Major to Lydian

What are the modes?

Are you at the point in your guitar journey where you're comfortable playing through the pentatonic scales, or maybe even the major and minor scales? If so, it might be time to start exploring the wonderful world of modes to discover a whole new sound from the same handful of notes!

I remember how shrouded in mystery modes seemed to me when I first became aware of them. They sounded so exotic, and seemed to only be talked about in the context of jazz, so they just had to be difficult, right?! Well, I was wrong on both accounts - modes are much more approachable than you might expect, and they are an incredible tool for composition, no matter what your preferred genre is. This lesson is going to focus on the lydian mode, but first, let's make sure we understand what modes actually are!

Quite simply put, the word mode is just another name for a scale - a series of notes organised in order of pitch. As you can probably imagine, there is an enormous amount of possible scales and modes that can be played. We're going to focus on the seven Greek modes - the modes built from the major scale, and what you're probably thinking of whenever 'modes' come up.

The lydian mode

Lydian is the fourth Greek mode - let's have a look at what that actually means! Let's use C major as an example, as it contains no accidentals (sharps or flats). To no-one's surprise, if we play the notes in C major in order starting from C, we get… well, C major. However, if we played the same seven notes in C major but started on the fourth degree, F, we would be playing F lydian. At this point, you might be thinking "that means C major and F lydian are the same scale" - and you'd be right, sort of… Even though both scales share the same notes, the pattern of whole- and half-steps within the scales is different, creating an entirely different soundscape.

The order of modes

Before we dive further into the lydian mode, I want to point out that there is a very specific pattern that the Greek modes follow, which makes modes a lot easier to remember! I've just mentioned that lydian is our fourth mode, so take a look at the image below to understand the pattern of the other 6 modes. Please keep in mind that the pattern starts from the major scale (ionian mode), but is completely cyclical - meaning that this order is never-changing, regardless of where you start in the pattern.

Another important thing to note is that we can determine whether a mode is a major or a minor mode using the values of the chords for each of the notes within the major scale. Starting from the major, if we built a triad for each note of the scale only using the other notes within the scale, we would get the following pattern: major, minor, minor, major, major, minor diminished. As we can see here (or from the diagram below if you're more of a visual learner), the fourth degree is major, making lydian a major mode. The reason this is important is because we now know that we will be using a major scale as the foundation to build the lydian mode.

How to transform the major scale to the lydian mode

Now that we've had a more general overview of modes as a whole, let's take a more detailed look at how to play and use the lydian mode. Let's stick to the example of C major to figure out what makes lydian so different. The fourth degree in the C major scale is F, therefore, if we played the notes of the C major scale but starting and finishing on F, we would get the lydian mode - F, G, A, B, C, D, E and F.

If you've spent some time learning the Circle of Fifths, you'll know that F major has a Bb in it - a note that doesn't exist within F lydian. Bb is the fourth degree of F major scale - but we know that F lydian has a B natural in it (one semi-tone higher than the Bb). Therefore, to transform the major scale into the lydian mode, all we need to do is sharpen/raise the fourth degree.

Let's practice this concept and turn two more major scales into their lydian counterpart - let's find C and G lydian. Starting with C, we know our notes in C major are C, D, E, F, G, A and B, so all we need to do is count to the fourth degree, and sharpen it by a semi-tone. As we can see, our fourth note is F, so all we need to do is change the F to an F#, and we'll be playing C lydian!

One last time with G lydian to really make sure we get the concept! The notes in G major are G, A, B, C, D, E and F#, with C being our fourth degree. Sharpen C to get C#, and just like that, we're playing G lydian!

Use lydian in your own playing

Knowing the theory and being able to use it are two different things altogether, so let's put this into practice so you can start using the lydian mode in your own playing! We're going to continue using C major and C lydian to really highlight the differences in playing and sound.

Let's start with the lick tabbed out below. Our first mission is to identify the note that we need to change - in this case, we're looking for F (the fourth degree that we need to sharpen). Playing through the lick below, we can see that the only F we have is on the 6th fret of the B-string (as highlighted below). All you need to do now is raise it to the 7th fret to play an F#, and you'll have played a C lydian lick! Play both versions of the lick back-to-back to really hear the difference that changing just one note can make!

Below are two more licks that will help you get into the habit of changing between the major scale and lydian mode. Both of these licks also have more than one use of the F/F# in them to help you identify the notes across the board strengthen your fretboard knowledge in general. Sometimes the changed note will feel more comfortable on another string or different position, so remember to keep exploring until it feels right for you!

Lydian harmony

One final note before I set you free to explore lovely lydian on your own is that the harmony needs to change as well. Though we've only changed one note in a scale of seven, it changes three of the triads that create the foundational harmony. Take a look at the diagram below to see which chords have changed!

So how do we use this to our advantage, and how do we write a lydian progression? Essentially, by keeping C major as our 'home' chord, we could use any of the other chords around it. But, the key to sounding truly lydian is to focus on the chords that have swapped the F natural for an F#, and pivoting them around the C major chord. I like to keep it simple and swap between the C major and D major chord!

And there you have it! Looking back on this lesson, it seems like a lot of text to make the point of sharpen the fourth degree of a major scale - but… I hope it's helped you really understand where the lydian comes from and how to use it to really inject some new flavour into your playing!