Having some fun with the Mixolydian Mode

The latest scale chart on my Instagram feed was the D mixolydian mode (see below).

I’m often asked what chords work well together to really get the sound of the mode, so I wrote and recorded a little example for Instagram:

Keeping the tonic in the bass of a chord progression really helps to establish the sound of the mode so I wrote a basic progression of D-Am-G-D but played them as triads over the open D string. This then creates a series of slash chords. They were embellished a little with some sus chords and a little bonus C/D in the Am measure.

The improvised solo was trying to hit the chord tones, especially the C note over the Am chord to further establish us clearly in D mixolydian, the C note (the b7) being the characteristic colour tone of the mixolydian mode.

Amazing work (as always) from Mateus Asato

Mateus Asato always floors me with his ability on the instrument. Everything that comes out of his fingers is gold, so musical and full of emotion. He always reminds me that there is still a lot to learn and that I really do need to practise some more!

A recent post entitled ‘the breakup song’ had me reaching for Transcribe! to work it out and I shared the opening/closing progression with followers on Instagram.

Thanks Mateus for the inspiration.

Asato Chords RH@4x.png
Asato Chords LH@4x.png