C Locrian, E9 Pedal Steel Side

7 notes to the octave, mapped below onto this reader's E9 neck, with every C 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 two numbers the bar comes to rest and the pedals keep working: a pedal or lever raises a ringing string into the next note of a line, so a scale here marks where the bar can stop and which of its notes a bend can reach from there.

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