Lydian Chords: Learn Shapes in All Keys!

[Applause] you [Music] welcome to your corridor get our lesson of the week today it's all about Lydian chords the beautiful dreamy chords of the Lydian mode which is one of my favorites ever but before I show you some chords we have to talk briefly about what is a lady in mode so we understand what we're doing so basically the Lydian mode is just a major scale with a sharp force on the 4th note of our major scale we are going to raise it one semitone up so if I play for example in the key of D major a regular major scale sounds like this one two three four five six seven one with the Lydian mode we are going to pick the fourth note of that scale one two three four this one the G note and we are going to raise it one semitone higher which results in a G sharp so it sounds like this 1 2 3 sharp 4 5 so it's really that note here which creates by the way a tritone with the root note [Music] it gives a bit of tension and to me it sounds like a brighter major scale because the regular major scale on the fourth note we kind of want to resolve down but with the sharp 4 we want to resolve up do so by having the snow who wants to resolve up we have a upward momentum that goes on and on with the Lydian scale so for me that's why it sounds like a brighter major scale nothing wants to resolve down it's upward always so by knowing that the only no that changes between a major scale in the Lydian mode is the sharp 4 we want naturally to feature the sharp 4 note in our chords to have a Lydian chord progression and the easiest way to do is to pick our root chord so once again if I stay in the key of D major I'm going to pick a D major chord from the fifth fifth string fifth fret here the bar version and usually the second chord of our harmonization is am a minor chord excuse me so if I am in a regular D major scale [Applause] so the second chord if I harmonize it is going to be a minor chord because the note on top here is our G note and the G note is the four one two three four but if I play a major chord instead of a minor chord this is going to give us that sharp four here that G sharp [Music] is a Lydian note so if I play D followed by E major instead of minor I have a Lydian chord progression that could be that easy but I have a problem with this when I play D followed by E I don't really feel like the key of this is D major I don't want to come back here what I want to hear is either this you and now I feel result or I want to hear this so these are two popular Cadence's this is the flat 6 flat 7 and one in the key of F sharp minor or the 4/5 one so I either feel like I'm in the key of a major or in the key of F sharp minor so playing only those two cards one after another doesn't make in my head at least to my ears it doesn't make it for a Lydian sound to me because it sounds like an unresolved cadence that maybe one day will land on a resolved chord so what we are going to do to solve this problem and really get the Lydian field work or progression we are going to stick to our root note at the bottom so even if we change to our second chord in major we are still going to keep our D note at the bottom here so if I play my D chord but this time in an open position like this [Music] I'm gonna keep the D open and it's super easy I'm just going to slide this cord two frets higher so now I have an E chord but with a base of D so when I toggle between both chords [Music] I don't feel any more the attraction that I want this to resolve either to a a major or art where F sharp minor it doesn't make sense to me it's not really attracted to this one so by keeping the root note at the bottom and playing the first and second chord major we get a dreamy Lydian sound so now we can do it on all open chords we couldn't we can do it on D we can do it on a major this open position like this once again you take the same exact shape and you slide it two frets higher or you can take other shapes with open strings at the beginning of this video I used just a simple triad on the fourth string seventh fret with my middle finger this is the note a and then with my index on the third string a sixth fret this is the note C sharp so it makes for a very simple triad of a major and then I open the rest of the strings and then I can slide it once again with the same shape two frets higher [Music] so this is a variation on this one [Music] then I could do it on an E major to to press higher same shape so that's really our dream e Lydian sound here and you feel that the attraction is coming back to our root chord here instead of an unresolved cadence but now in the title of this video I said that I would show it to you in all keys now we only can play it in open positions on D on a or on E now we do not have anymore open strings positions that we can use for this so what I'm going to do is to pick up Barre chords so let's say I want to do it in the key of a flat major I'm going to take my Barre chord from the fourth fret here on a flat but now it's too awkward to go like I'm going to go two frets higher with this this is not really practical so I'm going to strip this cord down like this I'm going to drop the fifth and the first string and I'm going to keep this shape only so I'm keeping my index on the sixth string fourth fret my pinkie on the fourth string sixth fret my middle and my excuse me my ring finger on the third string fifth fret and my middle finger on the second string fourth fret so it does so by having this shape I can stick my index at the bottom here and I can just slide the rest my fingers two three four two frets higher it's still stretchy but it's more manageable so with that since a bar position you can plate and wherever you want you can do this you so we can plate wherever you want but you could do it from the for the fifth string too so if I come back to a my D major shape here we could do it with an open position but let's slide down let's say I start from C sharp C sharp major now it's the same principle I would have to use the bar here and place it two frets higher but it's very awkward to play it like this and barring with your pinkie is not natural you could use it if it feels comfortable to you but it doesn't to me so what I'm doing instead is that I'm going to swap my C sharp note on the fifth string to the sixth string so instead of playing it on the fourth fret here I'm going to bleed on the ninth fret of the sixth string so now I'm going to use my pinky and I'm gonna bar the same frets as before but with my index now I find it's more comfortable and then I can easily slide this one two frets higher and use my middle finger on the bass note [Music] you it's much more comfortable to me than this and if you use both the timbre of the string is going to change between the fifth and the sixth string so I like to keep my bass note at the same place so just with those two shapes you can play it wherever you want in any key with this one or with this one [Music] and of course you have the open ones so there you go beautiful Lydian chords that you can use in any key this is a very effective two chord vamp that is going to highlight at all times your sharp 4 which is really the note that you want to feature to get a dreamy Lydian sound thanks for watching my lesson just before you go I have a gift for you I have a free course on ambient guitar chord structures it's a thirty five minute video series completely for free on my website and I go through the most popular ambient guitar chords that are that are called spread triads so you can click on the first link in the description box and sign up for free today for my free course you also get some exercises sheets or you can keep and download the chord diagrams and the chord sheets inside of the course so there's a lot of gift in there so I don't want you to miss that if you like some beautiful chords like I've showed you it's plenty more in my free course so click on the first link in the description box and take your spot today on my website so thanks a lot and until next time

Channel: Antoine Michaud

Views: 51,745

Keywords: Lydian Chords: Shapes in all keys, chords of the lydian mode, chords in lydian, lydian harmonization, lydian guitar, lydian mode on guitar, songs in lydian, how to write with the lydian mode, rick beato lydian, rick beato modes, adam neely, lydian sound, how to use the lydian mode

Id: G3hVphjYdFU

Length: 12min 54sec (774 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 02 2019