Minor Scales

BigLicks67

In a scale book I've got all the minor scales are different when they change from ascending to descending. Does this make them melodic minor scales or is it harmonic? I dimly remember something from when learning the guitar but it's been filed at the back the brain somewhere.

Limehouse_Blues

Melodic minor is different on the way down

BigLicks67

Limehouse_Blues said:

Melodic minor is different on the way down

Merci.

Phil_aka_Pip

I was most interested to hear Howard Goodall on the history of minor scales. IIRC the summary is:

The natural minor scale (aka aeolian mode) is sweet and pretty, but the V chord from it is minor so a V -> I change doesn't have much oomph behind it. They decided to sharpen the 7th degree of the natural minor scale so that the V chord has the same form as the dominant 7th in the major scale. The result was the Harmonic minor scale. Hey presto a V -> I change with real guts. A side effect is making  an augmented 2nd interval between the 6th & 7th degrees of the scale and the choirmasters started complaining that their choirboys couldn't hack singing that interval. So the 6th degree was also raised by a semitone to even things out a bit. Result was the Melodic Minor, in the upwards direction it is like a major scale but with a flat 3rd, in the downwards direction it is the same as the natural minor.

viz

^ beautifully put, and the reason it's flat on the way down is because you are no longer using it in the dominant context, but in the resolved context (in Western harmony).

ArchtopDave

Limehouse_Blues said:

Melodic minor is different on the way down

Unless you're playing the Jazz version, in which case you don't change it on the way down.

viz

I'll just add a point here: in Western classical music, although the scale itself is practised with the 6th and 7th sharpened on the way up, and naturalised on the way down, this doesn't mean that classical music itself had to follow that 'rule' dogmatically. In fact it's not a rule at all - the scale is just a helpful device; it was and is only meant as an exercise to demonstrate the usefulness of raising the 6th and 7th over the dominant chord, within an otherwise minor (Aeolian) piece. It so happens that the dominant is more effective with upwards melody, because the sharpened 7th 'leads' upwards to the tonic, rather than, say, downwards to the 5th or bottom tonic. The only reason that the scale exercise has the notes returning to their natural Aeolian position is because it is trying to demonstrate that the raising is only 'necessary' on the dominant, and not so 'necessary' when the piece has resolved to the minor tonic.

You can see many examples where the raising of the 6th and 7th on the dominant and lowering on the tonic, is synchronised with the rising and falling of the melodic line - just like the scale; however there are many examples where this is not sychronised.

Here is a good example where it is synchronised, with the tune resembling the melodic scale. It's Eilt from Bach's St John Passion, in G minor. Just in that first page to 0:15, in the first bar you can see the E natural and F# (raised 6th and 7th ascending), and in the rest of that first page on those descending lines it's all Eb and F natural. It seems it's because they're being played descending, but the primary reason is because they're not being played on the dominant. In that first bar, they are on a dominant (albeit a fleeting and implied one).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUt_UUipdEU

However in this piece, Bach's Partita 6, the Aria, in E minor, the 12th and 13th notes in the tune are the raised 7th and 6th (D# and C#), despite the fact that the tune is descending. If you listen carefully though it's because again that section is over a dominant (the left hand is playing a B major stab). (Interestingly the 6th and 7th notes in the tune are C natural and D natural, even though the tune is ascending. so the whole tune is a swapped melodic minor scale)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gft1W6fy22k

So, like Pip said, the reason the 6th and 7th are raised is because they're on a dominant, not because they're ascending as such, though that is usually the case. So the scale is practised that way because it makes more sense to start with a tonic (first half of the scale ascending), move to a dominant (2nd half of the scale ascending), then return to the tonic (the scale descending again).

