Mixolydian scale on guitar

Its formula is R 2 3 4 5 6 b7, the same in every key: learn it once and you can build the Mixolydian scale on any root. Players often use it for rock and blues riffs over major chords.

A root on a black key goes by one name here: C# Mixolydian, never Db Mixolydian. To find each note on the neck on its own, see every note on the fretboard.

G Mixolydian is G Major with the 7 lowered by a half step.

F is the note that makes the difference; on the neck above it wears a ring.

Nobody learns the whole neck at once. The Mixolydian scale comes in seven boxes with three notes on each string: position 1 starts on your low string with the root, G at fret 3, and each next box starts on the next note of the scale.

Learn one box, then the next, and play across both: together they cover the neck. Where the neck has room, a box comes back twelve frets higher. These are three-notes-per-string shapes, not CAGED.

In G, these are the chords that live in the Mixolydian scale: a triad and a seventh chord on each note of the scale, so you know what to play under your solo.

Click a chord to see how to play it.

Same notes, same frets, another home note: know the Mixolydian scale on the neck and you already have these under your fingers.

• C Ionian (Major)
• D Dorian
• E Phrygian
• F Lydian
• A Aeolian (Natural Minor)
• B Locrian

All seven modes side by side: guitar modes.

Tune down and the Mixolydian scale stays the same scale, it just sits on other frets. In Drop D only your low string changes, so every shape on the other five strings stays put. Drop C and Drop B take every string down, so the whole scale shifts, and DADGAD lowers three strings. Here is where its root G sits on the low string in each.