Locrian nat6

Locrian with its worst edge removed

Locrian is 1 ♭2 ♭3 4 ♭5 ♭6 ♭7 — every degree flattened that can be, including the fifth, which is why it is described as the one mode without a stable tonic. Raise its sixth degree back to natural and you have this scale.

The change is smaller than it sounds and larger than it looks. The flat fifth remains, so the tonic triad is still diminished and still cannot rest; but the natural sixth removes one of the two semitone clusters, which makes lines through the scale less claustrophobic.

The practical consequence is the chord: with a natural sixth the scale fits a half-diminished chord that carries a natural thirteenth. That is a narrower target than plain Locrian's, and a more usable one.

Its place in the family

Built on the second degree of harmonic minor, this scale covers the chord that stands there: the half-diminished seventh which begins the classic minor-key progression — Bm7♭5 to E7 to Am. That progression is everywhere in jazz and in classical minor writing, which gives the scale a real, if narrow, job.

Most players do not name it while playing it. Over Bm7♭5 in the key of A minor, running A harmonic minor produces exactly these notes, and that is what usually happens. The mode name is a way of describing the result afterwards.

Compare the alternative: Locrian ♮2, from melodic minor, is the scale jazz musicians more often choose over the same chord. The two differ in the second degree, and which one fits depends on whether the progression is drawing on harmonic or melodic minor.

How little is searched, stated plainly

Measured demand for this scale is close to nothing — single-digit queries a month in English, and none at all in most of the twelve languages this catalogue covers. Nobody arrives at it from music; they arrive from a list of modes.

That is worth saying rather than hiding behind invented use cases. The scale is here because the rotation of harmonic minor produces seven modes and this is the second, because its interval set is unambiguous, and because a reader working through the family should find an honest page rather than a gap.

What is genuinely useful: the chord it fits, its relationship to the parent, and the fact that its melodic minor cousin is the one more often reached for over the same chord.

Frequently asked questions