Flamenco mode
In music theory, the flamenco mode is a harmonized mode or scale abstracted from its use in flamenco music. In other words the collection of pitches in ascending order accompanied by chords represents the pitches and chords used together in flamenco songs and pieces. The key signature is the same as that of the Phrygian mode, with the raised third and seventh being written in as necessary with accidentals. Its modal/tonal characteristics are prominent in the Andalusian cadence.
The exact chords depend on the song form and guitar chord positions since chord voicings in flamenco often include nontriadic pitches, especially open strings. It is characteristic that III, II, and I appear as dissonant chords with a minimum of four tones. Since the tetrachord beginning on the tonic may ascend or descend with either G-sharp or natural the mixed-thirds clash between the major third degree in the melody and the minor third degree in the accompanying harmony occurs frequently and is characteristic of the flamenco esthetic, as with the blues scale on a major chord.
This tetrachord may be copied in the second, producing a D and allowing an augmented sixth chord on the second degree: B75/F.
Lou Harrison composed a "Sonata in Ishartum", which has been arranged by Tolgahan Çoğulu, part of his Suite. In early scholarship regarding a Babylonian cuneiform inscription tuning tablet from the eighteenth century BC., "Ishartum" was equated with the modern Phrygian but is now considered equivalent to the Ionian mode/major scale. Çoğulu's arrangement, at least, is the white note mode on E in Pythagorean tuning, as follows : F, C, G, D, A, E, B, or E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, with G being 81/64.
