E Mixolydian Scale on Mountain Dulcimer

Play the E Mixolydian scale on Mountain Dulcimer with fretboard diagrams that map the pattern across the neck. The Mixolydian scale has 7 notes per octave and belongs to the modes family.

All 2 of Mountain Dulcimer's open strings fall inside E Mixolydian — D (the flat 7th), A (the 4th) — though E itself has to be stopped. Open, the strings cover D3 to D4.

Major with a flatted 7th (b7) — bright and bluesy. The dominant chord turned into a tonal center with a rock/folk edge.

Heard in: "Sweet Home Chicago", "Norwegian Wood" (Beatles), Celtic and folk music — anywhere a major sound needs a darker, looser edge.

Mountain Dulcimer is tuned D–A–D, with frets 1 to 17 laid out diatonically plus the 6+ and 13+ frets — D#, F and A# sound nowhere on it. Only the chords and notes its diatonic frets reach are charted, and the 6+ fret (between 6 and 7) counts as a fret of its own.

Each position shows the scale notes and their intervals from the root so you can connect the shape to its sound, hear it with audio playback, and practice it in any register. The Mountain Dulcimer's frets are diatonic, so the pattern does not slide to other keys: each key sits on its own set of frets, and only the notes those frets reach are charted.

Once a position is under your fingers, link the E Mixolydian scale to the chords it harmonizes and to progressions in the key of E to start improvising and writing with it. Working a scale alongside its chords is the fastest way to make it stick and to hear how it colors a progression.