Melodic minor uses

[Christian Miller]

I've just said all that, genius!

tbh I don’t really read your posts

[ragman1]

tbh I don’t really read your posts

That's okay, I wouldn't expect you to. They're too long-winded :-)

[rintincop]

I was just asking because I'm curious how essential some of us feel MM usage to be. For some styles (say, anything before Post Bop), it doesn't really add much IMO. Where I see people suggesting that Bop players were using MM, I personally don't believe it. In those instances I just see pitch collections that can be analysed in a number of different ways. Obviously anything after the mid 60's virtually

Playing a major scale and simply flatting the 3rd, were bop masters not astute enough to notice that? And on C-6 for example? I think they did notice the melodic minor scale.
Bop pianist Sonny Clark plays C-6 chords, so of course he is going to play C D Eb F G A B (not Ab and B, nor a Bb) for his default scale movements over his C-6. Come on, how can one argue otherwise?

[princeplanet]

Playing a major scale and simply flatting the 3rd, were bop masters not astute enough to notice that? And on C-6 for example? I think they did notice the melodic minor scale.
Bop pianist Sonny Clark plays C-6 chords, so of course he is going to play C D Eb F G A B (not Ab and B, nor a Bb) for his default scale movements over his C-6. Come on, how can one argue otherwise?

Can't argue he's thinking C MM in bar 200, as well as at least a couple of other bars in that solo. Certainly not using MM for every instance of Cm, or Cm6, so I wouldn't say "default". Regardless, my past observations weren't so much about using MM as tonic, but over altered V. I'm sure there are outliers in Bop who might have alluded to modes of MM occasionally, but it seems it wasn't a mainstay. Happy to be proven wrong, though.

[pauln]

Using the #7 as a leading note is common but I wouldn't call that an overt use of the MM sound.

Do you mean sharping the dominant seven "7" AKA "b7" a la #(b7) to result natural seven?

[ragman1]

Do you mean sharping the dominant seven "7" AKA "b7" a la #(b7) to result natural seven?

No. The leading note in a scale is the note before the tonic. In A melodic minor that would be the G#. If one were using the melodic minor scale that note would occur naturally.

But it's also common practice to use the note a half-step below a note we want to play as an embellishment, to 'slide into' the next note, as it were. It makes it sound more interesting, helps it swing, and so on.

I was saying that there's a difference between using, say, the G# like that and using it as an integral part of a melodic minor line (which would include that note by default).

An Am6 chord, for instance, might be played with the Dorian mode (from the G major scale) but the soloist might still approach the A note with a G# for effect. But that wouldn't mean he'd be using the melodic minor scale. Any resemblance to it would be coincidental.

One good use of the melodic minor would be using it as a Lydian Dominant scale over a 'backdoor' dominant. That is, instead of the usual sequence

Dm7 - G7 - CM7

the G7 would be substituted by a Bb7:

Dm7 - Bb7 - CM7

Apart from merely arpeggiating the notes of the Bb7 chord, it works better to improvise using the ii of that chord, i.e. Fm7. The usual way to play a ii of V would be the Dorian mode: F G Ab Bb C D Eb.

However, technically, we aren't in Eb major at that point, we're still in C major. So the right harmony for that substitution is established by using the Bb Lydian Dominant (from F melodic minor): Bb C D E F G Ab.

You can see that introduces the natural E which doesn't conflict with the sound of the C major sequence. That's the point. If you experiment with those two alternatives you'll easily see the difference. It's very interesting.

That, incidentally, is one of the most effective uses of the melodic minor. Any 'stand-alone' dominant or major chord (chords which appear but not as part of a true modulation) should be given the Lydian treatment and will fit with the surrounding harmony.

Say you had a 6251 sequence and instead of

Am7 - Dm7 - G7 - CM7

you had

Eb7 - Dm7 - G7 - CM7

A player might not know what to do with that Eb7. The answer is to use the Eb Lydian Dominant (from Bb melodic minor):

Eb F G A Bb C Db

From there you can slip neatly into the Dm.


The same works with stand-alone major chords. So over

EbM7 - Dm7 - G7 - CM7

The Eb Lydian mode (from the Bb major scale) will do the trick. It's very clever because it makes the EbM7 sound as though it belongs to C major and not as though the piece has suddenly and inexplicably changed key.

[princeplanet]

...

A player might not know what to do with that Eb7. The answer is to use the Eb Lydian Dominant (from Bb melodic minor):

Eb F G A Bb C Db

From there you can slip neatly into the Dm.

...

Good point, and not mentioned enough. But this kind of problem also highlights (for me) the shortcomings of thinking to apply appropriate scales for certain chords. If you're in the practice of embellishing chord tones (which I prefer to do), then it's harder to sound "wrong" against these brief excursions away from key.

[rpjazzguitar]

No. The leading note in a scale is the note before the tonic. In A melodic minor that would be the G#. If one were using the melodic minor scale that note would occur naturally.
.

Good post. I especially like that it's very clearly written, with examples I can grasp without making a new chord wheel.

Another way of thinking about this is that the tonal center is C. If you're going to play a chord that isn't all white keys, then you can manage by changing as few notes as possible to get the sound of the chord.

So, if you're going to play an Eb7 in the key of C, you have to change E to Eb. B to Bb and D to Db. You're left with Eb F G Bb C Db. I omitted A, because it requires a bit of discussion. According to this way of thinking, you don't have to lower the A. Neither A nor Ab are in the chord Eb7. If you play the A, you get Eb7#11 -- and that's a very common way to deal with a dominant that isn't the V7. If you play the Ab, you get Eb7sus, in this example going to Dm7. This is the less common path. Eb7sus to Dm7 includes some half step moves which might be smooth, but it includes some notes you'd have to be careful about, like the G on Dm7 (if you slid in from Ab). So, you can see/hear why Eb7#11 is the usual path. .

