Explaining minor scales and melodic minor scales

#Explaining minor scales and melodic minor scales how to#

#Explaining minor scales and melodic minor scales how to#

How to use the modes in jazz improvisation This will help you hear the fundamental characteristics of each scale more clearly and will also speed up the process of calculating which scale to use whilst improvising. For example, rather than thinking of D Dorian b9 as вЂmode 2 of C melodic minorвЂ™, simply internalise it as D Dorian with a flattened 9th (or 2nd) degree. The seven modes of C melodic minorДespite the fact that this is the correct method to learn the construction of these modes, the most effective way to utilise them in your playing is to think of each scale as its own entity based on the first note, rather than a mode of its respective melodic minor scale. Once youвЂ™ve mastered playing through these, you can then replicate this with the other (ascending) melodic minor scales (C# melodic minor, D melodic minor etc.). The image below shows how you create the modes by using C melodic minor as your initial scale. You start with your seven-note scale and then you create the seven modes by starting on each of the other notes. The construction of these modes is identical to that of the major modes (Ionian, Dorian, Mixolydian etc.). This is the scale that can then be manipulated to create the other modes. However, when constructing melodic minor modes, we are solely concerned with the ascending scale. On the way down, you simply have the natural minor scale. You could also describe this as a major scale with a flattened 3rd. On the way up, you have a natural minor scale but with a raised 6th and 7th. This scale is unique because it ascends differently to how it descends. The first step is to make sure you have a concrete understanding of the melodic minor scale. They also aid us when soloing over common but dissonant harmonic content, for example: altered dominant seventh and half-diminished seventh chords. These modes are a wonderful gateway to producing melodic lines that sound musically interesting and sophisticated. In this short lesson, we are going to learn how to construct the modes of the melodic minor scale and how to utilise them in our improvisational playing.