How To Write Lydian Mode Chord Progressions

the lydian mode has a floaty dream like brightness that is elevated beyond the standard major scale this particular sound isn't used a lot in pop or Rock but will be recognizable from the huge amount of film scores and soundtracks that use it listen to how it sounds here with the C lydian scale you can hear that c lydian is a major sounding scale with a major third note the most important note in lydian is the sharp fourth this is the only note that separates the scale from major slash ionian it provides the uplifting brightness that lydian is known for here are the chords that are found in the c lydian key with the scale notes that go into each chord c major D major E minor F sharp diminished G major a minor and B minor these are the diatonic chords in the c lydian key that is chords that are made purely with notes from the C lydian scale C lydian is a good key for guitar players because it has lots of chords that can be played as simple open chords it is also the most common lydian key in popular music you can see that each of the diatonic chords has a Roman numeral above it lowercase indicates minor chords and uppercase major chords this helps you to understand chord progressions as the Roman numerals can apply to any lydian key and simply indicate the function of the chords let's start building some lydian mode chord progressions now and look at how you can write your own the simplest and most common way to establish a lydian sound is to have a repetitive Vamp between the one chord and the two chord foreign the reason this simple chord progression is strongly lydian is because it takes us from the one chord which anchors the key and enter the two chord which has the sharp four note in it this makes it clearly lydian and not major slash ionian because it doesn't deviate from these two chords there is no ambiguity in the progression we are in lydian but lydian has a big problem as a key for your songs it is harmonically unstable every mode has a major scale of the same notes for example C lydian and G major slash ionian this means that they also share the same pool of seven chords they just have different Roman numerals because they are in a different order this makes modal chord progressions harmonically unstable depending on what chords you focus your progressions on also known as the tonal Center will draw the listener's ear to a certain key you can use the same set of chords but change what key it feels like the song is in there is always some subjectivity with modal music as to what key you are in but this is particularly strong with lydian this is because the five chord in lydian which generally has an important role in major sounding chord progressions is the one chord in its relative major scale and the one chord is the same as the IV chord another important chord in major progressions for example in C lydian one to five uses C major and G major in G major this would be four to one this instability means that the use of the V chord in lydian can very easily begin to sound like the tonal Center and pull your progression into major listen to how this sounds with the following example foreign foreign you can also run into a similar thing with the three chord in our key of C lydian the three chord is E minor here are the chords in the key of E natural minor aeolian you can see that once again it has the same chords as C lydian in this case our tonic one chord c major is the sixth chord of the E minor key and the other important lydian chord the two chord D major is the seven chord if we introduce the E minor chord to our progression then it strongly feels like this is the tonal Center the ear is instantly drawn to this listen to the effect in the next example foreign [Music] this lydian instability can be considered in other ways as well it's unstable because the raised fourth and the tonic or first note of the scale creates a tritone tritones are a series of three whole note intervals that are found in diatonic scales tritones create tension that wants to resolve to the next stable interval in a typical major scale the tritone is between the fourth and seventh scale degrees this tritone resolves perfectly to the first and Fifth Scale degrees the two most stable notes of the scale however because lydian's tonic note is part of the tritone the only resolution we get is when the fourth scale degree moves up to the Fifth Scale degree this creates a partially Resolute sound creating an open floating sense of mystery that never entirely feels resolved this fifth note features in the three and five chords we explored which go some way to explain why they feel like the tonic when they are featured you can of course use this confusion to your advantage if you like the ambiguous nature of this then use it in your song and don't worry about it here's an example with both of these chords and also a first version 2 chord where do you think the tonal Center is here the seven chord has the sharp four note in it making it another strong lydian chord it also has two notes in common with the two chord in the next example I'll use it with the one and two to begin with this could be considered a strictly lydian section then I'll introduce the three chord listen to how this interrupts the tonal Center and draws our ear elsewhere thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign we've seen the problems with the lydian mode but what can we do with our chord progressions to overcome this the easiest thing to do is to avoid the three and five chords this will avoid the use of the fifth note in the scale apart from in the tonic one chord but assuming you want to use a wider range of chords what else can you do you can use the tonic note as a pedal note that is played as the lowest note in every chord this will utilize inverted chords and other slash chords this will constantly Drive the ear back to the tonic of lydian and not allow it to stray so easily elsewhere if you're playing in a bad situation you could get the bass player to constantly come back to the tonic note over