Bob Leslie is an Independent Scottish Songwriter, Singer, and Recording Artist
Making a statement …
Mixolydian mode is as popular a mode for songwriting as major or minor. It’s the scale based on the note that corresponds to the Soh note in the major scale.
So, a couple of octaves of it using the notes of the C major scale would be G Mixolydian and would look like this:
G A B C D E F G A B C D E F G
Following our usual I, IV, V group of chords (to cover all the notes in the mode), we get the following:
- G B D = G major
- C E G = C major
- D F A = D minor
To these we can add the VII chord – F A C = F major – as the strongest chord that identifies the mode.
In fact the progression G major, F major, C major, G major has a very dramatic, powerful feel to it. Try playing it in various tempos and rhythms, and I’m sure a whole bunch of well-known tunes will pop into your head.
Other commonly-occurring chords in the mode are the ones based on the 2nd-note, Am, and the 6th-note, Em.
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Let me tell you about my baby …
Among the rock classics that use the mode, there is the relentless rolling rhythm of Van Morrison’s Gloria – the B-side of classic ’60s hit Baby, Please Don’t Go by Them, which bashes its way through an E mixolydian pattern of E D A.
It was played by every band in the land, urging audiences to yell out the one-word hook at the top of their voices. It was covered by a host of artists including The Doors, R.E.M., and Patti Smith, amongst others.
The Rolling Stones had a big hit in the 60s with the R’n’B song The Last Time, which, like Gloria, is played over E D and A.
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JamalongaJerry …
Mixolydian is great to jam over, so the world’s greatest rock jam band, The Grateful Dead, used it all the time. Possibly their best known jam vehicle, Dark Star, is a musically dramatic piece in A mixolydian using the chords A G Em as its base.
But they also used the mode for lots of their more orthodoxly structured songs:
And their San Francisco compatriots The Jefferson Airplane weren’t averse to a bit of mixolydianing it up either – as seen in their song Volunteers.
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Folkin’ around …
Mixolydian is central to a huge number of folk songs too. The following are only a few examples:
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Blues in the mix …
An interesting variation on Mixolydian that you might want to experiment with – either 
writing or just jamming – is the Mixolydian-Blues scale.
It’s odd, in that it has 9 notes instead of the usual 7 as it adds a flattened 3rd-note and a flattened 5th-note to the mixolydian scale.
So, G Mixolydian-Blues scale would look like this:
G A Bb B C Db D E F
Chord-wise, that would let you slip in G minor as well as G major, A major as well as A minor, and a Bb major chord – as well as a bunch of jazzy diminished options.
That great Steppenwolf song Born to be Wild squeezes into this mode-variation too (E Mixolydian-Blues – chords E major D major A major G major)!
Play around with it, have fun!
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Next time, a few minor points about Aeolian mode!
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Bob Leslie – Scottish – Traditional – Songwriter
Bob Leslie 