The Mixolydian Scale
The word “Mixolydian” might sound complicated, but the scale itself is very simple. By the time you’re finished reading this article, you’ll know what it is and how to use it in your playing.
What is a Mixolydian scale?
A Mixolydian scale is simply a major scale with a flatted seventh degree. In other words, the D major scale and the D Mixolydian scale only differ by one note.
As mentioned in other articles, the major scale is the fundamental scale of Western music. If you learn the major scale well, you will always have a solid foundation for learning any other concept of music theory.
To play the D Mixolydian scale, you don’t have to learn an entirely new scale. All you have to do is change one note of the D major scale.
D Major: D-E-F#-G-A-B-C#-D
D Mixolydian: D-E-F#-G-A-B-C-D
As you can see, the only difference between these two scales is is that the D major scale has a natural 7th degree (C#), whereas D Mixolydian has a flatted 7th (C). The difference is a half step—a single fret on the guitar. Therefore, the scale formula for the major and Mixolydian scales is:
Major: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-1
Mixolydian: 1-2-3-4-5-6-b7-1
When can I use the Mixolydian scale?
The most straightforward application of the Mixolydian scale is to play it over a dominant seventh chord of the same name.
For example, over a D7 chord, you can play the D Mixolydian scale and it fits perfectly. Why? Because it contains all of the notes in a the D7 chord.
D7 = D-F#-A-C
D Mixolydian = D-E-F#-G-A-B-C-D
The rule is simple: when you see a dominant seventh chord, you can play the matching Mixolydian scale. The more you emphasize the four notes of the dominant seventh chord contained in the Mixolydian scale, the more “in” the scale will sound over the chord.
As an example, let’s say we’re playing a blues song that has the chords D7-G7-A7. Over each chord we can play its corresponding Mixolydian scale.
This means that over the G7 chord we can play the “G major scale with a flatted 7th degree”, which is in fact the G Mixolydian scale. The G Mixolydian sounds great over the G7 chord.
And over the A7, we can play the A Mixolydian scale.
Knowing these scales in addition to the minor pentatonic scale gives us more sounds to work with, and makes playing more enjoyable.
If you’re interested in taking your playing and listening to the next level by learning all about music theory in Open D, check out the three hour video course Mastering Open D Tuning and the book Mastering the Fretboard in Open D. I also offer private guitar lessons in open tuning.
In a future article we’ll learn at an interesting hack you can use to find the Mixolydian scale super quickly. Stay tuned, and subscribe to our newsletter below for the latest updates.
Note: Throughout this article I’ve refer to the “Mixolydian scale”, but you might have heard the term “Mixolydian mode”. Modes are just scales that reference a parent scale. For example, if I’m talking about the D major scale, I would say that the mode built on the 5th degree of the scale is the G Mixolydian mode. In this article I only talk about Mixolydian as it relates directly to individual chords, so I use the word “scale” instead of “mode”. In any case, I’ll properly explain modes in subsequent articles.
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