Having my music lesson. We’re listening to Lost Woods from Ocarina of Time and analyzing it.

• It’s in F major with an added #11.
• The backing notes have the #11 in them.
• The melody is highlighting the #11 by ending on it.

Even though we’re in C major, it feels like we’re in F Lydian because we play the #11 so much.

My music teacher is showing me the chord he usually uses for Lydian, which is has the notes C7 with an added 2 and #4 in the upper octave. I asked why he always adds the 2 and he replied that it was because his jazz teacher said it always sounds good and that he uses it now to disguise the chords so it’s not too obviously major or minor.

What does it mean to voice a chord?

Voicing is the way a chord is laid out in a piano roll, instrument, etc. There are many ways to arrange the notes and still end up with the same chord while changing the leading tones or how “bright” the chord feels

In general, for Lydian, pick voicings that highlight the #4 and avoid notes in a shared key. For example, don’t play the C Major chord when playing F Lydian (because F is the fourth scale degree of C Major). In other words, don’t play the major scale of the scale a fourth below. You should also make Lydian the first or last chord. He also suggested playing the raised fourth even when moving to other keys.

When it comes to voicing, I asked if using it as the top-most or bottom-most note would work. He said that he would not play #4 as the bass note, because Lydian is about the raised fourth degree relative to the tonic and playing it as the bass can make it feel like you’re in a different key since it feels like the new tonic.

The key feeling of Lydian comes from how it sounds like it needs to resolve but it never does.

He suggested I look up songs in Lydian and study them. For example, I should listen to Dreams by Fleetwood Mac.