Improvising With The Lydian Mode

Once you've learned about what Modes are, and how they function - let's put that knowledge to good use!

We're going to use a little two bar vamp here, a floaty progression of E and an F#add13/E chord.

(In other words, that's an F# major chord with a 13th on top, and an E note on the bottom.)

To me, this progression has an ethereal, somewhat ambiguous vibe. I think you can often describe the Lydian Mode that way.

It's equivalent to a Major Scale with a raised 4th - making the 4th a Tritone!

Now let's improvise over it!

We can use our Major Pentatonic Scale here from our E root, because the 4th Scale Degree is omitted from the Major Pentatonic.

You can also use your 3 Note Per String Forms here for all 7 notes of the mode.

Another powerful option though, is to modify our Pentatonic to incorporate the raised 4th, as seen below:

This doesn't require a lot of new thinking to work out, we just add the raised 4th where appropriate to our Penta Forms, and you'll find a fresh new sound out of the familiar shapes!

Can you work out where the raised 4th can be added in to the other forms?