The Lydian Mode | How It's Used In Songs

The Lydian mode gives music a dreamy, ethereal. Artists Jane's Addiction, Fleetwood Mac, R.E.M. and others have used these patterns to create some especially spacey cool stuff.
In this video, I explain how these scales form chords and progressions -- and we look at some examples in popular music -- so you have special insight to create your own music in the Lydian mode. It's all based on a few simple patterns.
If you'd like to see more videos like this, please LIKE and SUBSCRIBE. And if you know someone who needs to see this, be sure to SHARE it with them. I want to know what you think, so please COMMENT.
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INTRO TO MODAL HARMONY: rumble.com/vsunbc-intro-to-mo...
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[@CarinaPrimaBallerina]

The Lydian followed me as something magical since childhood and always left me in awe when I heard it anywhere! One of the most beautiful songs utilizing the Lydian is definitely Shades by Iggy Pop with the industrial bells in the intro and the dreamy synth in the 20 seconds outro!

[@mikegeorge360]

Lydian definitely has a mystical vibe. I'd never heard "Shades" before -- I like it!

[@MuzixMaker]

Love how you get right to the point. Graphics are very good.

[@mikegeorge360]

Thanks! I’m glad the visuals help. 🤘

[@i3gallery]

Interesting video, some cool information presented in a unique format. Just some food for thought for anyone that may be interested, the raised forth of C Lydian is the F# and it's the raised 4th which gives Lydian its "colour" so aiming for chords that have that raised 4th in would give you a great starting point for a modal piece which is why it's a good idea to use chords voiced in 7ths and other extensions that fit so long as they are not harmonic avoidance notes so you'll end up with a palette of 7ths, 9ths, 11ths and 13ths alongside your sus chords which can all be used to achieve a Lydian sound so long as those extensions have that raised 4th in there. With regards to the Major I to Major II movement, it definitely has that disconnected vibe and is referenced often especially in classic movie scores because a Major chord moving to another Major chord by way of a major 2nd (two semitones) will always generate that cool vibe that forms part of the Lydian sound alongside constantly referencing that raised 4th in your harmony.

[@lit2021]

This is brilliant content, I was struggling with modes and music theory in general until I found your channel! :D Thank you so much for making these videos!

[@mikegeorge360]

Awesome -- I'm so glad this is helpful. (And thanks for your feedback.) Yes, it's all about patterns, and once you know how they work, the sky is the limit!

[@manuelmparis]

I'm glad I found your channel. Is pure gold! Thanks Mike!

[@mikegeorge360]

Very cool -- thank you, Manuel. Welcome!

[@chimmychoozie9474]

really good thanks

[@jdframpton]

Great video. Love this more but now I love it more! Thanks for the info.

[@fi2280]

What a brilliant explanation! Thank you!

[@tomheineman4369]

Great choice of songs

[@TalalRane]

You are truely fantastic teacher

[@anandkamate2308]

That is fantastic to know 👍🏻

[@kook0003]

Very well explained. Thanks

[@Derducci]

Very very helpfull thanx so much, great work as usual

[@mikegeorge360]

Awesome-thanks for your feedback.

[@RogerCreasy]

Thanks for the great video. Very educational. I'm a little late to the discussion...but, How is the #iv° used? I didn't see it in any of the examples - even "Landslide". It seems like it would want to resolve to the iii.

[@MichaelBLive]

Respectfully, I see Landslide entirely differently. To me the tertian concept doesn't help at all for this song except maybe a way to think about a piano arrangement of any song played on piano but not this one in particular. It's 3 groups of chords. The 3 groups are a whole step modulation. It's so natural on guitar and actually sounds like the song when you listen to it. Vamp on 2 chords a 5th apart for a very strong connection. Slide up a 5th for a mood lift and play 2 chords a strong 5th apart. Then one more lift. Clearly written and performed on guitar. Stevie is amazing!

[@vidubhai]

To me you are the best.

[@mikegeorge360]

🙏🤘

[@marcusjeanpirae7450]

🙌🏼🎸

[@g3krishnamurthy]

@mike absolutely loving all your videos on modes. I don’t see myxolydian,aeolian and locrian. Is it there and i am not seeing? If there is not would be GREAT to get those

[@TrondEggan]

For me I always felt these songs had the root in what you say is the 5th. Like Man on the moon I always thought of as a song in g major.

