Lydian Mode for Guitar
There’s been a lot of fuss over the years about the Lydian Mode. It’s one of a series of scales with Greek names, the first being Ionian, an example of an Ionian would be the very common Doh Re Me Fa So La Ti Doh (I’m thinking Bart Simpson and Julie Andrews here). In the key of C it would be C D E F G A B C, in truth it is a simple C Major scale, no big deal. The Lydian mode is the 4th scale that would be built on standard C scale but instead if starting on C we would start on the 4th interval, in this case it would be F; and our scale becomes F G A B C D E F, we are keeping the distance between the notes the same, just starting at another place. I’ve written a G Lydian mode, .you’ll notice it has two sharp notes in it, a F# and a C#. The G Lydian mode is the fourth scale in the key of D. And you may already realise that the key of D has two sharps. I’ve also added a chord, it could be named quite a few different ways, for this exercise I’ve called it Gmaj7#4. I won’t cover my reasons for naming it this at this moment, it’s a much broader discussion. The first version of the scale is movable up and down the fretboard, wheras the second version includes open strings, and if you play acoustic it’s nice to get those open notes. For more detailed information, it’s worth checking out what is in Wikipedia on the issue, there are also some great examples there mentioning songs that use it, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydian_mode But really it’s just one more scale to throw in the tool box. To download a printable, useable version click Lydian Mode For Guitar
