My Guitar Notes

F lydian dominant scale

The fourth mode of the melodic minor scale: a major scale with a raised fourth and a flattened seventh. It is the pitch set of a dominant seventh chord with a raised fourth available.

Root
F
Scale
Lydian dominant
Type
symmetric
Notes
F G A B C D Eb
Notes in the scale
7
Degree formula
1 2 3 #4 5 6 b7
Semitones from the root
0 2 4 6 7 9 10
Step pattern
W W W H W H W
Aliases
Lydian b7, Acoustic scale, Overtone scale
Key signature of this root
F major / D minor · Bb
Written use
Named 1 2 3 #4 5 6 b7. Played over a dominant seventh chord that does not resolve downwards by a fifth, such as the IV7 chord in a blues.

Notes and degrees

Each degree of the scale, its note name in this key, and its distance from the root in semitones.

DegreeNoteSemitonesInterval from the root
1F0Perfect unisontonic
2G2Major second
3A4Major third
#4B6Tritone
5C7Perfect fifth
6D9Major sixth
b7Eb10Minor seventh

Positions on the guitar

The five windows below are computed, not copied from a shape chart. The script locates the lowest occurrence of F on each of the five upper strings within the first twelve frets and takes a five-fret window centred on it. Because a scale repeats every twelve frets, these five windows cover the whole neck; the same sequence returns an octave higher. The positions are numbered from the lowest fret upwards, so position 1 is always the window nearest the nut and position 5 the window nearest the twelfth fret.

Position 1

Root on the 6th string E2 at fret 1. 15 notes of the scale inside this window.

String0123
1st (highest) string E4FG
2nd string B3BCD
3rd string G3GA
4th string D3DEbF
5th string A2ABC
6th string E2FG

Position 2

Root on the 4th string D3 at fret 3. 18 notes of the scale inside this window.

String12345
1st (highest) string E4FGA
2nd string B3CDEb
3rd string G3ABC
4th string D3EbFG
5th string A2BCD
6th string E2FGA

Position 3

Root on the 2nd string B3 at fret 6. 18 notes of the scale inside this window.

String45678
1st (highest) string E4ABC
2nd string B3EbFG
3rd string G3BCDEb
4th string D3GA
5th string A2DEbF
6th string E2ABC

Position 4

Root on the 5th string A2 at fret 8. 18 notes of the scale inside this window.

String678910
1st (highest) string E4BCD
2nd string B3FGA
3rd string G3DEbF
4th string D3ABC
5th string A2EbFG
6th string E2BCD

Position 5

Root on the 3rd string G3 at fret 10. 18 notes of the scale inside this window.

String89101112
1st (highest) string E4CDEb
2nd string B3GAB
3rd string G3EbFG
4th string D3BCD
5th string A2FGA
6th string E2CDEb

Read the grid as a chord diagram: the top row is the first string. Degrees appear in the notes and degrees table above; a filled cell is a note of the scale, and the shaded cell is the tonic.

Related keys and modes

Related