Is the Melodic Minor Scale Really a Thing in Jazz?

[grahambop]

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?

Because in the first post, Tal posed the question of whether it’s more useful conceptually to use an 8-note bebop scale to build lines with, or whether to use the melodic minor stuff etc. Which is an interesting question and opened up a lengthy discussion, as you would expect. Possibly the thread title is slightly provocative, but it probably got people’s attention.

As far as I can make out, a substantial number of the posts are yours objecting to the whole idea, so if you like you could go back and delete them all, it might cut down the thread length a bit.

[Tal_175]

Interestingly, the Melodic Minor scale that has been used for centuries is, as we know, effectively a 9 note scale. It already has both the 7th and the leading note:


So the scale discussed in this thread isn't really adding a note, but removing one, lol. Of course there is the jazz minor scale. But that's a new invention anyway. (I know, I know we can find examples of its use in the past but the point stands).

[Tal_175]

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.

That's sort of how I use and practice the major scale. I see it as two interchangeable sets of chords/arpeggios. Tonic family, I-iii-vi and the dominant family V, vii, ii, IV. Everywhere on the fretboard I see the major scale as this two sets of arpeggios/chords to make lines with. I also work on different ways to harmonize the major scale only using one family of chords up and down the fretboard. Another interesting exercise I do is to harmonize the scale with one type of chord (say ii) with passing chords on every quarter beats.

To a more limited extend, I also see the melodic minor this way. The arpeggios/chords in this case are: i min/maj, iii aug7, IV7 (Lydian dominant), vi min7b5, also the altered scale. I also work on harmonization of the melodic minor (ie the jazz minor scale) using these chords.

If I don't work on a scale this way, then I don't get much out of scale practice in terms of melodic and chordal vocabulary.

[Christian Miller]

Interestingly, the Melodic Minor scale that has been used for centuries is, as we know, effectively a 9 note scale. It already has both the 7th and the leading note:


So the scale discussed in this thread isn't really adding a note, but removing one, lol. Of course there is the jazz minor scale. But that's a new invention anyway. (I know, I know we can find examples of its use in the past but the point stands).

see #143 (example is from David Kellner’s Fantasia for lute, late baroque .)

Heres a paper on the subject if you are very bored or need to catch up on some sleep. However I cited Kellner to point out it wasn’t only Bach (Kellner was a contemporary of Bach’s in Leipzig.)

https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/server/api/co...c5d0dc/content

the tl;dr of it is Bach’s use of ascending/descending forms of the melodic minor depend on the harmonic situation not the melodic direction.

[ragman1]

Because in the first post, Tal posed the question of whether it’s more useful conceptually to use an 8-note bebop scale to build lines with, or whether to use the melodic minor stuff etc.

Yes, but I'm not interested in 'conceptually'. I don't know what it means. Either you use the idea in your playing or you don't.

The dorian and mel m have served musicians well for a long time (I'm talking about current playing, not medieval classical composers) and I see no real point in dropping them in favor of bebop scales, or a single bebop scale, which is what it amounts to. For one thing, they're simply not the same, nor do they serve the same purpose. I suspect most improvisations would start sounding much the same if it was the same idea all the time.

I'm all for simplification but not over-simplification. As it is, I can use what sounds I want, which might well include the occasional bebop line, and I'm perfectly happy with that. I think that's a more intelligent approach simply because it provides more freedom, not less.

I know Tal's idea is supposed to make things easier but I think it's a flawed concept which would become apparent when people actually started using it in a serious way. In other words, more choice makes better music.

[Reg]

hey Tal... personally... it is a thing, but you might be approaching it in a limited approach. I use MM as a option for expanding harmony.... I don't play or hear just melodically. MM in jazz opens harmonic doors, like Blue Notes.

Again... I use it harmonically to expand the framework.... the harmonic Reference for melodic relationships and their development.

Much like Har. Min is used to expand harmonic relationship with Maj/min functional harmony.

