If you like music that offers a VERY unique sound - something rich, possibly strange - even creepy... then you've hit pay dirt! This post is definitely for you! Featured is a scale that has such an odd yet 'worldly' sound that it will literally, "Change Your World," upon you spending time learning to play and use it... 




The scale I'm talking about is called the, "Lydian Dominant," scale, but it is also commonly referred to as the, "Lydian b7," along with its other name, the "Acoustic Scale."

We’re going to focus on several areas of training within this lesson. We'll begin by first learning a few scale patterns on the neck, but we'll also explore the scales theory along with its harmony.

WATCH THE VIDEO:



CHANGE YOUR WORLD:
Lydian Dominant
I’m going to show you some great ways to introduce the sound of a very interesting scale into your guitar playing. The sound of this scale is very cool – very worldly and the scale’s name is the “Lydian Dominant.”

It’s sound comes from applying a non-standard major tonality effect, and it allows for a darker major color by way of the scales lowered 7th along with its tri-tone of a raised 4th.

As a bonus, by the end of this lesson - not only will you understand the unique sounds of the Lydian Dominant scale, but you’ll also learn a valuable scale practice technique that’ll help you get organized with applying any new scale with a lot more musical success.

Plus you’ll learn how to apply any new scale much easier. So, let’s get started by learning how to play through a couple of fret-board patterns for the Lydian Dominant scale.




LYDIAN DOMINANT - PATTERNS:
Here’s our first guitar neck pattern for Lydian Dominant. This pattern is based off of the 6th guitar string’s 8th fret “C” tone, giving us “C Lyd. Dom.” 

6th-String / 8th-Fret Layout (Tonic Note of "C")



Next, we’ll learn one more pattern for Lydian Dominant scale, but this time our new pattern will be based off of the 5th guitar string’s 3rd fret, “C” tone.

5th-String / 3rd-Fret Layout (Tonic Note of "C") 







HEARING / USING THE SOUND:
Often times guitar players who learn a new scale, (with a unique sound), will tend to have a problem with learning how to hear the sound of the scale musically. And then, use as well as, apply that knowledge to be able to make music from the new scale.

I’ve got something really cool that I want to teach you about when doing that kind of work, and it has to do with the creation of jam tracks that will lock down the color of any scale.

In our case we’ll focus on the “C” Lydian Dominant. And, in doing this, we’ll learn where it originates from and what chords are based off of it.

Lydian Dominant is the 4th mode of the Melodic Minor scale:

"C Melodic Minor"




If we took a “C Melodic Minor” scale and then raised the 3rd, raised the 4th and lowered the 7th, we get a, “C Lydian Dominant.”

"C Lydian Dominant"



If we harmonized the "C Lydian Dominant" scale into chords, we’d get two; Dom.7 chords, then two Mi7(b5) chords, a Maj/m7 next, then a minor 7, and finally a Maj7(#5).

Harmonized Lydian Dominant:



By, knowing this information, we can use the chord harmony of Lydian Dominant to create some jam-tracks for learning to perform melody lines.




CREATING THE BEST JAM-RIFFS:
The first two chords built from the first and second steps of the “C Lydian Dominant Scale” are both Dominant 7th’s… So, what we will do is create a Jam, that focuses on the chords of, “C7” and “D7.”

I’ll also take things a little further by adding an altered tone that relates to the “F#” (that is the raised 4th of Lydian Dominant), by playing a “C7(b5).”

Plus, I’m also going to create a chord voicing for the 2nd chord of “D7” that maintains the “C” in the bass and also maintains the “F#” on the top-end of the chord.

Chord Harmony Jam-Riff:

Jam-Riff 1).


I still have one more riff to go over with you, but I wanted to take a minute to let you know, that if you need more work on your keys, and you don’t understand your chords (well and good enough to implement the Lydian Dominant Scale), then I’m gonna make you a great offer.

With any donation over $5, or any T-shirt or merchandise purchase from either my Tee-Spring, or my Zazzle store, I’ll send you a free copy of THREE of my most popular digital handouts.

One is called, “Harmonized Arpeggio Drills” (it’ll train you on developing your diatonic arpeggios), another is my “Barre Chord” handout which includes a page showing all the key signatures along with a chord progression that applies barre chords.

Plus, you’ll get my Notation Pack! It has 8 pages of important guitar worksheets for notating anything related to; music charts, guitar chord diagrams, and TAB.

Just send me and email off of the contact page of CreativeGuitarStudio.com to let me know about your donation or your Merchandise purchase and I’ll email those digital handouts to you within 24 hrs.



Interval Based Jam-Riff:

Next, we will focus on the important notes that changed when we converted the, “C Melodic Minor” over to the, “C Lydian Dominant.”

If you’ll recall there was an “Eb” tone in “C Melodic Minor” that switched to an “E natural.” And, there was also the 4th tone of “F” that was raised up to “F#” within the Lydian Dominant.

Plus, there was a “B” note from “C Melodic Minor” that had switched to a “Bb” in the “C Lydian Dominant.”

For the next example, we’ll focus on the “E” as well as on the “F#” to make a two note riff that will work as a nice format to play some “C” Lydian Dominant melody lines over.

Jam Riff 2).