G Locrian, Mandolin Side

Where G Locrian lies on this reader's fretboard, and what it is for.

7 notes to the octave, mapped below onto this reader's GDAE fretboard, with every G called out. Those markers are the useful part mid-bar: a chart moves under you, and the thing you need is where the root went — not where the pattern started.

The most dissonant, unstable mode — the tonic chord is diminished (b5), making a true Locrian tonal center rare. Used for color and passing harmony.

Heard in: Metal riffs, jazz (half-diminished ø7 chords in ii°7 – V – i), horror and tension film scores.

Between chopping one number and chopping the next there is a beat and a half of nothing written down, and what goes in it is a fill drawn from here rather than from the page.

Play it slowly against the audio until the shape stops being a shape, then take it to a chart counted in G and let the numbers pick their own notes out of it.