Mixolydian Pentatonic

This one minute video will give you a whole new scale to use, and the best part is your hands can already play it!

The Mixolydian Pentatonic scale is an incredibly useful and simple to learn scale or for any guitarist who is familiar with the Pentatonic Box 1.

All we do is change one note and we go from our old faithful scale into a far less common but just as usable scale!

Here is the minor pentatonic shape one, which is often the first scale any guitar player learns. We'll be in the key of A but as with any other boxes we can shift them up and down the neck as long as we know where the roots are. You’ll notice the flat 3rd notes are highlighted in green...

From there we simply take the notes labelled as a flat third (green for your convenience!) and move them up a semitone so they become a major third like so:

And that's it! Now you have a more psychedelic sounding scale to use as you please! Keep reading for some ideas on how to use it.

Why Does This Work?

When we take the minor pentatonic scale we are dealing with the intervals 1, b3, 4, 5 & b7. The Mixolydian mode contains 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 & b7.

By raising the flat 3rd in minor pentatonic up to a major 3rd we end up with 1, 3, 4, 5 & b7, which is still a five note (penta-tonic) scale, but now it's really highlighting those special notes from Mixolydian which are the major 3rd combined with a flat 7th.

This works particularly well on the guitar because it's so similar to the ubiquitous box 1, we're just making a small change. That means it will still sit well under your fingers, and it's why we say your hands can already play it!

How Do I Use It?

This is always the most important question to ask yourself when you're learning any new scale. Don't just learn the shape, learn how to use it too! We've already noted that we're highlighting the major 3rd combined with a flat 7th which gives us that Mixolydian sound, but crucially, these intervals are also the defining intervals in a dominant chord which are 1, 3, 5, b7.

A huge number of blues tunes are played using dominant chords, so if you match the root of your scale to the root of the dominant chord you'll have the perfect scale to outline the chords (you may notice it's a dominant 7 arpeggio with an added 4th). Or, if you’re just getting started try playing over an A blues and when you’re on the A7 play this scale then switch back to A minor pentatonic for the rest. You’ll find a blues backing track in the download folder to try this!

It also works really nicely over a drone note - Experiment with going from A Mixolydian pentatonic to A minor pentatonic over your open A string and try to pull out those different sounds by shifting scales.

We have also included a Mixolydian track in the downloads folder which will sound great with this scale. That track is in D so you’ll need to shift the whole shape up be hitting the right notes. We highly recommend working that out for yourself, but if you would like to check you have it correct here's the D Mixolydian pentatonic shape:

Licks!

It's always good to have a few licks in your back pocket with a new scale shape, that way when you're on the spot you don't have to do too much thinking! We have prepared a few licks to try along with backing tracks to play over, it's all in the free download above! Enjoy!