Mixolydian b6

Mixolydian with a flat sixth

Mixolydian is 1 2 3 4 5 6 ♭7 — the major scale with a lowered seventh, the standard scale over a dominant chord that is not going anywhere in particular. Lower the sixth as well and the chord it covers changes: the ♭6 is the ♭13, so the scale now describes a dominant seventh with a flat thirteenth.

That single alteration gives the scale a direction Mixolydian does not have. A ♭13 sits a semitone above the fifth and leans downward onto it, so the chord sounds unfinished in a way that plain Mixolydian does not. The natural place for that is a dominant resolving to a minor chord, where the ♭13 is already a note of the target key.

Nothing else changes. Major third and flat seventh are intact, so the chord stays a dominant, and the fourth is still perfect, so this is not altered territory. Mixolydian ♭6 sits exactly between the plain dominant sound and the altered one — more tension than Mixolydian, far less than the altered scale.

Why it is called the Hindu scale, and what that name is worth

Older Western theory books list this pattern as the Hindu scale, and that is the name most of the measured search demand uses. The label is a nineteenth- and twentieth-century Western convention for a scale perceived as exotic, and it is worth treating with care.

Indian classical music does not organise itself into seven-note scales in the way this name implies. Its ragas are defined by ascending and descending note sets, characteristic phrases, ornamentation and time of day — a framework a single Western scale cannot represent. The note content of Mixolydian ♭6 does overlap with that of some ragas, but that overlap is not what makes a raga.

So the practical position is: recognise the name, because catalogues and search results use it, and do not treat it as a description of Indian music. The accurate name for what this page covers is the fifth mode of melodic minor.

Where it is used

The clearest application is the dominant chord leading into a minor key, played with a flat thirteenth. Over E7♭13 resolving to A minor, this scale gives every note the chord asks for and no alterations it does not. It is the mildest way of making a dominant lean toward minor.

It shows up in modal jazz where a dominant chord stays put for several bars and needs one colour that is not the obvious one, and in rock and film writing wherever a major-sounding chord is shaded darker without leaving the key. Guitarists often arrive at it by accident, playing minor pentatonic ideas over a dominant chord and adding the major third.

Measured demand is modest and mostly reaches this scale through its alternative name rather than through its position in the melodic minor family. That is the honest framing: a working sound with a small audience and a misleading label attached to it.

Frequently asked questions