Is the Melodic Minor Scale Really a Thing in Jazz?

[jzucker]

in jazz, the reference to melodic minor is not the traditional 16th century theory version. It's simply a 1 2 b3 4 5 6 (Maj)7 scale

[grahambop]

By the way, even this forum’s site has a section on this mythical scale (i.e. minor/dorian bebop scale).

The Bebop Scale

Seems very natural to me, because I learned by copying stuff from Wes, Martino, Dexter etc. and they often seemed to put that maj7 note into their minor lines (between the tonic and the flat 7).

I never really got into the melodic minor thing till much later, in fact I never thought in terms of scales much.

[grahambop]

I see that link mentions a second form of the scale which has an added note between the 4 and the flat 3, again that makes sense to me as I also heard that in lots of recordings and started to use it myself.

I guess I tended to think of jazz lines in terms of chord tones and chromatic passing notes in between them, as that’s what it all sounded like to me (I was completely self-taught in jazz).

I should point out that I did know all the usual scales though, because I’d had classical guitar lessons while at school.

[GuyBoden]

Transcribing Allan at the moment. He uses the Barry harris added note rules hehe (I don’t know if he had a system for this …). Lot of bebop in his playing. He also plays bIIIo7 in a turnaround. Look at this lovely thing. You even get a bit of major-6 dim. Quite fun to play as well.

I take my cap off to you, excellent work.

[AllanAllen]

By the way, even this forum’s site has a section on this mythical scale (i.e. minor/dorian bebop scale).

The Bebop Scale

Seems very natural to me, because I learned by copying stuff from Wes, Martino, Dexter etc. and they often seemed to put that maj7 note into their minor lines (between the tonic and the flat 7).

I never really got into the melodic minor thing till much later, in fact I never thought in terms of scales much.

I don't see the need for all these scales after learning CAGED and how to embellish. I mean, walking from b7 7 R isn't exactly rocket science...

Maybe later I'll get an a-ha moment, or maybe I'll stay a hack.

[pauln]

[ragman1]

1. It is not worth it. You are not really interested. You just like to troll today.

I haven't trolled once. In fact I've never trolled in my life, here or elsewhere. I make jokey replies to not very serious posts. I have a sense of humor. If you think that's trolling see a shrink.

2. Your Google is obviously different from mine. This took me 5 sec

I said I'd already looked. I've already seen these and some others. They do not mention the specific scale that panasonic posted about, especially the one with his name on it.

Go and be miserable with someone else. And post some damn music!

[rpjazzguitar]

If I could start over from the beginning, tabula rasa, I would learn the harmonized melodic minor scale as 7 interchangeable chords per key. So, for example, when I saw a maj7#5 chord I would instantly know the other 6 chords from that melodic minor and they would all be the same thing in my mind.

This is per Levine's Jazz Theory. He says the absence of an avoid note makes all melodic minor chords interchangeable. They're all the same chord, according to Levine.

Then instead of vocabulary specific to one chord generated by the mel min scale, say, Dm7b5, I would instantly have chords, arps and lines from Fminmaj7, G7susb9, Abmaj7#5, Bb7#11, C7b13, Dm7b5 and Ealt. Try it. Pick a tune, say, A Train and substitute the other 6 for the 7#11 chord. They'll all work, although you may like some better than others.

With that knowledge, for every one of those chords you'd instantly have 6 others, each at multiple places on the fingerboard each with a slightly different sound. That would be a pretty rich palette.

If it was a railroad system it would then efficiently connect all the cities, instead of being the random group of tracks to nowhere, ad hoc bus connections and missing routes that it is now, in my head.

Switching gears:

To my ear, Chico Pinheiro has a very recognizable sound. He always sounds like himself. I once transcribed a snippet of him playing over a ii V I in C. I transcribed it because it was simple harmony and he sounded, as usual, like himself. I wanted to figure out how he got that sound. I was surprised to discover that the notes he played were out of D dorian, Galt and C. That is, he was playing out of the same pitch collections as everybody else.

[ragman1]

You know, most of this stuff is ABC level. It's not new at all. The idea of putting an extra note into a scale run so the right notes land in the right places is totally old hat.

