Chord Colors

E Ichikosucho (Japanese) scale

357912

About the E Ichikosucho (Japanese) scale

E Ichikosucho (Japanese) is used for traditional Japanese and film music. Think of it as a major scale with an added flat fifth passing tone. It is E Bebop Major with the sixth lowered.

Its notes are E, F, G, A, B, B, C, and D. The formula is W W H H H W W H. It is the fourth mode of B Bebop Dominant.

In E Ichikosucho (Japanese), the open strings sound E, A, and B. A guitarist finds the lowest E on the open low E string.

Positions

Playable shapes for this scale up the neck. Tap any note to hear it.

8-position system

8 four-fret boxes, one per scale degree, each a single hand position with almost no shifting. The jazz and classical way, from William Leavitt's Berklee method.

Position 1open
Position 2fr 2
Position 3fr 4
Position 4fr 5
Position 5fr 6
Position 6fr 7
Position 7fr 9
Position 8fr 11

Notes and intervals

1EERoot
2F#F♯Major 2nd
3G#G♯Major 3rd
4AAPerfect 4th
5BbB♭Diminished 5th
6BBPerfect 5th
7C#C♯Major 6th
8D#D♯Major 7th
StepsW W H H H W W H
Semitones2-2-1-1-1-2-2-1
Degrees1 2 3 4 5 5 6 7

Shapes

Chromatic

CC♯D♭DD♯E♭EFF♯G♭GG♯A♭AA♯B♭B

Circle of Fifths

CGDAEBF♯G♭C♯D♭G♯A♭D♯E♭A♯B♭F

Related scales

Ichikosucho (Japanese) in other keys

Modes

The same notes, starting on a different note.

Embed this scale

Paste the snippet into a lesson page, a blog or a forum post. The card links back here.

E Ichikosucho (Japanese) scale on guitar shown as colored note dots
Chord Colors

There's so much more to explore

Explore on the go. Over 150 chord progressions, modal mixture, build your own progressions, and more!

Try web version iOS app
Chord Colors on iPhone showing chords, guitar voicings, progressions, and scales