[@bribes_for_nouns]

good video. but for Fleetwood Mac Landslide it sounds more like Ionian to me. just feels like some variation of a I IV V in Bb Maj. so wouldn't we want to avoid that movement if we want to give it an Eb lydian vibe?

[@mikegeorge360]

Thanks! I can see what you’re saying. The tonic chord helps to give bearings on how each progression resolves.

[@TetrisMaster512]

Yeah, it sounds like Bb major is the tonic to me as well. If I'm not mistaken, the progression is just I V vi IV, the "Axis of Awesome" progression, extremely common across pop music, so I'd find it unlikely that Fleetwood Mac were thinking of it in terms of the lydian mode. Kinda seems like a major sound is inescapable any time you include all 3 major triads in a progression, since those are the primary triads of the major scale.

[@axieinfinityarenamode9548]

Beginner question. If the chord pattern for example is in G family chords, G-em-C-D, How can i use the Lydian scale?

[@jean-kevinlechat3592]

La gamme de sol majeur contient les mêmes notes que do lydien et donc la même harmonisation. Quel est donc la vraie différence ? Seulement les cadences utilisées ?

[@jitterjive4711]

Thanks for the nice presentation, Mike. I have a question. You said that "Jane Says" in in the key of G, but wouldn't it be written out in the key of D in sheet music as to eliminated the need for writing accidentals for the C# and F#?

[@mikegeorge360]

This is a good question. I haven’t seen myself, but think a publisher would want to keep it in the key of G to retain (and convey) the Lydian mode, which gives the song its distinct sound. The accidentals are messy business and efficiency is important, but capturing the mode is the overriding factor.

[@RockerProf]

Here is my understanding of the situation with key signatures and modes. The convention is that you always write a mode in the key in which the original tonic was. For example, you would show C Lydian in the key of C major with no sharps or flats in the key signature, but use accidentals to indicate C Lydian with F-sharp raised 4th. You do not compose in C Lydian by indicating that it's in the key of G. This is important because if you start a song in the key of C major, and you switch to the Lydian mode in the course of the song, you don't want to have to change key signatures in the middle of the song; you just want to indicate the Lydian with accidentals. Also, the presence of accidentals is supposed to be a dead giveaway on the fact that you are in a mode. It is never appropriate to write a mode in a key that has the same number of sharps or flats. For example, you would never compose F Lydian in the key of C major and then just play chords that emphasized the raised 4th. You would indicate the key signature as the key of F, and then show a raised 4th by raising the key signature Bb's to B naturals to indicate that you're in the Lydian mode. I think that the point here is that C Lydian is not in the key of G because it has an F#. C Lydian is in the key of C with a raised 4th. Just like F Lydian is not in the key of C because it has no sharps or flats. F Lydian is in the key of F with a raised 4th. This is not a trivial distinction.

[@mattwoodman3017]

Great video!! MAN ON THE MOON- Since the Diminished 4 isnt used in the progression, wouldnt that make it a C Ionion???

[@raahull04]

It is a valid question. But the reason why it won't be C Ionion is because the 2nd chord i.e. D being played in the song is D Major. In C Ionion, the 2nd chord in the scale would be a Minor chord. If the song was in C Ionion, then the starting chord progression would have been C Major, D minor ( instead of D Major being played here) That's my two cents on this.

[@mattwoodman3017]

@@raahull04 makes sense. thank you!

[@tonymoliterni]

Please, I need to use CC for translate to Spanish, thanks in advance. If can to change this option will be fabulous.

[@ognir66]

Thanks Mike, Sadly, this theory stuff is flying straight over my head. Do you have any courses that take this down to a much more nuts and bolts level? Or maybe know of another teacher or Content provider that explains this stuff a little clearer? Thanks for providing this instruction anyway.

[@careyvinzant]

Question: Since "Jane Says" is just two major chords a whole step apart, isn't it just as valid to see it as a bVII - I progression, especially since the higher chord (to me, anyway) feels like the point of resolution?

[@exalted_kitharode]

You have to look to melody

[@YouTw1tFace]

I hate saying C Lydian is the key of C. The “key of C” has no sharps or flats, but C Lydian has one sharp because it comes form G major. I get that the tomic is C, but to me that doesn’t represent the key. I would say the key is G major, Lydian mode.

[@jorgiewtf]

It’s funny how to my ears, even though Fleetwood Mac and James’s Addiction are doing the exact same thing, Fleetwood Mac just sounds better.

[@jamesjazzy8040]

I don't know what everybody's talking about. The 4th note doesn't sound any more peculiar than anything else in sequence...