It doesn't really matter where the extra note appears either as long as it sounds okay. Attaching some well-known player's name on it is kid's stuff, like it really means something special. To me it doesn't because I can choose my own note. Just like they did. And so could you.

[ragman1]

By the way, even this forum’s site has a section on this mythical scale (i.e. minor/dorian bebop scale).

The Bebop Scale

Seems very natural to me, because I learned by copying stuff from Wes, Martino, Dexter etc. and they often seemed to put that maj7 note into their minor lines (between the tonic and the flat 7).

I never really got into the melodic minor thing till much later, in fact I never thought in terms of scales much.

Bebop scales and adding the extra note business wasn't Tal's original pitch, though. He wondered if the melodic minor scale had become somewhat redundant because certain players were combining it with Dorian or whatever.

To which I gave an emphatic no :-)

[ragman1]

I mean, walking from b7 7 R isn't exactly rocket science...

Pre-cisely. Although it's mostly done descending rather than ascending. Sounds better.

[AllanAllen]

If I could start over from the beginning, tabula rasa, I would learn the harmonized melodic minor scale as 7 interchangeable chords per key. So, for example, when I saw a maj7#5 chord I would instantly know the other 6 chords from that melodic minor and they would all be the same thing in my mind.

This is per Levine's Jazz Theory. He says the absence of an avoid note makes all melodic minor chords interchangeable. They're all the same chord, according to Levine.

Then instead of vocabulary specific to one chord generated by the mel min scale, say, Dm7b5, I would instantly have chords, arps and lines from Fminmaj7, G7susb9, Abmaj7#5, Bb7#11, C7b13, Dm7b5 and Ealt. Try it. Pick a tune, say, A Train and substitute the other 6 for the 7#11 chord. They'll all work, although you may like some better than others.

I'm very interested in this approach.

[pamosmusic]

Go and be miserable with someone else. And post some damn music!

You might remember that you’ve posted lots of music.

[pamosmusic]

I don't see the need for all these scales after learning CAGED and how to embellish. I mean, walking from b7 7 R isn't exactly rocket science...

Maybe later I'll get an a-ha moment, or maybe I'll stay a hack.

I think this is actually a perfect extension of what you were talking about earlier. It’s not some concept to understand; it’s a thing to get under your fingers and internalize.

The first thing is that it’s helpful to understand the bebop scale or the BH added note rules not as like … additional scales, but as rhythmic adjustments to scales you already know.

So the idea isn’t that adding them isn’t that hard.** It’s that you want to be able to add them on the fly in a way that is rhythmically effective. So thats why people sit down and work on these things for hours and hours. They want to get to that point that you described with Blue Bossa where the concept just zips right out is the fingers without it being academic.

** I actually tend to think half step chromaticism is super hard on guitar precisely because it disrupts those CAGED patterns that so many guitarists (myself included) find most comfortable. So a lot of practice is in order to make those things flow.

[ragman1]

You might remember that you’ve posted lots of music.

I have. Are you okay today? I'm not joking. I could tell you weren't really engaged last night. Migraines can do that. Not my business but I thought I'd ask.

[GuyBoden]

You know, most of this stuff is ABC level. It's not new at all. The idea of putting an extra note into a scale run so the right notes land in the right places is totally old hat.

It doesn't really matter where the extra note appears either as long as it sounds okay. Attaching some well-known player's name on it is kid's stuff, like it really means something special. To me it doesn't because I can choose my own note. Just like they did. And so could you.

I totally agree, having fooled around with a lot of 8 note and 10 note scales.

But, as others have found, using these 8 and 10 note scales sounds the same as using chromatic embellishments with 7 note scales.

You add as many notes as you flipping well like boyo

See 8:47

the thing here is - if there’s no space for a semitone between two notes, go back to the diatonic step above. As Barry puts it ‘the rule is more important than the note.’ So for instance if we want to add notes between

C B A G F E D C

we go
C D B Bb A Ab G Gb F G E Eb D Db C

[pamosmusic]

I have. Are you okay today? I'm not joking. I could tell you weren't really engaged last night. Migraines can do that. Not my business but I thought I'd ask.

Oh yes I am quite well.

Thank you for asking.

[Christian Miller]

in jazz, the reference to melodic minor is not the traditional 16th century theory version. It's simply a 1 2 b3 4 5 6 (Maj)7 scale

Again



German Baroque composers be like ‘descending form? What descending form?’

