Modal RunsF Locrian on Guitar
Locrian is the unstable one: both the 2nd and the 5th are flattened, so home itself is a diminished chord that never feels settled. The notes of F Locrian are F, F#, G#, A#, B, C#, D#. Its characteristic note is B — the flat 5th — the one note that gives this diminished scale its colour.
With no perfect 5th to stand on, Locrian refuses to resolve — which is exactly why metal (Slayer, Meshuggah territory) and jazz players reaching for maximum tension keep it around. It is less a place to live than a place to pass through menacingly.
F Locrian across the whole neck
Over the drone, notice how even the root feels provisional — the flat 5th keeps kicking the floor out. Resolving anywhere else afterwards feels like surfacing.
Formula and intervals
R - b2 - b3 - 4 - b5 - b6 - b7 — 7 notes. The flat 3rd and flat 5th stack into a diminished triad on the root.
Chords in F Locrian
These are the diatonic chords — the harmony built from only the notes above. Vamping between any of them keeps you inside the mode.
| Degree | Chord | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| i° | Fdim | Diminished |
| II | F# | Major |
| iii | G#m | Minor |
| iv | A#m | Minor |
| V | B | Major |
| VI | C# | Major |
| vii | D#m | Minor |
Same notes, different home
F Locrian contains exactly the same notes as F# Major. Nothing about the notes changes — what changes is which one feels like home, and that changes everything about the sound.
Other modes on F
Keep the same root and swap the scale — the fastest way to hear what each mode actually does.