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Melodic minors? You mean like the Vienna Boys Choir?

OK, here goes:

The natural minor scale is built on la...la ti do re mi fa sol la. Let's convert that to arabic numerals...6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6

It makes for beautiful, sad melodies, but look at the three basic chords...in major they'd be 1 4 5...in natural minor they'd be 6m 2m 3m. Some composer said, "Golly, I'd sure like to be able to have the great 'pull' feel you get going from 5 to 1 when going from 3m to 6m. I think I'll try making the 3m into a 3major!" In order to do this, he had to sharp the 5. this resulted in a minor scale that accomodated the harmony...the harmonic minor scale:

6 7 1 2 3 4 #5 6.

The problem was, when you wrote a melody with this scale, going from the 4 to the #5 gave you an augmented second...it sounded middle eastern, romanian, exotic, folksy. Then some other composer said, "I wish I could move from the 4 to the #5 to the 6 the way I can move from the 6 to the 7 to the 1 in my melodies." So she decided to sharp the four...6 7 1 2 3 #4 #5 6. But this made the end part of the scale sound too much like a major scale.

Finally a compromise was reached. A smart young (possibly a transplanted Chicagoan living in Nashville), composer said, "As long as we're throwing around sharps like confetti on Times Square, let's just EITHER sharp or natural the four and five--and, just to keep it fathomable, when we present it in a pedagogical scalar fashion, we'll sharp 'em on the way up and natural 'em on the way down. This became known as the melodic minor scale:

6 7 1 2 3 #4 #5 6 5 4 3 2 1 7 6


In the key of Am, relative minor to C, this would be A B C D E F# G# A G F E D C B A

Now, what this does, is give the musician the ability to use melodic aspects of the major scale when playing in minor. (Notice that it also was a precursor of the blues scale.)

If you look at it in Am, all you have to do is throw in an occasional C# and you've got Major, Minor, Lydian, Myxolydian, and Chromatic possibilities all in one scale.

Practically speaking? Going up sharped and down naturalled can sound real cool. It lifts you thrillingly then descends with a touch of melancholy. Play:

3 #4 #5 6 5 4 3 over and over until you can quote it in any key.

Also you can play the old standby:

6 #5 5 #5 5 #4 4 3 b3 3

That's the famous motiff of the Entrance Scene of the Gladiators. It shares a lot with the melodic minor, and it's fun to quote in improvs. The b3 (or #2) gives a cool "lydian" feel to the minor.

I also like to throw in harmonic minor melodies, playing around with that augmented second. The old Jackie Gleason Show theme song started out ascending in harmonic minor and descending chromatically:

3 4 #5 5 #4 4 3

And away we go!




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Mike Dunbar Music