So, the way I originally learned this was stay in the tonal center, adjust the minimum number of notes, and consider the #11 on dominants that aren't V7 going to I. Or, simply, "play an Eb7 scale and adjust the notes that don't sound good".

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

I can resist no longer

[ragman1]

Great song - written by the late, great Rita MacNeil. Hard life she had.

[ragman1]

Or, simply, "play an Eb7 scale and adjust the notes that don't sound good".

You don't think that's a long way round? I just play Bb mel m!

[ragman1]

Good point, and not mentioned enough.

Absolutely. What is definitely not mentioned enough, if at all, is the reason it works.

the shortcomings of thinking to apply appropriate scales for certain chords.

Well, there was a great hooha once about scales and chords - 'Don't use scales! No modes, no scales!' and all that. I thought then it was rubbish and I still do. We need scales. Chords are built from scales. It's completely fallacious to suggest (as it has been) that all we need are the chord tones and then fill in with any other random notes. It's nonsense.

If one is to solo over changes we need to know what notes fit and which don't. That doesn't in any way obviate outside sounds, quite the contrary. Good outside playing itself is based on sound principles.

Together with the 'No scales!' movement came the great bashing and denunciation of CST, originated by Berklee. If one reads carefully what their ideas were it wasn't nearly as limited and circumscribed as the bashers would have us believe. There was plenty of room for alternatives and variations. But that's another subject.

The real issue is that it was all a reaction to the idea that CST was some kind of 'bible' that had to be obeyed. It was regarded, wrongly, as a set of rigid laws and any deviation from them was heresy, much like a religious brainwashing.

It was all based on ignorance. I also think that, at heart, the motive was to find a quick shortcut to play well without the need for practice, study and research. It doesn't work, never has. When soloing, the notes/lines have to fit the background. If they don't it becomes either just bad playing or musical nonsense.

In any case, scales by themselves aren't the only tools, just one of them. But the other tools, like it or not, are themselves derived from scales and the chords derived from them.

If you're in the practice of embellishing chord tones (which I prefer to do), then it's harder to sound "wrong" against these brief excursions away from key.

Yes, but the embellishments have to be accurate. Personally, I use very few scales as such. Or I use fragments from them. I minorise a great deal because it's easier (but not too easy) to play. But those minors are grounded very solidly in good theory, it's never just random or guesswork.

Bottom line, there's no substitute for good study, experience and application and there's no quick way or magic method. But it all takes time and one gets out of it pretty well what one puts into it. And it's only greed and delusion that thinks otherwise.

Sorry, pp, a bit heavy :-)

[rpjazzguitar]

You don't think that's a long way round? I just play Bb mel m!

If I think Eb7, or Eb7#11, or Eb7-and-adjust-by-ear, at least I'm thinking about the chord name, which means I'm also thinking about the chord tones (because I've already memorized them in 12 keys). And, if I want to add another alteration I can do that by thinking of a slightly different chord name, like Eb7#11b9, or whatever.

I don't have to think Eb7 lydian dominant or relate it to the parent scale of Bbmelmin. And, if I'm thinking that way and I want to change a single note, I may have to think about a completely different scale name or parent scale.

So, it seems to me that thinking Bbmelmin is the long way around, but, quite clearly, it depends on what you already know. If, for example, you already know "lydian dominant" well, then it's not going to help you to think Eb7#11 scale, since they amount to the same thing. But if you're first approaching it, and you see Eb7 in the chart, why not learn it from there rather than figuring out the parent melodic minor and then trying to get the chord tones on the right beats.

I seem to be in the minority on this, but I'm not alone. One of my teachers, a brilliant multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger, communicated in exactly this way.

I'm also aware that once you get through the nomenclature, you end up at the same place, more or less.

[Christian Miller]

It’s all knowledge. The main question for the teacher and the learner is what things to prioritise in order to get to the goals we want to. Sometimes people may be using the wrong tool for the wrong thing.

This may vary from person to person, style to style and actually time to time.

[ragman1]

I'm also aware that once you get through the nomenclature, you end up at the same place, more or less.

Thank heavens for small mercies :-)

[princeplanet]

It's completely fallacious to suggest (as it has been) that all we need are the chord tones and then fill in with any other random notes. It's nonsense. ...

Well, anything that's random will be nonsense Embellishment (chromatic/diatonic/both etc) should be systematic, not random. But even so, there will be some kinds of embellishment that presuppose knowledge of the "right" diatonic scale from which to insert chromaticism. This supports your view where, say, a #11 for a non resolving Dom will sound more correct, even as part of a enclosure. But there are other embellishments that are more chromatic where everything is allowed to sound out except for the well placed chord tones or extensions.

Point taken though, you still need to know which diatonic non chord tones you can rely on as "auxilliaries". Which is a reason to have some Lyd Dom language where straight Dom or Alt Dom won't work.

[ragman1]

Depends what the criteria are. If it's about ticking a 'theoretically correct' box, that's one thing. If it's about producing a desired musical sound by mixing various notes, that's another.

I think it's about the maxim 'if it sounds good, it is good'.

[kris]

... what this discussion is about ?.... I know one thing: theoretical knowledge is one thing and practical playing is another.
To translate theoretical knowledge into playing, you need to practice a lot, not talk about good or bad notes...

[Bobby Timmons]

Melodic minor isn't something to sleep on. It gives you regular melodic minor for minor chords, you can use lydian augmented for major chords, then for dominant chords you have lydian dominant, altered, mix flat 6, and that minor 4 one. That's a lot of really useful sounds.