a serious question regarding the melodic minor scale:

[Dark Star]

And the harmonic minor, I suppose.
So about two years ago, when I first started to take jazz more seriously, I began lessons w/a local player. He showed me the melodic minor scale (& H.M., too) & explained to me the scale degrees & such. He told me, "Do everything w/this scale that you have done w/the major, minor, & pentatonic scales you know.
Now after TWO YEARS I am starting to get the harmonies in my head & the shapes under my fingers. Not all across the fretboard, but there are many two-octave blocks across all six strings that I have memorized. It has taken a long time because I have a family & a full time job, but I still devote as much time as I can to practice & play.
His statement comes back to me & I am trying to sort this stuff out; playing sequences & intervals, figuring out triads, all that biz... & I have to wonder: Do I do EVERYTHING that I did w/those other scales? I mean, can I write songs & make up chord progressions out of these scales? Are there songs written using purely (or mostly) the melodic or harmonic scales? Do people do that? Or do they mostly suppliment their playing by using these scales over portions of songs, like over certain chords for instance, & then return to more conventional shapes & patterns for the bulk of the tune?
Can I figure out upper extensions to the chords that are based on this scale? What kind of chords will that produce if I harmonize the thing out as far as I can go?

[Nuff Said]

Originally Posted by Dark Star

So about two years ago, when I first started to take jazz more seriously, I began lessons w/a local player. He showed me the melodic minor scale (& H.M., too) & explained to me the scale degrees & such. He told me, "Do everything w/this scale that you have done w/the major, minor, & pentatonic scales you know.

Did your lessons explain how to use the Altered scale with 2-5-1s?

Did your lessons explain how to use the Locrian #2 scale with minor 2-5-1s?

Did your lessons explain how to use the Lydian b7 scale with Dominant chords?

Did your lessons explain the more useful Melodic Minor Arppegios?

Nuff

[whatswisdom]

Originally Posted by Dark Star

He showed me the melodic minor scale (& H.M., too) & explained to me the scale degrees & such....

Did he explain how melodic minor is used in jazz, as opposed to its use in classical & other genres? If he explained that to you then you would know about the MM modes & how they are used to create the sounds of modern jazz.

[Dark Star]

Originally Posted by Nuff Said

Did your lessons explain how to use the Altered scale with 2-5-1s?

Yes, if you are talking about playing the mm scale from the 7th degree & a half step up over an altered V chord.

Originally Posted by Nuff Said

Did your lessons explain how to use the Locrian #2 scale with minor 2-5-1s?

I don't think so. I never heard him refer to any scale or mode as the "locrian #2" scale.

Originally Posted by Nuff Said

Did your lessons explain how to use the Lydian b7 scale with Dominant chords?

I believe he touched on this breifly as the lydian dominant scale & said this is scale is commonly used over a "secondary dominant" II chord.

Originally Posted by Nuff Said

Did your lessons explain the more useful Melodic Minor Arppegios?

No, we never got to discuss arpeggios as related to these other than those that are already in the major scale.

Originally Posted by whatswisdom

Did he explain how melodic minor is used in jazz, as opposed to its use in classical & other genres? If he explained that to you then you would know about the MM modes & how they are used to create the sounds of modern jazz.

I think he would have if there had been more time but as it was I only took lessons for a few months before I had to discontinue.
There were some things he taught that, although I struggled to understand, the concepts were hard to grasp because the harmonies were relatively new to my ears & the intervals were new to my fingers. It wasn't as if I could apply the scales immediately
He knew, however, that our time together would be cut short & so he encouraged me to press on & memorize the fingerings. Now that I am able to play many of them through w/relative ease, I am seeking out different ways to apply them.
I've watched a bunch of YouTube vids & searched this forum, but it is still good to be able to ask questions directly.

[aniss1001]

Originally Posted by Nuff Said

Did your lessons explain the more useful Melodic Minor Arppegios?

Hmm.. May I ask what you are refferring to here ?

[JonnyPac]

I'm savvy with MM. I've heard its uses in jazz and other contemporary styles and play it in tunes every day. Every mode has common usage to some extent.

1. It can be used to reharmonize functional chords. Instead of a 7b9 ALT can be played, etc. There are a lot of cut-and-paste reharmonizations to get MM into a non-MM written tune. I can list them if you care to see.

2. Sometimes MM is the "inside choice"- MM makes the least amount of key signature alterations in an otherwise diatonic progression (using subsets that have no large gaps like harmonic major or minor). C F Fm C is a common progression and the Fm makes a lot of sense as F MM. Same goes for C F Bb7 C. The Bb7 is from F MM. Sounds very "right" in both cases.

3. MM can be written into the tunes directly. It can be intermittent or the tonic area. In modal jazz frameworks, MM can take a central non-functional role as well. In these cases, it would be almost "wrong" to not play MM.

Does that help?

[Nuff Said]

To my ears, the Melodic Minor scale is Modern Jazz.

Common Arps: MM Mode 1 and 3 over the Altered Dom in a 2-5-1.

I prefer learning each Melodic Minor Mode as a separate entity. I find it much easier to play "D" Lydian Dominant scale, than trying to find the fourth degree of an "A" Melodic minor scale.

Check these out:http://www.jazzguitar.be/melodic_minor_modes.html

Nuff

[Dark Star]

JohnnyPac- yes, that gives me some insight into the uses of these strange (to my ears, anyhow) scales.
Do players construct quartals from these scales also?
BTW- your modal jazz vid was good for hearing some scale & chord ideas expressed, the lydian dominant to be specific.

[JonnyPac]

Thanks. I'll see if I can pop my reharm pages up here soon. It might give you more ideas.

[AmundLauritzen]

Alright, I hope nobody takes this personally. It's just my own reflections and my taste in music.
Almost off topic, but still:
I wouldn't call the melodic minor scale particularly modern.
A lot of what the modern players do has a lot to do with superimposing triads, some times even ignoring the harmony completely but compensating by creating coherence in other ways(rhythm, motifs, patterns etc). Some players like to break out of the tertian harmony by using wider intervals.
There is so much going on in modern jazz, that when you hear the really good players improvise(Vic Juris comes to mind), they have so much going on that it's hard to analyze just what they were thinking in the heat of the moment. Needless to say, such players have internalized the sound of melodic minor and it's modes decades ago.

Plain old lydian dominant isn't going to sound very hip(After all, it has only one outside interval). However, it is a building block that you can attach new concepts to. A launch pad if you will.
When I listen to the really good modern jazz players, I rarely hear them play a full bar of a particular scale without twisting it around and adding stuff to it.
John Stowell has some in depth lessons on melodic minor where he covers some unorthodox applications that would make the listener cringe when us mortals try it, but they sound heavenly when he does it.

That being said, learn melodic minor and it's common applications(melodic minor, lydian dominant and superlocrian will go a long way), but then pull them apart and make madness with them. Add passing tones, omit intervals to avoid obvious sounding lines, etcetra. A lot of good jazz has to do with what you don't play. A lot of players feel compelled to play the whole scale, or a lot of it. Heck, it oftentimes sounds much better pulling two or three notes out of that scale rather than showing the world that you know it in three octaves.

To someone practising melodic minor, I would say concentrate on melodic minor, lydian dominant and superlocrian for a long while. Build arpeggios in them, create pentatonics, your own intervallic structures etcetra.
Really squeeze those three scales to the max.
Then you can try out Lydian Augmented and Locrian nat 2. I don't bother with the rest.
As for harmonic minor, personally I rarely use the scale itself or its modes. I will extract its peculiar interval leap and use that in various contexts, but I don't bother with practising it as a scale on its own.

What I found was the key to making it all come together was to make chords and scales one with each other. By that I mean visualizing commonly used chord shapes inside the scales. If I'd be playing a lydian dominant line, I would visualize a 7#11 voicing overlapping the line in the area I play it in.
Altered line? Find a voicing that more or less covers the line in the current position. I found that for example the G7#5#9 voicing we all know is great for visualization for G altered starting root position on the 3rd fret low E string.

