The Mohammedan Scale, AKA Harmonic Minor Scale: A Primer

This will be a short and simple article since we are going to be dealing with only one scale, the Mohammedan Scale (which is almost a finger exercise in itself), with a couple of additional finger exercises built from it. As you can probably guess from its title, the Mohammedan Scale, AKA Harmonic Minor Scale, is used extensively in traditional Middle Eastern songs (of which I can't say that I'm familiar with even one), but I do love Eastern sounding scales since most of them possess a particularly dark and somewhat eerie quality. Also, they can be quite challenging to play since many of them use wide intervals interspersed with half steps. Here is the Mohammedan Scale in the key of A:

Low E string: {-5-7-8-} A string: {-5-7-8-} D string: {-6-7-9-} G string: {-5-7-} B string: {-5-6-9-} high E string: {-5-7-8-10-}

Listen to the overall dark tone of the scale. To me it has quite a few "emotional" or moody characteristics. Also notice the last four notes that occur on the high E string. If we assign one finger per note there, we can procure a nice, challenging finger exercise from that portion. What I mean is, we can play the last four notes on the high E using a 1-2-3-4 fingering combination (I'll put the info below the tablature); and to make the exercise cyclic, we'll use notes on the B string as well.

Try this exercise, making sure to pick every note:

High E string: {-5-7-8-10-8-7-5-7-} B string: {-5-6-9-10-9-6-5-6-}
Fingering for E: 1 2 3 4 3 2 1 2; Fingering for B: 1 2 4 4 4 2 1 2.

The fingering here can be pretty tricky. Notice the information listed below the TAB. Again, you should use all four fingers for the notes on the high E string, and for the B use all fingers EXCEPT your ring finger; that is, the three 4s in a row mean you should fret with your pinky and then slide up (with your pinky) to get the note on the 10th fret, then slide back down again, and continue.

The exercise above uses notes directly from the Mohammedan scale, but now let's generate another exercise using the same four note high E pattern on the B as well, being concerned only with working our fingers:

High E string: {-5-7-8-10-8-7-5-7-} B string: {-5-7-8-10-8-7-5-7-}

It's a real finger stretcher, isn't it? Note that if the stretch is a little too wide for your hands, you can move it up the neck to frets that are spaced closer together.

The exercises above should build picking speed, increase finger coordination, strength and flexibility, and also improve your accuracy. Just make sure that your hands are sufficiently warmed up before attempting any of these exercises. And remember to use a metronome as well.

Reference:

"Exotic Scales for Flair & Panache," How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Jason Earls, Pleroma Publications, 2007.