In this short etude we’re going to look at some useful concepts around the sound of Lydian (4th mode of the Major Scale) Lydian is a sound we all know and love, perhaps bringing up feelings of spaciousness, nostalgia and maybe even a hint of melancholy or hopefulness depending on your life so far.
Lydian consists of the following intervals:
1 2 3 #4 5 6 7
If we re-arrange these as chord tones we get the following:
1 3 5 7 9 #11 13
C Major, CMajor7, CMajor9, C6/9 and CMaj7#11 are just some potential chord extensions available from this set of intervals. Modes are Chords ultimately, and the use of Lydian ranges from a moment in a diatonic chord progression all the way to static vamps on the one chord quality, perhaps with some movement in the voicings etc.
Riff
This etude starts out with a riff that highlights the upper extensions of a CMaj9chord. We’re using a concept called Super Imposition here, where we take another triad or 7th chord an impose it over a different root note to create a different set of tones. In this case we’re taking a 1stinversion Em7 voicing and playing it over C. This gives us the Root, C, the Major 3rd, E, The 5th, G, The Major 7th B and the 9th, the note D. We’re attacking this riff with double picking, Tosin Abasi style. To give this riff some movement, we’re going to move the root of C to A to give a feeling of progression to the section. This section we’re gonna take a solo over!
Solo Improvisation
I improvised this solo over the riff that I had written. I had my friend Jeff DeFonte transcribe it, he’s done a marvellous job!
In the video for this lesson, I break down the concept behind each phrase in detail and you can check out the TAB for the solo below. Perhaps for this BLOG post, I’ll give another spin on the solo approach.
If we look at the lines of our favourite guitarists, if we look deeply, there are core concepts at play. The harmony, dynamic and timing of the song are giving the soloist context. Within this context, the soloist uses theirown tool set. Which ranges from influences (musically, how they are feeling in the moment, their quality of listening, what they are noticing etc) and also their tool kit, this could be fretboard knowledge and technique. In this solo situation, the soloist navigates around the context, conversing with it, going with it, going against it.
This may all seem very pretentious, and perhaps it is. But this aspect of soloing or creating any musical statement is often overlooked in favour of raw knowledge, pre-described lines and mythical statements around what people think someone else was thinking.
My advice with all of this is to simply connect. With the instrument and with the music. When we practice, to connect with he core building blocks. Fretboard Knowledge, Technique, practicing creating ‘real life’ situations for our playing by using limitations (focusing on one or two ideas and squeezing them for example, or contrasting your phrases deliberately, or even thinking in the classic Q&A style phrasing and see if you can make it very dramatic)
Inspiration is often sought after, but what if creating inspiration itself was the creative act? Whilst our musical statements can be analysed in terms of scales/concepts/techniques, approaching in this more human/conversational/connected way can lead to the Musician really saying something with their whole being, rather than with their head. All the tools we practice naturally will come out to aid us, or not… if it doesn’t, then it means we have found a real place to work on in our playing, rather than fearfully grasping for new concepts in order to feel better. We often already have a wealth of things to work with, our brains are so used to consuming, we are scavenging for stuff to have rather than making the most of what we’ve got and then adding to that with curiosity and a sense of direction.
Anyway, enough ranting from me! I hope you enjoy the video and you pick up some cool new phrases in your own playing.
If you’re interested in some of the Pentatonic Stuff that I’m doing here and want to take that further, be sure to check out my book ‘Creative Pentatonic Rock Concepts’ which you can get HERE:
