G# Harmonic Minor — Venezuelan Cuatro

G# Harmonic Minor is 7 notes to the octave (common family), drawn here across the Venezuelan Cuatro's A-D-F#-B strings with every G# marked, so home stays visible from anywhere in the pattern.

Dark and dramatic. The raised 7th pulls hard toward the tonic, and the wide step from the b6 up to it gives the scale an exotic, almost Middle-Eastern tension.

Heard in: Classical minor-key harmony, neoclassical metal (Yngwie Malmsteen), flamenco-tinged rock, klezmer, and Balkan melodies.

Four strings inside a major sixth put a scale in a deliberately cramped place: the same pitch turns up on two strings constantly, and one open string sounds below the string next to it, so a run that looks like it climbs on paper can fall under the fingers. These maps light every root so the ear has an anchor.

Use it the way the music does — in short pieces, between strums. Very little of this repertoire asks a cuatrista for a long scalar run; what it asks for is three or four notes that land exactly where the strumming hand was about to brake.