OTOH descending and ascending melodic minor forms are somewhat common in standards repertoire. A good example is Beautiful love.

[Christian Miller]

Yes, I call it a Locrian Nat 2 scale.

Maybe, the Natural sign doesn't work in typing font and is automatically converted to a #.

Quote from JazzGuitar.be site:
The Melodic Minor Scale And Its Modes

"Here’s a list of the 7 modes of the melodic minor scale:

Melodic minor scale (aka jazz minor scale)
Dorian b2 (aka Phrygian #6)
Lydian augmented
Lydian dominant (aka overtone scale)
Mixolydian b6
Aeolian b5 (aka Locrian #2)
Altered scale (aka super Locrian)"


So, for a laugh, to make things simple or more confusing, I've renamed the Melodic Minor modes based on Major mode names.

C-D-Eb-F-G-A-B


Ionian b3 is C-D-Eb-F-G-A-B-C
Dorian b2 is D-Eb-F-G-A-B-C
Phrygian b1 is Eb-F-G-A-B-C-D
Lydian b7 is F-G-A-B-C-D-Eb
Mixolydian b6 is G-A-B-C-D-Eb-F
Aeolian b5 is A-B-C-D-Eb-F-G
Locrian b4 is B-C-D-Eb-F-G-A

Is that better?

Haha

Oh, a reformer eh?

Why not just name the scale after the chord? Saves on bullshit.

anyway, one think Barry Harris and Allan Holdsworth had in common is they were both ‘few scales many applications’ people as to ‘many scales simple applications’. Your melodic minor ii V I thing is an example of the former.

The advantage of the former is you don’t need to learn new voicings or lines to play over a different chord. The disadvantage is that you need to get the mental arithmetic internalised.

[Christian Miller]

I take my cap off to you, excellent work.

the whole solo is in the works. It answers the question ‘what does Allan do on a ii V I?’ Which is the sort of thing I like to know.

[Tal_175]

The advantage of the former is you don’t need to learn new voicings or lines to play over a different chord. The disadvantage is that you need to get the mental arithmetic internalised.

Another disadvantage is that it encourages grip view and as opposed to cultivating intervallic awareness which closely matches how we hear voicings and lines.

[grahambop]

Bebop scales and adding the extra note business wasn't Tal's original pitch, though. He wondered if the melodic minor scale had become somewhat redundant because certain players were combining it with Dorian or whatever.

To which I gave an emphatic no :-)

That isn’t what I was responding to, it was simply to mention that the mythical scale you have never heard of and seem to object to is detailed in the ‘Lessons’ section on this very forum. Which I thought was quite amusing.

[Christian Miller]

Another disadvantage is that it encourages grip view and as opposed to cultivating intervallic awareness which closely matches how we hear them.

careful, that’s figured bass talk.

You’ll be rejecting the concept of chord inversions before you know it.

In practice it’s helpful to cultivate both. I’m mostly a ‘few scales’ guy and I think it the best way to travel most of the time.

But it’s a funny one. I’m actually VERY intervallic at the moment. OTOH I don’t always hear intervals from the bass.

Re: grips. I’m not sure it does. I do think it encourages divergent thinking and creativity of application. “Hmm can I make thing x go on thing y.”

I don’t think grips are a problem in the short term. Or even the long term, come or that. Wes was pretty grippy.

Grips and licks is a great route to competency. play music, don’t worry about all the fancy stuff. You can loosen things up and explore later on. I know a few people who could do with playing a few more licks and grips quite honestly.

It allows you to focus on the important stuff like feel, phrasing and so on rather than thinking about what pitches to play. Which is 99% of the discourse here for example.

Fretboard harmony is a lifetime’s study to sound like a second rate piano player haha (I say this being firmly down that rabbit hole.)

[pamosmusic]

OTOH descending and ascending melodic minor forms are somewhat common in standards repertoire. A good example is Beautiful love.

never noticed that.

[ragman1]

That isn’t what I was responding to, it was simply to mention that the mythical scale you have never heard of and seem to object to is detailed in the ‘Lessons’ section on this very forum. Which I thought was quite amusing.

Then why have we reached 150 posts and six pages if all we're talking about is a bebop scale? In fact why start the thread?