Jazz music differs from classical in a number of ways in this regard. Firstly in Jazz, the 5th degree of the scale is a very strong feature within the tonic chord in itself, so the playing of a raised 6th and 7th seems to make a lot of sense over a minor tonic, whereas in classical music, dominant chords (including secondary dominants) tend more to be used as devices to resolve to a (potentially new) tonic, major or minor, and thus create modulation opportunities that lead you on a journey through keys, sometimes never to return to the original tonic. Secondly, jazz, like pop, is built on repetitive chord sequences such as verses and choruses, and there is heavy emphasis on chord-scale improvisation, and as the minor triad does not tell us what to do to the 6th and 7th, and because raising them sounds cool, improvisers noodle on it over the tonic, regardless of whether ascending or descending. Thirdly, the other modes of the melodic minor are used more commonly and are the same ascending and descending (because they are nothing to do with the dominant-tonic resolution). Moreover some of these modes are not even used in the context expected; for example the 7th mode of melodic minor (the super locrian) is often played over the dominant (rather than the expected 5th mode, the Hindu scale). You'd normally expect to hear the super locrian scale over the raised 7th chord, and to hear it over the dominant is unexpected yet groovy. In the same vein, the 6th mode of melodic minor (the half-diminished scale) is often heard over the ii chord in a minor ii-V-i progression, which is also not "expected" but sounds well cool. Because of the strong 5th within the tonic, the tendency for chord-scale improvisation, and the use of these out-of-context modes of melodic minor which are nothing to do with dominant-tonic resolutions, it is preferable in jazz to codify the primary scale (melodic minor) the same, whether ascending or descending.

Phil_aka_Pip

@viz lovely explanation. thank you

viz

Oh thanks!

GuyBoden

ArchtopDave said:

Limehouse_Blues said:

Melodic minor is different on the way down

Unless you're playing the Jazz version, in which case you don't change it on the way down.

Older Jazzers used to call it the "Jazz Minor" to distinguish it from the Western Classical Music's Melodic Minor.

The 7th degree of the Jazz minor was used over Altered Dominate chords because it contains the altered notes and the chromatic notes in the scale pull to the tonic chord tones. (But, you've got to hear them to really play them or it sounds fake.)

GuyBoden

viz said:

Jazz music differs from classical in a number of ways in this regard. Firstly in Jazz, the 5th degree of the scale is a very strong feature within the tonic chord in itself, so the playing of a raised 6th and 7th seems to make a lot of sense over a minor tonic, whereas in classical music, dominant chords (including secondary dominants) tend more to be used as devices to resolve to a (potentially new) tonic, major or minor, and thus create modulation opportunities that lead you on a journey through keys, sometimes never to return to the original tonic. Secondly, jazz, like pop, is built on repetitive chord sequences such as verses and choruses, and there is heavy emphasis on chord-scale improvisation, and as the minor triad does not tell us what to do to the 6th and 7th, and because raising them sounds cool, improvisers noodle on it over the tonic, regardless of whether ascending or descending. Thirdly, the other modes of the melodic minor are used more commonly and are the same ascending and descending (because they are nothing to do with the dominant-tonic resolution). Moreover some of these modes are not even used in the context expected; for example the 7th mode of melodic minor (the super locrian) is often played over the dominant (rather than the expected 5th mode, the Hindu scale). You'd normally expect to hear the super locrian scale over the raised 7th chord, and to hear it over the dominant is unexpected yet groovy. In the same vein, the 6th mode of melodic minor (the half-diminished scale) is often heard over the ii chord in a minor ii-V-i progression, which is also not "expected" but sounds well cool. Because of the strong 5th within the tonic, the tendency for chord-scale improvisation, and the use of these out-of-context modes of melodic minor which are nothing to do with dominant-tonic resolutions, it is preferable in jazz to codify the primary scale (melodic minor) the same, whether ascending or descending.

The dilemma with Jazz, is that chord scale theory is not a very good approach to playing Jazz standards in the older Swing style and Bebop styles, so that's most of the Jazz standards. These tunes were originally played using chord tones and chromatic connections, but mainly from learning/copying the Jazz language from other players and records. This debate about playing Jazz with chord scale theory has been ongoing for as long as I can remember (30+ years). Lack of chromaticism in chord scale theory has always been my concern.

Chord scale theory is fairly recent in Jazz history from it's beginnings in the late 1950's to early 1960's, with it's foundations in the Lydian Chromatic Concept and Berklee School of Music. It's great for new compositions in any style of music, not only contemporary Jazz and re-harmonised older Jazz standards.

BigLicks67

I'm glad I started this as i've now learned a few things a didn't know before, however I think it has now gone beyond my pay grade. : >