Personally I hate 8 note concepts...LOL

[ragman1]

Careful, Reg, any bolder than that and you might be asked to delete it :-)

Someone said this to me:

'As far as I can make out, a substantial number of the posts are yours objecting to the whole idea, so if you like you could go back and delete them all, it might cut down the thread length a bit.'

[princeplanet]

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.

Depending on usage though, right? Am I the only one on this forum that always thinks in 12 note scales ? Maybe I overdo it, but I often use all 12 notes regardless of chord type as a result of basic chromatic embellishment and fairly standard enclosures. There's lots of talk about passing notes between 5 and 6, or 6 and 7, or 7 and root. That's a 10 note scale right there, but why aren't you adding the occasional passing note between root and 2nd, or 2nd and 3rd? You probably do, right? Then let's just call every Jazz scale the chromatic scale and be done with it! Or even stop obsessing about scales altogether!

If we're talking about Bop language (and I think we are?), then I never hear the greats playing "scales". What I hear is a lot of clever dancing around chord tones. OK sometimes for effect, perhaps a blues scale, or one of the many symmetrical scales, but they're still played in a way where placement of every note is considered with respect to the underlying chord. Alright, if there's a singular exception, then maybe it is the Blues scale, which can often just be "superimposed" in many ways over many different kinds of chords and will forgive any kind of illegal dissonance provided it lands well. But TBH, I perceive blues scales to be arps with passing notes, anyway...

I get how CST came after the Modal era (I think?), but even the modal greats were thinking in terms of embellishing chord tones and extensions. Sure, add up the notes from a 13th arp and you can say they make up a Dorian scale, and point to a passing tone between 5th and 6th or whatever and you can refer to the "Bebop scale" . But don't stop there, keep looking and you'll often find all 12 notes being used, even in modal music. A rock guy once asked me what scales they use in Jazz, and I told him just one, the chromatic scale. So for a laugh I put on an RC backing track so he could see what randomly playing chromatic scales sounded like against it. "Hey, this Jazz shit is easier than I thought!"...

[Tal_175]

hey Tal... personally... it is a thing, but you might be approaching it in a limited approach. I use MM as a option for expanding harmony.... I don't play or hear just melodically. MM in jazz opens harmonic doors, like Blue Notes.

Again... I use it harmonically to expand the framework.... the harmonic Reference for melodic relationships and their development.

Much like Har. Min is used to expand harmonic relationship with Maj/min functional harmony.

Personally I hate 8 note concepts...LOL

Hi Reg, so let's look at it harmonically. One way that MM can be used harmonically to bring out the blue note is the modal interchange of the 6th chord if I understand some of your earlier posts correctly.

For example, let's say we are in C major. Modal interchange of A MM over A Aeolian is a modal expansion of the C major harmony. With the A MM diatonic chords, we get F# and G#. So F# is the blue note you are referring to in this context, right?

We get this blue note if we modal interchange with A Dorian as well (since A Dorian also has an F#). So, if one were to use the Dorian bebop scale harmonically as a modal interchange device, one would default to A Dorian (in the case of C major tonality) and use the blue note but also have to option to throw in the G# in some of the chords (C maj and Caug would both become available for example). Would that be too complex, or too ambiguous? Not sure, I haven't explored this scale this way. What do you think?

[Christian Miller]

Depending on usage though, right? Am I the only one on this forum that always thinks in 12 note scales ? Maybe I overdo it, but I often use all 12 notes regardless of chord type as a result of basic chromatic embellishment and fairly standard enclosures. There's lots of talk about passing notes between 5 and 6, or 6 and 7, or 7 and root. That's a 10 note scale right there, but why aren't you adding the occasional passing note between root and 2nd, or 2nd and 3rd? You probably do, right? Then let's just call every Jazz scale the chromatic scale and be done with it! Or even stop obsessing about scales altogether!

If we're talking about Bop language (and I think we are?), then I never hear the greats playing "scales".
What I hear is a lot of clever dancing around chord tones.