Relating new knowledge to what you already know is the key to retaining information. It will really speed up the learning process.

So to sum it up. Vanilla Melodic minor modes don't sound particularly modern to my ears, but they are a required stepping stone to open the ear to modern sounds.

My 2 cents.

[JonnyPac]

Good post.

Old ascending-only MM has been around a long time, but seems relatively modern in comparison. Especially in the homophonic chord-scale era. I really notice it in Debussy and Ravel...

Check this beautiful song out:
Claude Debussy - String Quartet in G minor III - YouTube
As it builds toward the climax it uses various "colors" on the main motif... Some pentatonic, some Lydian, and some MM (the spooky ones!), etc... All of this about 3:30-4:30...

[aniss1001]

Originally Posted by Nuff Said

Common Arps: MM Mode 1 and 3 over the Altered Dom in a 2-5-1.

Hmm.. I'm sorry but I still don't know what you mean? And I'm kinda curious...

[Nuff Said]

Originally Posted by aniss1001

Hmm.. I'm sorry but I still don't know what you mean? And I'm kinda curious...

Ok,



If you don't know them already, I'd learn each MM mode and their associated arp.

Nuff

[aniss1001]

Originally Posted by Nuff Said

If you don't know them already, I'd learn each MM mode and their associated arp.

Hmm.. A bit confused here. According to don mock:

Melodic minor chords:

I = mM7
II = m7
III = M7#5
IV & V = 7
VI & VII = m7b5

Notice that the 2nd step is a m7 chord. And strange about the m7b5 on step VII?

Anyway according to Mark Levine it was something similar to yours with: II = sus4b2, IV = 7#11, VII = Alt... Your example has more extended notes too though?!

Just not sure WHAT to practice and HOW? Any input would be appreciated...

[JonnyPac]

Something seems off...

Levine has some great points and examples, but missed some details. Don Mock might be more on it, but that still looks incorrect to me.

Here's the basic rundown:

I is mM7 or mM9, etc
II is Phrygian Natural 6th or Dorian b2 or b9. It's the most slippery one.
III is Lydian Augmented used over M7#5, etc
IV is Lydian Dominant, the #1 choice for many tritone subs and the "backdoor dominant". Arguably the most commonly used MM mode. Fits 13#11, etc
V is Mixolydian b13 (completely disregarded overlooked by Levine, though used in classical, gypsy jazz, and rock in many instances). It gives the possibility of a 9b13 chord (and sus4).
VI is Locrian Natural 9th It is a Locrian sub, and perfectly fits the iim7b5 in a MAJOR key via modal interchange.
VII is Super Locrian aka the ALT scale. The intervals are difficult to grasp. Looking scale-wise it is a mess: R b2 b3 b4 b5 b6 b7... wow b4! Thinking chord-scale saves the day (for once!)... Go tertian style: R 3 b5 b7 b9 #9 b13. The b5 can be #11 as well. The b4 us used as the M3. This is the celebrated most-altered scale for dominants, and it shares the same notes as Lydian Dominant via tritone substitution. The "play MM 1/2 above the root of a dominant" tip gives you these notes and alterations, though I feel this is a pattern-centric way of thinking (without considering the chord-scale hierarchy as it relates to chord tones and functional voice-leading).

And please note that the Roman Numerals used for listing MM can really confuse things. They are not functional in the order we are accustomed generally to. For instance, IV Lydian Dominant is not necessarily functional as a IV subdominant, whereas it is usually the bVII7 or the bIV7. I'd prefer calling the modes by #1, 2, 3, etc.

[aniss1001]

Originally Posted by JonnyPac

Something seems off...

Levine has some great points and examples, but missed some details. Don Mock might be more on it, but that still looks incorrect to me.

Here's the basic rundown...

