A Lydian Scale on Violin

Play the A Lydian scale on Violin with fingerboard diagrams that map the pattern across the neck. The Lydian scale has 7 notes per octave and belongs to the modes family.

A is available as an open string on Violin, and 2 of its 4 open strings are scale tones — A (the root), E (the 5th). The G and D strings sit outside the scale. Open, the strings cover G3 to E5.

Major with a raised 4th (#4) — dreamy, ethereal, and floating. Often called the brightest mode, with an otherworldly suspended quality.

Heard in: Film scores, progressive rock, jazz — Joe Satriani's "Flying in a Blue Dream", John Williams, Steve Vai.

Violin is bowed, with a bare fingerboard and no fixed stops, so this is really a double-stop study: two strings at a time speak cleanly, and the full stack is rolled rather than sounded at once.

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 A Lydian scale to the chords it harmonizes and to progressions in the key of A 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.