Egyptian

A scale with no third

Both the third and the seventh above the root are absent, and with them any information about mode. What remains is a root, a second, a fourth, a fifth and a flat seventh — the notes of a suspended chord with a ninth on top. It is often listed under the alternative name Suspended pentatonic for that reason.

This makes it unusually portable. Over a minor chord it behaves as one thing, over a dominant as another, and it contradicts neither, because the note that would have to choose is not there.

The name is a label, not a provenance

The name is a nineteenth-century Western coinage and does not describe Egyptian musical practice, which is built on maqam and includes neutral degrees this scale has no way to express. Treat the name as a filing label rather than a claim about where the sound comes from.

The honest description is structural: it is the second mode of the major pentatonic, related to it exactly as Dorian is related to Ionian, and it appears in any tradition that uses the anhemitonic pentatonic set at all — which is most of them.

How it is used

It suits static harmony and modal vamps, particularly over sus4 and sus2 chords where a third would be an intrusion. Composers use it for open, unresolved textures, and it is a common choice when a melody needs to sit over shifting chords without committing.

In improvisation it is the pentatonic that does not sound like a pentatonic, because the ear expects a third somewhere in the first few notes and does not get one.

Confusions and neighbours

It is regularly mistaken for a distinct exotic scale when it is a rotation of the most ordinary pentatonic there is. It is also confused with genuinely Middle Eastern scales that contain a raised second or an augmented second, which this one does not.

Its neighbours are the four other rotations of the same set: major pentatonic, minor pentatonic, blues minor and blues major. Play them from a single drone and the family resemblance is immediate.

Frequently asked questions