Don't know if your list was minded at me? In that case I must have expressed me wrong when I said "Just not sure WHAT to practice and HOW?". I do know the modes of melodic minor. I have mainly PRACTICED certain modes though: 1, 4, 7 in particular. And a bit of 6 and 2. Anyway what I meant was that I'm not sure what in indicates when Nuff says "I'd learn each MM mode and their associated arp". In particular WHAT are the associated arps? How to practice them (as a set / unit)..

Ah and yes Levine says that the 5th mode is rarely used in Jazz. Which is sort of correct. As I recall he analyses/argues that it doesn't make much sense since it is a mixolydian with the wellsounding 6th switched to an avoid note: the b6th (or maybe I read that elsewhere?). Anyway it's not a very used modes. It sounds like crap over altered chords but it can actually sound ok over NON-altered dominants going to a M7 tonic. But that's me..

Ah and given the title of Levine's book I think we should excuse him for not considering what they do in rock and classical And about Gypsy Jazz: whether a book about modern jazz theory should take into consideration what the guys did back in the 20's is matter of opinion I guess

[Nuff Said]

Originally Posted by aniss1001

when Nuff says "I'd learn each MM mode and their associated arp"

This is a link to a good free Melodic Minor study PDF by Tom Lippincot

http://tomlippincott.com/melmin.pdf

Tom Lippincot shows all the Modes, associated chords and interesting ideas.

Nuff

[Dark Star]

So this is all very exciting for me. I am going to work on the arps that Nuff Said suggested & spend some time thinking about the concepts presented by JohnnyPac & AmundLauritzen. When I get more time I will explore Tom Lippincott’s page, too.
What I have already done, though, is to work out a bunch of chords on the inside & top four strings. First I wrote out the Ab melodic minor scale on a staff & built a bunch of triads. I then mapped out the scale on a fretboard facimile I created in MS Word. I did a fretboard w/just dots identifying the notes, I did one naming those notes, & then I did one w/them as scale degrees.
Here are some of the chords I found, not in the order they appear but from the lowest position on those four strings:
X.1.1.1.2.X
X.2.3.3.4.X
X.4.5.4.6.X
X.6.6.6.8.X
X.8.8.8.9.X
X.10.9.10.11.X
X11.11.12.12.X
Sorry if that notation is cumbersome but it's the best way I know how right now.
From these shapes I just messed around w/a minor ii-V-I, playing them over the V. I particularly like the voices here:
X.5.7.5.6.5
X.4.5.4.6.4
X.3.5.4.5.3
I know that the V chord in that example is just a garden-variety G75b9b but I like the way the voices move. Here's another:
X.5.7.5.6.8
X.6.6.6.8.7
X.7.7.7.8.8
I'm sure a lot of this stuff is extremely basic for many of you, but this is all new to me. You probably think from reading my other posts that I am some crack NYC or L.A. player since I use jazz lingo & am so well versed concerning every aspect of jazz music. But I'm no Pat Metheny, I don't care what anybody says.

[Nuff Said]

This is one of the ways I use the Melodic Minor scale over Minor progressions.

http://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/attac...d=132622394 5

Nuff

[Dark Star]

Originally Posted by Nuff Said

This is a link to a good free Melodic Minor study PDF by Tom Lippincot

http://tomlippincott.com/melmin.pdf

Tom Lippincot shows all the Modes, associated chords and interesting ideas.

Nuff

This is some great info! The font, however, sucks.

[JonnyPac]

Originally Posted by aniss1001

Don't know if your list was minded at me? In that case I must have expressed me wrong when I said "Just not sure WHAT to practice and HOW?". I do know the modes of melodic minor. I have mainly PRACTICED certain modes though: 1, 4, 7 in particular. And a bit of 6 and 2. Anyway what I meant was that I'm not sure what in indicates when Nuff says "I'd learn each MM mode and their associated arp". In particular WHAT are the associated arps? How to practice them (as a set / unit)..

