:help: Can anybody tell me what the name of this scale is ? It has got the notes A,BB,DB,D,E,F,AB,A.The sound is quite arabic.Thank you!

Locrian bb3,bb7
http://www.angelfire.com/id/bass/hungarianminor.html

Thanks for the answer, but the 7th is not flat, it´s major, and the 3d is major too !
Dick :help:

It's the 5th mode of D Hungarian minor sometimes called "Gypsy" Minor

You should always try to spell a scale diatonically--- so from A it would read A, Bb, C#, D, E, F, G#, (A)

It'a OK to have "#" and "b" in the same scale.



bob

Thanks, Bob. I hadn´t heard about "Gipsy Minor" before.Greetings from Barcelona, :cool:
Dick

Thanks for the answer, but the 7th is not flat, it´s major, and the 3d is major too !

I'm sorry. I should have stated that I changed the tonic so that it starts on Ab instead of A. I guess I changed it to the locrian mode of your original scale without realizing it. It did sound pretty weird that way.
Here is a good resource for scales with some good links.http://www.angelfire.com/id/bass/
Although I didn't read it very well.

Does anyone know why it's referred to as gypsy minor if the third is major?

If I understand correctly, Bob "bassphase" says that my mentioned scale in A is the 5th grade of the D Gipsy Minor scale.The same scale beginning in A contains a major 3rd ( C#) and beginning in D contains a minor 3rd ( F ).Thanks again,

Dick

TO me, at first blush, it just seems like a synthetic scale made from a tetrachord from D harmonic minor and A harmonic minor.

It's very close to the mixolydian flat 2, flat6 (only difference is the G#) which can be used as a secondary dominant over minor chords if you start the scale a fifth below the chord. It especially sounds really good over a long minor chord vamp.