Some scales sound like a sunny afternoon. The Phrygian dominant scale sounds like a sunny afternoon in a spaghetti western, right before someone gets shot. It's the most dramatic collection of seven notes on the guitar, and it has been making metalheads, flamenco players and neoclassical show-offs sound far more exotic than they actually are for centuries.
This clip — Lick #11, one of my most-watched lessons, which says a lot about you people — is a short phrase built entirely on the Phrygian dominant scale. Sixty-four seconds of that gorgeously "wrong" flat-second-to-major-third leap, so you can steal the sound without reading a 40-page theory book first.
How the Phrygian dominant scale gets its exotic sound
The Phrygian dominant scale is the fifth mode of harmonic minor — take A harmonic minor, start on E instead, and you get E, F, G#, A, B, C, D. On paper it's just a major scale with two notes vandalised: a flat second (F) and a flat sixth (C). That gap between the flat second and the major third is an augmented second, and it's the single interval doing all the exotic heavy lifting, from flamenco to Yngwie to your grandmother's klezmer records.
The useful takeaway: play this over an E major or E7 chord and let the notes lean on the chord. The major third lives in both, so it sounds "right," while the flat second (F) leans against the root like a drunk friend and creates all that Spanish, metal tension. Want a phrase to resolve? Slide that flat second a half-step down to the root — b2 to 1 is the money move, and it works every single time. If you want the theory behind the parent scale, my harmonic minor post has your back, and to build your own phrases from it, steal ideas from my guide to lick creation.
Fair warning: once you learn this scale you will play it over everything — including cheerful pop songs — until your friends stage an intervention. Worth it. Grab the PDF and Guitar Pro file on my Patreon.