all chords in order to create a similar effect listen to this in the next example the first eight bars have a standard approach on repeat the bass is playing a constant C note how do you think this affects the tonal center of the piece foreign [Music] foreign [Music] you can try is by adding the sharp four note to your chords this will create a range of chord types in your progressions let's explore this in our key of C lydian the sharp fourno is F sharp we know that F sharp diminished has the note in it and so does D major and B minor but what about the other chords add F sharp to the one chord and you get an add sharp 11 chord the three chord can be played as a sus2 or an add 9 chord to introduce the sharp full the five chord can be played as a Major Seventh and the sixth as a minor sixth I'll repeat the next example twice once with standard Triads and then the second with the F sharp note added to the chords listen to the difference how do you feel it affects the tonal Center foreign [Music] foreign [Music] s actually use lydian will only use it for part of the song you can now understand the reason for this but how would this work in practice the simplest and most obvious move is between lydian and the major scale that begins on the fifth note of your chosen lydian scale this is because you use the same scale notes and same chords and therefore the change will be seamless you just need to make sure you have distinct lydian feeling sections for example [Music] thank you [Applause] [Music] another simple approach is to use the parallel major and lydian keys that have the same tonic note as we saw the only difference is the sharp fourth note and subsequently three chords you could use the main lydian chord progression one to two to generate a lydian fill and then move back to the standard major progressions this change is nice when you go from the major two to minor 2 the single note change between these chords is the third to Flat third F sharp to F in C lydian this is the most important note of the chords so can clearly be heard here listen to it in this example [Music] thank you could also look at this from the other end and just have a major key song that brings in the major two chord as a borrowed chord this can be called modal mixture or modal interchange this is extremely common in lydian songs for the reasons I've outlined in this video this just scratches the surface of what you can do with lydian but hopefully will inspire you to experiment with this interesting mode I'll now put some of what we've discussed into a full song example there are a few things to note before we begin the song utilizes first and second inversions these are used to change the bass notes in the chords and create movement and interest first inversions have a six next to the Roman numeral second inversions have a six and a four it starts with an intro slash Bridge section that is repeated through the song This is deliberately ambiguous using chords that feature in both C major and C lydian as such The Listener will feel like it is a C major progression until the major two chord at the end of the intro also listening for the pace of chord changes the first chord lasts a beat and a half whilst the second is heard for two and a half beats this provides a nice rhythmic feel that repeats through the song This intro will link into the verse to begin with and later the chorus the verse starts with a minor 2 chord from the c major key as explored earlier this provides a nice transition from the major two chord in the intro the verse then avoids the one called C major entirely this plays with expectations again drawing the year to the 5 chord g major as the new tonal Center this shows you how you can experiment with and mix modes in your songs all that matters is how it sounds to you I also use the diminished four chord for the first time here it is played as a minor 7 flat 5 or half diminished chord providing a subtle sound than the full diminished this provides a strong pull to the G major chord further suggesting its new role as the tonic this whole thing is repeated twice the only thing that changes is the final beat of each four bar sequence first up it uses G dominant seventh this is again borrowed from the c major key and with typical quickly draws back to the one tonic chord it is used to surprise the listener here on the second repeat we use the G Major Seventh chord this has the sharp four lydian note in it to hint at the lydian field to come in the chorus before we get to the chorus the intro and verse are played again the chorus is one long extended section it is designed to be much more lydian focused revealing and uplifting brightness that separates us from the verses and intro listen for the change this brings it uses the one chord with an added sharp 11th or sharp fourth note pairing this with the standard 2 chord is designed to evoke lydian brightness other chords that feature also use the F-sharp note in them to highlight this sound some are played as inversions again this is to put the F sharp note in the bass to further highlight them the chorus has an unusual 14 bar length this is designed to sound like it interrupts the song Breaking an established four bar repetition of sections it leads into a reprise of the intro chords as an outro before ending on the C add Sharp 11 chord is this in G major is it in C lydian or C major does it even matter have a go at experimenting with lydian in your own songs and see how you get on [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] about chord progressions but there's a wide world of the Lydia mode out there I've made a playlist just for you right here so make sure you watch that next and improve your lydian knowledge today

Channel: Write A Song

Views: 24,196

Keywords: songwriting, songwriting explained, how to write a song, write a song, write a song now, chord progressions, music theory, lydian mode, lydian chords, how to use lydian mode to write chord progressions

Id: YhnMueNAlFQ

Length: 15min 34sec (934 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 04 2023