Chord Camp
Often used in funk, fusion and jazz, the Lydian mode boasts a dark moodiness, says Iain Scott, and it also has a hidden secret – discover it now!
While guitarists love the Lydian mode for solos (check out Joe Satriani’s Flying In A Blue Dream to start with; the main melody is drawn from C Lydian), they also love using them for chords and chord progressions. Let’s start with the basics; Lydian is the fourth mode derived from the Major scale. If we looked at D Major (D-E-F#-G-A-B-C#), counted up four notes to G and used the same notes starting from G we’d get G Lydian (G-A-B-C#-D-E-F#). If we compared G Lydian to the standard G Major scale (G-A-B-C-D-E-F#), we’re able to see what the difference is: the fourth note. G Lydian has a sharpened 4th (#4 = C#) whereas G Major has a perfect 4th (C). It is this #4 note, unique to the Lydian mode, that makes a big difference when soloing or creating chords. As an aside, the #4 can also be considered as #11 (#4, one octave higher) or due to the musical context, be enharmonically changed (ie same b5 note, different name) to (diminished 5th). Be prepared to recognise and understand all these variations of ‘Lydian’ chords in the future.
As this is Chord Camp, let’s consider Lydian from a chord perspective; Lydianbased chords. Typically, they are most common as variations/extensions to maj7 chords; So Gmaj7 could be extended to not only be Gmaj9 or Gmaj13 but also ‘Lydianised’ by making it Gmaj7add#4, Gmaj7#11 or Gmaj7b5.
The Lydian #4/#11/b5 colouration sure adds a dash of uniqueness to the chord! First, let’s recap the major 7th chord shapes in G Major and then learn maj7b5 and maj9b5 voicings derived from G Lydian b5 (reminder; for this article we’ll treat the just as if it was #4; same note, different name). For Example 1, the CAGED system is used to cover most of the fretboard with chord voicings. Example 2 onwards demonstrates Lydian-biased chords within funk, fusion and contemporary jazz styles. Enjoy!