OK sometimes for effect, perhaps a blues scale, or one of the many symmetrical scales, but they're still played in a way where placement of every note is considered with respect to the underlying chord. Alright, if there's a singular exception, then maybe it is the Blues scale, which can often just be "superimposed" in many ways over many different kinds of chords and will forgive any kind of illegal dissonance provided it lands well. But TBH, I perceive blues scales to be arps with passing notes, anyway...

I get how CST came after the Modal era (I think?), but even the modal greats were thinking in terms of embellishing chord tones and extensions.

While most players in the bop era were doing similar stuff (ie digesting Bird’s music) by the post-modal/post-bop era things seem to me to be a bit more eclectic. I think some players were very scalically oriented. Others had a more bop rooted approach.

Again that Nica’s Dream recording is an interesting example

One useful property of the melodic minor is basically every note in it makes an interesting colour against its parent chords. This isn’t true of all the major modes and certainly not the 8 note scales. So in this sense it kind of functions like an arpeggio if that makes any sense.

[grahambop]

Careful, Reg, any bolder than that and you might be asked to delete it :-)

Someone said this to me:

'As far as I can make out, a substantial number of the posts are yours objecting to the whole idea, so if you like you could go back and delete them all, it might cut down the thread length a bit.'

yes I said that because you were moaning about how long the thread had got!

I thought you said you had a sense of humour?

[pamosmusic]

yes I said that because you were moaning about how long the thread had got!

I thought you said you had a sense of humour?

Only as it pertains to his own jokes.

[Christian Miller]

Only as it pertains to his own jokes.

Well at least someone finds them funny, then

[pamosmusic]

I’m just always a bit perplexed as to how he always ends up being the most frequent poster on threads he thinks are stupid. But hey … not my time to waste, I guess.

[grahambop]

Never mind, I will try not to trouble ragman again. After all I haven’t got all that many years left to waste.

[ragman1]

I shall try to be less funny. Bless you all

[GuyBoden]

One useful property of the melodic minor is basically every note in it makes an interesting colour against its parent chords. This isn’t true of all the major modes and certainly not the 8 note scales. So in this sense it kind of functions like an arpeggio if that makes any sense.

bIIImaj7(#5)

[pamosmusic]

I shall try to be less funny. Bless you all

I shudder to think.

[ragman1]

I only play octatonic scales

[ragman1]

You'll miss me when I've gone

[Tal_175]

The issue obviously is not disagreeing with the thread premise. I mean Christian, Peter and Reg have been beating the living daylights out of the idea afterall to name a few, lol. That's why I posted the thread. I'm interested in hearing different takes on the idea.

[grahambop]

One place to find this idea used is Pat Martino’s Linear Expressions book. I just had a quick look and out of the first 5 activities, 4 are essentially derived from a minor scale with both the b7 and maj7 incorporated at some point in the line.

[Tal_175]

One place to find this idea used is Pat Martino’s Linear Expressions book. I just had a quick look and out of the first 5 activities, 4 are essentially derived from a minor scale with both the b7 and maj7 incorporated at some point in the line.

Exactly! The lines work very well in situations that one would use MM or Dorian based ideas.

[jameslovestal]

Only as it pertains to his own jokes.

He only has a sense of humor when it applies to put downs of others.

[rpjazzguitar]

That's sort of how I use and practice the major scale. I see it as two interchangeable sets of chords/arpeggios. Tonic family, I-iii-vi and the dominant family V, vii, ii, IV. Everywhere on the fretboard I see the major scale as this two sets of arpeggios/chords to make lines with. I also work on different ways to harmonize the major scale only using one family of chords up and down the fretboard. Another interesting exercise I do is to harmonize the scale with one type of chord (say ii) with passing chords on every quarter beats.

To a more limited extend, I also see the melodic minor this way. The arpeggios/chords in this case are: i min/maj, iii aug7, IV7 (Lydian dominant), vi min7b5, also the altered scale. I also work on harmonization of the melodic minor (ie the jazz minor scale) using these chords.

If I don't work on a scale this way, then I don't get much out scale practice in terms of melodic and chordal vocabulary.

Excellent approach. Warren Nunes divided the major scale into two types, exactly this way. Levine says the MM is all one big type.