D Lydian

[Passante]

Why does it sound so darkish? Or is it me?
I was listening to some backing tracks on Youtube and most of them sounded on the dark side to me. I thought Lydian should have a brighter, more uplifting feel. Is there something specific about D Lydian that gives it such twist?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVRKR718IgE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InKiCXLPbtY

[mjudge55]

Just taking a stab here: the only note that differs between lydian and ionian (major) is the sharp fourth. In order for the listener to hear the piece as lydian and not major, this sharp fourth note needs to be emphasized or the tendency would be to feel the piece in the major mode. This sharp fourth interval is called a tritone and in western harmony wants very badly to resolve, the lower note moving down a half step and the higher note resolving up a half step. In lydian, if the tritone ever resolves this way the modal feel can be ruined and the listener will feel the tune in major. This means lydian is basically always sitting in a place of tension from the perspective of someone steeped in western harmony. Unrest can be felt in several ways and it's very subjective -- "searching", "floating", "tense", "off" or even "dark" all seem like possible interpretations and they can be supported with other devices like tempo, chord choice, arrangement, fx, etc. Certainly though, the more obviously "dark" modes would be those with minor thirds like all the minor modes, phrygian, dorian, etc.

[trewq]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not hearing the 6th or 7th notes of D anywhere, which would make it the D lydian minor if they were flat.

Good backing track.

[jancivil]

"Dark" is not an objective term, nor is 'uplifting'. The first link's sound is a different mood than that second one, same mode/same "tonic". D vs another center has nowt to do with it.
You'll see assertions like this all over, from all kinds of musicians. I saw Frank Gambale do some happy sounding moves in E Ionian mode talking 'it's always happy, 'major' (afaic Major means tonal esp leading tone ^7 ), Ionian is what I call what he was doing). Major might be a very high % of the time, but Watermelon in Easter Hay is E Ionian most of the way through and it's typical to see "this will be played at my funeral" because of the deep or profound impact. Which is in the intervals (first melody note is D# bent from C# over an A chord, it leaps out at ya). but I consider it a point of craft to be able to do more than a kind of trivial expectation of the object. Hindustani Classical Music's "Lydian" is the thaat or parent raag Kalyan. Depending on the actual composition and the prescribed use of intervals; it could be quite profound. I might even say should be. It might not be "uplifting". I can't take as a given what that means to anyone else.

Is Carlos Santana playing 'dark' w. all that Dorian mode?

[nix808]

similar to d minor,
with the flattened fourth then

[trewq]

Lydian min.
Maybe it was made to confuse us because it's a dark scale.

....another dad joke

[Krakatau]

lydian modes to my ears might induce a calm and mysterious feel, with a very slight touch of anguish due to the tritone interval with the fundamental

many western-africans so to say "tradimodern" arrangements from manding culture are adapted through a lydian mode (and sometimes also Myxolydian ) to the diatonic scale

[nix808]

I'm a learner,
just learnt to transpose to key
D is my favourite, a guitarist

I can read this stuff usually,
and it's like DSP forum too
-like doctors or something beyond my simian cranium

[trewq]

It can be confusing because we learn that any minor scale has a flat 3rd, but the lydian minor's 3rd is not flat. We just have to make an exception in this case

[mjudge55]

I'm genuinely confused. Can someone tell me why we're talking about Lydian minor in this thread? The first example includes the major 7th if I'm not mistaken and even if the 6th isn't played I hear anything other than the major 6th sounding unexpected in a bad way over that track. In the second track I don't think I'm hearing either the 6th or 7th degree but again minor versions of those sound off to me.

I've had limited time to look at this and I am where I am in my theory journey so I might be wrong. But it occurs to me I'm pretty used to hearing lydian but not very used to hearing lydian minor in a rock context. When a piece is ambiguous as to any scale degree aren't I naturally going to feel it in the more typical mode for the style? Or am I just prejudiced because the videos say they're regular lydian, and have lydian scale charts?

[jancivil]

People come up with what I'd consider incomplete names of scales and modes pretty frequently like that. But in context, they've implied a minor 7 and/or minor 6 from "tonic"; for instance D E F# G# A Bb C vs w. B C#.
I personally would not attach "minor" to a set having a major 3 from tonic sans explanation, but we can read context.

One way I learned to think about Lydian (CF: the Lydian Chromatic Concept) is its formation from stacking P5; considered thusly there's more consonance immediately available than with considering "major" as primary as most western persons will tend to do.
C G D A E B -clunk- F vs F C G D A E B

[jancivil]

When I was young I encountered Lydian with a minor 7, and gravitated to that frequently in my basic thinking.
I believe the name I saw first was "Overtone scale" (compare "acoustical scale"). The argument for that name is from partials 1-11 (acknowledging et's "11" is almost a quarter-tone sharp of the harmonic).
C D E F# G A Bb is aka 4th mode of G ascending melodic minor.

[jancivil]

in western harmony [a tritone] wants very badly to resolve, the lower note moving down a half step and the higher note resolving up a half step. In lydian, if the tritone ever resolves this way the modal feel can be ruined and the listener will feel the tune in major. This means lydian is basically always sitting in a place of tension from the perspective of someone steeped in western harmony. Unrest can be felt in several ways and it's very subjective...

Very true as regards tonality*; but not long after being as steeped in western harmony as it gets, by training, I was looking at Indian Classical (which ultimately became more my basis in thought than all that tonality). So we're comparing oranges to something that's round but definitely a different color than orange. And I knew from Lydian Chromatic Concept by then, which basic tenet I do agree with (despite that its 'acoustical truth' is a skew from actual acoustical 'law').

(*: true of any mode once we start trying to shoehorn harmony in from tonality as though necessary. However the tendency is quite avoidable; the second video's D Lydian is to me the more typical sound or approach of Lydian, where a 'II chord' occurs {alternating with "I"} over a I pedal; so there a G# is in regular contact with D without there being any necessity of a resultant resolution to [A-C#] A major.)

[mjudge55]

in western harmony [a tritone] wants very badly to resolve, the lower note moving down a half step and the higher note resolving up a half step. In lydian, if the tritone ever resolves this way the modal feel can be ruined and the listener will feel the tune in major. This means lydian is basically always sitting in a place of tension from the perspective of someone steeped in western harmony. Unrest can be felt in several ways and it's very subjective...

Very true as regards tonality*; but not long after being as steeped in western harmony as it gets, by training, I was looking at Indian Classical (which ultimately became more my basis in thought than all that tonality). So we're comparing oranges to something that's round but definitely a different color than orange. And I knew from Lydian Chromatic Concept by then, which basic tenet I do agree with (despite that its 'acoustical truth' is a skew from actual acoustical 'law').

(*: true of any mode once we start trying to shoehorn harmony in from tonality as though necessary. However the tendency is quite avoidable; the second video's D Lydian is to me the more typical sound or approach of Lydian, where a 'II chord' occurs {alternating with "I"} over a I pedal; so there a G# is in regular contact with D without there being any necessity of a resultant resolution to [A-C#] A major.)

Liked. Where I'm at is trying to work my way through the book Jazzology so I am a bit preoccupied by tonality, just for something to grasp, speak with, and move from.

[jancivil]

For me, as pertains to chords put on modes there will tend to be a two-chord dynamic which highlights the character of the mode.
For Lydian, it's I-II; Dorian is i-IV; Mixolydian I-bVII; Aeolian maybe 3 chords, i, bVI, bVII; Phrygian i-bII. Locrian, forget about chords. Rock music might well do say Dorian with an additional bVII, but this is 'less modal' afaic as it resembles tonal circles.