and I struggled to find anything... Such a beautiful scale with so much potential and mystery. I've been trying to incorporate it into Jams with my band using Indian instruments and percussion

Wow. This is inspiring. So many colours to play with here. Congratulations to Rick and Nahre for putting together such a beautiful illustration.

Interesting - also known as the "psychological thriller" scale. 😉

definitively I prefer this type of compositions to the top spotify BS. Would be nice to hear more collabs with Sol and others.

I've been using this scale for about 15 years and where I figured it out from was -- of all places -- Miles Davis's late 1950's composition 'Nardis,' which uses it to bookend its A sections. As others point out, this isn't an uncommon scale at all in Middle Eastern and even Eastern European contexts.

I really, REALLY miss this kind of music theory content on the main channel, that's what made me subscribe to Rick's channel in the first place many years ago. At least we can find it here now. Anyways, the Double Harmonic Major has been my favorite scale for a long time, even before I knew its "academic" name. Back then I used to hear people referring to it as the "Arabic" scale.

Thanks for the video Rick, the Double harmonic major scale is identical to an Indian raga called Bhairav if I am not mistaken. Love it!

I feel bad for skipping my solfeggio classes back in my formative years, I remember this vaguely but now perhaps is the time to learn it.

This video and the Satriani /Vai interview are my absolute favorites that you've done. Love this video! And love the composition...WOW 🤯

Geeez, Rick..... that music is beautiful!!! Are notes words an ankle "I'll be bawk...." widda gittaw!

Very nicely played by Nahre Sol.

Bravo, beautifully rendered and exquisitely played! These kinds of fully fleshed examples are wonderful because they're much more illustrative of the 'world' of a particular scale than, say, simply noodling over a tonic drone. The melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic variety gives a great sense of the breadth of possibilities. Cheers!

the examples are crazy good

Darn, Rick this is cool and very informal. One can understand how a composer makes this sort of music when you also understand the modal structures

Be really cool to see a score for the composition. Awesome video, Rick.

I really like this Locrian scale and I usually don't. Great educational video for us theory nerds.

This is definitely thought provoking.

Man. I mean this is amazing. And like no big deal… it would take me a month to compose… thank you Rick!

Wow! I love these compositions, and this is a smash! The very beginning of this sounds very evocative of a famous Rachmaninoff theme, which may be due to the similar tonalities, so I need to check that out. I find these scale explorations endlessly fascinating.

When I was studying with Olivier Messiaen, I was exposed to his modes of limited transposition - I think a video about them would be fascinating too 🙏🏾😎🎶

Glad to see or hear a collaboration between two of my favorite music channels on YT since many years.

I'm so glad I found this video. I love unique and odd scales, and as a guitar player I want to incorporate more of the unusual to try and come up with new stuff.... buuuuut knowing of these odd things is the problem. Thank you for doing these types of videos!!! I'm not sure how I would've found out about these and learned they were all connected to the one scale/mode.

5:01 This absolutely should be implemented in some Dream Theater song

This brings a whole new dimension to my musical journey. Want to learn more.

Great compositions Rik. 👍Ritchie Blackmore was fond of the Hungarian Minor.

I would love and pay full price for about two hours of this kind of music. Please, compose, use it for instruction and make it available! Movie sound tracks are all chopped up into bits for individual scenes. Symphonies always have to have their sis boom ba parts and modernism/post modernism is like a bunch of nervous squirrels and surprised chickens. Why can't somebody write a couple of albums worth of almost-symphony-like-yet-song-like soothing, mysterious music like this to help some of us relax and get into a music induced head space?!? No showing off for the critics post modernist crap, no cheesy cliches. Just nice music that is challenging enough to not be boring but accessible enough for us non-symphonic composers. If you know of anybody, please list them as a reply to this comment! I've already bought a number of CDs after videos of yours that introduced me to something I didn't know, before!

This has been my favorite scale since I accidentally discovered it. I'm currently working on a song in this scale. I might argue it's in Hungarian minor but it's hard to say.

This is the stuff great soundtracks for big movies are made of.

This is where you really get your geek on. Fantastic.

Nahre Sol! Wasn't expecting to see her. Amazing!

@ 1:57 The Hungarian mode example triggered a cimbalom sound in my mind. The cimbalom is a kind of dulcimer that you play using oversized chop sticks. Like the Hungarian version of the vibraphone/marimba/... Traditional Hungarian cimbalom music uses a lot of odd meters and unusual tonalities. Well worth checking out if you're a music nerd, like me.

Im just glad that you are probabely doing things that you love instead of chasing the algorithm.

The Lydian #2 #6 composition has a bit of a Thomas Newman flavour. These are some great modes!

A popular song that uses the double-harmonic major scale is Miserlou by Dick Dale and His Del Tones. (If you've ever seen the movie Pulp Fiction, you know exactly what song I'm talking about). It's literally the E double-harmonic major up and down the scale over and over, while tremolo picking... Paul Davids made a great video covering it.

What do these sound like in meantone temperament Rick? Equal Temperament is tame in comparison. Cheers

Thank you, Rick. Could be nice if you showed and played the modes on the piano for visualization. I learned piano through your videos years ago

This is SO cool; I like the fact that you've transposed up a half tone for each, so you get the flavour of each independently; I mean, you've got to do this even with the common natural modes, really, as people DO get stuck on the difference, say, between c Ionian and b Locrian. I am interested in the 'Idiomatic Sonic Territories' afforded by the modes on particular notes with certain instruments; given standard tuning, does The Lydian Upon E, f'rinstance, with guitar speak 'wide open spaces', or am I the only fool who thinks this? Great content Rick. It's so refreshing to have serious stuff about creative music. Oh, and the piece is gorgeous, the visuals also! Do I detect the touch of E. W. Quantum in the kbd writing? Impressive and nice too! 🎶🌟👍

That music was incredible, I'm inspired

I firmly believe that the best way to think about scales and modes is that they are simply different musical "colors". Once you identify what those colors are you can utilize them as needed.

Double flabbergasted. Very cool!

Rick, please compose more

In carnatic music (south indian music) this scale is quite common and it is called 'mayamalavgaula'. Check out Rama Mani's composition 'Dawn' by the Jazz Yatra Sextet.

I've missed your scale and mode videos. ❤

One of my favourite scales! So rich in dissonances❤

I wonder if Danny elfman tapped into this sound for the goodwill hunting score, that first example really reminded me of its way of sounding bright and major but also twisted and dark and broken at the same time. Cool stuff!!

Not just informative, but absolutely beautiful music. Thank you!

SO SICK! God bless you Rick! SOLI DEO GLORIA (To The Glory Of God Alone) Father, Son & Holy Spirit -Ronnie

Wow! Just Wow! I wish I had learned this 45 years ago. I've never heard of these. I always thought that eerie movie music was based on 12-tone. Now I know better.

Rick, I like when you demonstrate the triads and the 7 chords tied in each note of the scale. Also, as has already been said, Miserlou.

Much needed refresher, thanks Rick

Its called a Bhairav thaat in Hindustani classical and is very widely used. Many Raagas of the dawn are based on this scale. There is Bhairavi (notice the i in the end), which uses the Phrygian scale.

Great video! Thank you for covering these! They seldom get taught, but SHOULD be. These are beautful!

Man, that Locrian bb3 bb7 is a super creepy scale. You could do an entire horror movie with that alone.

Awesome Rick - thank you- I will use this!

Gorgeous sound!