Breaking Chords - 'The Mixolydian-Pentatonic Scale'

Here's the next episode of Breaking Chords with "The Mixolydian-Pentatonic Scale."
This lesson features a common but commonly misunderstood scale/arpeggio anomaly found in the playing style of countless guitarists.

You can easily trace this back to the intense playing found between guitar legend Jeff Beck and keyboardist Jan Hammer in the 1970s. and from there it extends into the playing of guitarists such as Eric Johnson, Joe Satriani, Nuno Bettencourt, Paul Gilbert, and countless other players.

This lesson features an unusual situation where the topic at hand could be viewed as five-note pentatonic scale variation or a D11 arpeggio - whichever you prefer.

In my mind, I like to refer to this concept as "Mixolydian Pentatonic" but in my head I view it more as an arpeggio.
This might sound odd, but the "Mixolydian Pentatonic" nickname I've given this idea helps me to remember what it is and how it's played.

If I thought of "modified pentatonic" or as an "11th arpeggio" I might not remember/view this information the correct way.
In other words, this nickname may not be the best for you, but it works for me and that's what I call this particular set of ideas.

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[ericweyman]

I've been playing guitar for just over 5 years now and everything that ive ever learned was from YouTube and theres never been a guitar channel quite like yours, I get more of a hang out vibe from your channel but yet still learning tons of great stuff and I love it!!!..keep up the videos

[surbas]

Yes! Finally, someone showing off Mixo-Pentatonic! Great job David! String skipping licks work killer with this to.

[bigmojo]

This scale/lick also used prominently in Rush's "The Camera Eye" solo. Great lesson as usual.

[markmcmullan]

I love Marty Friedman's use of this on forclosure of a dream solo . Epic .

[MatsDagerlind]

In my circles we used to call this mixolydian pentatonic already in the mid seventies, but as far as I'm concerned it started (in a rock guitar context) with Steve Hillage, who almost exlusively used this scale instead of the regular pentatonic on psychedelic albums like Fish Rising.

[gingerjam]

I discovered this scale 20 years ago as I was experimenting with minor pentatonic and major pentatonic interval series (1-3-4-5-7 and 1-2-3-5-6) transposed to every modes. My favorite « new » pentatonic scales were the Lydian pentatonic 1-3-4-5-7 and the mixolydian pentatonic 1-3-4-5-7. For me the Lydian = instant japan, the mixolydian = instant India 😉👍

[jayartz]

Jan Hammer/Jeff Beck live probably my favourite album, love how it's mixed with Jeff Beck on one speaker and Jan Hammer on the other. My playing really took off after absorbing that album.

[wreckstate]

It works like harmonic minor over the V in a minor progression too but licks like pentatonic. Cool lesson!

[patrickkish]

This is some serious spice to have on the shelf when you're cooking with rock

[jillianlynneswope]

Really got alot from that! Thank you! Just an easy change to such a familiar scale, and another flawless execution, and love the Pink Floyd record on the wall, keep it up!

[wulfenii]

As soon as you played it the first time I heard the Beck sound of that time. Cool.

[azertyuiop]

Great video as usual, please keep up the awesome videos.
Very comprehensive view of pentatonic version of the mixolydian b6 scale, or hindu scale, 5th mode of melodic minor.
Petrucci does love it !

[davidsmith-jjiq]

Ihave the Jeff Beck, Jan Hammer record"shes a woman", etc with them both playing up a storm, I think he made an album with Neal Schon.

[MichaelWilson-ripn]

Great job and very helpful lesson. I wish you would post 10 videos a day!

[drockny]

Really enjoyed this lesson. I like learning new licks "out of the box". Really like the examples you showed where other shredders have used that technique. More lessons like this please!

[MercutioUK]

Chris Poland approved?

;-)

Nice coverage

[plexibreath]

I've used that scale for years, and I got it from Jeff Beck, I've also always called it the "Mixolydian Pentatonic" scale. I also play a version of it where I add the major 6th, but avoid the 2nd, that I call the "Hollow Mixolydian", because without that fat 2 weighing everything down it sounds etherial. Thanks!

[superzombie]

Excellent work sir, this was a great vid!!

[probtub]

What a great old school Start Wars poster!

[HubLocationSound]

Thanks for the video. I wrote a song based around this scale (didn’t know it had a name at the time) where my bass line hovered on the root and IV, but would turn around on the minor 3rd, which worked well if my melody never hit that major 3rd at that same moment, but it definitely confused me as to why/how both maj and minor 3rd could exist within the same part.