Music/Scale/Mixolydian

• Mixolydian Mode

  • Also called the tetrardus authentic mode or Mode 7. On C: C D E F G A B♭. Steps in semitones: 2 2 1 2 2 1 2. The fifth mode of Music/Scale/Major.

  • History

    • The ancient Greek Mixolydian octave species ran from B to B, the collection now called Locrian. The medieval G mode inherited the name in the Carolingian renaming; see Music/Scale/Dorian.
    • In polyphony the G mode's seventh was routinely raised to F♯ at cadences, so much "Mixolydian" Renaissance music cadences as if in G major.

  • Use

    • Folk traditions that end tunes without a leading tone favor it. Irish and Scottish dance tunes are often Mixolydian, and the Great Highland bagpipe chanter plays a Mixolydian scale on A with a flat seventh.
    • Rock uses its ♭VII as a third functional chord beside IV and V. The progression I–♭VII–IV–I closes "Hey Jude", and the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood" is Mixolydian throughout.
    • In jazz chord-scale theory it is the default scale over an unaltered dominant seventh chord.

  • Quirks

    • The tonic triad is major, the triad on 5 is minor (G B♭ D on C), and the subtonic chord ♭VII is major. Cadences come from ♭VII–I or IV–I instead of V–I.
    • Inverting its step pattern gives Music/Scale/Minor/Natural.