confusion on melodic minor scale chords

[Timbell]

working now on melodic minor derived chords. Problem is I have been working out of Levine's book, and trying to find fingerings that match his suggested chords.

his chords are on page 56,

C maj/min, Dsus flat 9, E flat maj #5, F7#11, C maj/min/G, A half dim, B7 alt.

this webpage here has some examples of fingerings that harmonize the scale, but some do not exactly match and I am having a hard time deciding if these fingerings express the chords if they are not including the alterations.

on the jazzguitarlessons site there are some suggested drop 2 and 3 fingerings.

the ii chord that jgl uses is a plain min, and i was curious how this works at subbing for a sus flat 9 like levine suggest. On his IV chord he has an f7, that makes sense to me but I was wondering if people often played a real #11 for the IV. The chord he suggest for the V is just a dom7, this one I am a little confused about how it subs for levine's min/maj / 5th. the VII he says to use is a half diminished instead of the b7alt that I have become use to playing.

[Timbell]

also looking for comfortable fingerings for the suggested major/min/5th chord levine says to play over the V.

[m78w]

It can be a bit confusing.

If you look at the second mode of G melodic minor you can spell two chords

A C E G = Am7

or

A D E G Bb = Asusb9

So it can be used both ways, but most players these days seem to prefer the susb9 sound.

For the IV chord I think most guys will go with 7#11, if they want to use plain 7 then mixolydian is the way to go.

For the V chord, I like to use 7b13, so D7b13 for G melodic minor

D F# A C E G Bb

That sort of sound.

For the seventh mode, again you can spell two chords

F# A C E = F#m7b5

or

F# Bb C E = F#7alt, then you can add in the G and A and D for the other altered notes if you want.

hope that helps, it's a tricky scale to get around the harmony at first, but once you get it, it tends to stick.

[Timbell]

thanks for the help Matt. I have been playing around with it and cannot really hear how the Am7 works compared to the susb9, which fits the progression much better. I also like the sound of a 7#11 in the melodic minor progression. I'm going to try out the b13 and stick with the alt7. Appreciate the response, that gives me some things to play around with.

[voelker]

Remember that there are a lot of different theories, all intended to organize and communicate what sounds good. Theory has taught us to think of dorian when we see Dm7 and Mixolydian/Lydian dominant when we see G7, and this usually makes us think of a major 2,5,1, and implies certain avoid notes. Theory tells us to play 3 completely different scales over a minor 2,5,1, and the blues is all dominant chords. Like all of these concepts melodic minor harmonies is its own thing. Heres how I made sense of it;

melodic minor harmony is kind of a modal concept. The characteristic notes of C melodic minor are Eb(b3rd) and B(7th). The chords D Susb9 and Cm/maj7/G avoid the use of the (B,F) tri-tone interval. The Dsusb9 has no b3rd (F) and the Cm/maj7/G has no b7th (F), this means the ear is not drawn to the (B,F) tri-tone(which implies other harmonies) but emphasizes the sound of the B and the Eb. If you were playing Cm/maj7 and you saw Dm7, G7, you might start thinking Dorian, mixo/Lydian dominant, and you might loose that melodic minor sound. But at the same time Levine did say that there are no avoid notes in melodic minor harmony.

[JohnW400]

When I learned these, way back in the late 70's , you harmonized all the standard 7 note scales the same way as you would the major scale.

That meant building up in 3rds. So you get Amima7 Bmi7 Cma7#5 D7 E7 F#mi7b5 and G#mi7b5

You would use the above chords when doing arpeggios or harmonizing the scale.

In the example above going from Cmima7 to D7b9sus4, you skip a note (F) and you wind up playing G twice when you move from D7b9sus4 to Ebma7#5

Usage is another thing all together. This is what Levine is showing. How many people use the modes of the jazz melodic minor.

[Reg]

yea John and voelker are both in the direction... how MM is used in jazz, you can, as John said go through the standard chord building practice and have a basic understanding of MM. But in Jazz we don't hear or use in the same manner or resolution style function as we do with Maj or Min. Part of the difficulty is there are two tri-tones in MM ... but more to the point... we usually use more in a modal style of use or hearing. It's a collection of pitches with a sound or tonal center. You can mix and match chords. You then complicate the situation by mixing in standard functional harmonic practice... somewhat like two systems of reference or control over the same collections of notes... anyway what comes out of this is, as John said.. common practice by Jazz Players... that's where Mark's book is coming from.
Just a small note... eventually your going to get to a point where there are always many concepts going on at the same time, and how you use or play something musically has implications as to source and where your going, musically. You should finish Mark's book... it will make much more since after you get through. Depending on your musical education or what your aware of... may need additional info...