E Mixolydian Bebop Scale on Oud

Play the E Mixolydian Bebop scale on Oud with fretboard diagrams that map the pattern across the neck. The Mixolydian Bebop scale has 8 notes per octave and belongs to the bebop family.

2 of Oud's 5 open courses belong to E Mixolydian Bebop: A (the 4th), D (the flat 7th). The C, F and G strings fall outside it, and E is not available open. Open, the courses cover C2 to C4.

Mixolydian with a passing major 7th between the b7 and the octave — the bright, bluesy dominant sound with a chromatic slide that keeps every chord tone on a downbeat. Slick, swinging, and quintessentially bebop.

Heard in: Jazz lines over dominant seventh chords, blues changes, and rhythm changes — the workhorse bebop scale.

Oud is tuned C–F–A–D–G–C, with 12 frets to work with. Positions are computed for this tuning; traditional technique may use idiomatic voicings not shown here.

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. Movable patterns let you transpose the same fingering to other keys once it is learned.

Once a position is under your fingers, link the E Mixolydian Bebop 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.