Ah and yes Levine says that the 5th mode is rarely used in Jazz. Which is sort of correct. As I recall he analyses/argues that it doesn't make much sense since it is a mixolydian with the wellsounding 6th switched to an avoid note: the b6th (or maybe I read that elsewhere?). Anyway it's not a very used modes. It sounds like crap over altered chords but it can actually sound ok over NON-altered dominants going to a M7 tonic. But that's me..

Ah and given the title of Levine's book I think we should excuse him for not considering what they do in rock and classical And about Gypsy Jazz: whether a book about modern jazz theory should take into consideration what the guys did back in the 20's is matter of opinion I guess

Not ay you personally at all- I like you, and your presence on the forums. Just trying to shed light on this "associated arp" confusion. Remember, Levine is hugely controversial and outright wrong in some instances. There are several heated Levine threads going on right now- go there for discussion, or skip the chase: MTO 6.1: Rawlins, Review of Levine I'm personally burnt out on debating that fricking (unrevised) book.

BTW Trane's Greensleeves used Mixo b6. Just because Levine poses a straw-man argument that "avoid" notes exist and that jazz musicians will go to insane lengths to never use certain "flawed" subsets, doesn't mean we can't fill in the gaps in our discussion here. Gypsy Jazz is jazz, and Mixo b6 is a top scale choice over dominants (because they use natural 9ths resolving to tonic minors with natural 6ths- it makes perfect sense, and the b13 sets up the m3 of the tonic). "Inside choices" given the harmonic palette.

[aniss1001]

Originally Posted by JonnyPac

Not ay you personally at all- I like you, and your presence on the forums....

Hehe thanks But no worries I didn't see a personal attack or anything I just thought I had expressed myself wrong.

Anyway I'm still wondering:

1) Why did Don Mock use a m7b5 on the 7th step instead of 7Alt? (I supose it's because you CAN play a m7b5 over a 7Alt. The notes are all contained in the altered scale. And in this case he was looking for a KNOWN chord that fitted or something?)

2) Why do you sometimes use a m7 and others a susb9 on the 2nd step? (I supose it has to do with explaining where that chord comes from and why you can play this mode on that chord?)

3) If you were to practice the chords/arps of the MM together what would you play on the 2nd step?

But that's just me wondering haha

[bako]

Don Mock used m7b5 because of staying consistent with the procedure of building 7th chords in 3rds.
7th alt is arrived at by building a chord in 4ths on that degree.

1 b3 5 7 9 11 13
1 b3 5 b7 b9 11 13
1 3 #5 7 9 #11 13
1 3 5 b7 9 #11 13
1 3 5 b7 9 11 b13
1 b3 b5 b7 9 11 b13
1 b3 b5 b7 b9 b11 b13

Life would be simpler if this was the whole story.

The 7th degree contains both Ma3 and m3.
b3 sounds great as #9 on a 7th chord
Ma3 on m7b5, not so good.

I have no problem with II as a m7 but 7susb9 focuses on the modes most distinct colors.

[JonnyPac]

Bingo, Bako. Thanks for clarifying.

[JonnyPac]

I think one think to keep in mind is common practice. How often are things used, in what ways, in what era, etc. There are nearly endless ways that things can be used, but that does not mean they will sound "good" or fit the given music.

With this in mind, I'd disregard the 7th MM mode over m7b5 chords. I'd also have some reservations about the 2nd mode in general- there is a surprising lack of evidence for it's common usage in jazz, even less than mixo b6 in my experience. The whole Phrygian susb9 thing is notorious for confusing students and adding the MM natural 6th really muddles up the flavor and functionality. Thinking of it (and using it) as mM7/ a note up one step (ie CmM7/D) is the "best" method in both regards, IMHO.

[Dark Star]

That first cluster of chords in post #18 was found using 4ths. I don't know if is the technically correct term but I call them MM quartals.

[JonnyPac]

http://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/jazzguitar-lessons/19637-melodic-jazz-minor-basics-modes-chords.html

Here's a bunch on MM from my book. Enjoy!