Hearing the Melodic Minor

Claude_Ruelle

Hello folks,

So lately I've been playing around with plagal cadences and I realised that these are a fantastic way to put the melodic minor scale in your ear. That IVm to I sound tends to trigger a lot of nice melodic ideas that utilise the melodic minor scale even for people who have never used it before. 

I've made a video trying to explain this. Let me know what you think.

KevS

I find there is usually a mode I am attuned to better than the Parent Scale..

With Melodic Minor that is Lydian Dominant..

With Harmonic Minor Phrygian Dominant..

I don't know if these scales / Modes have a stronger Favour..
Or I have heard them more..

I never started to get the sound into my ears properly until I connected with these modes..
Super Locrian / Altered followed on with Lydian Dominant..

It was often as the V chord of a Minor Blues I heard them as Phrygian Dominant and Super Locrian....
I started to hear what should go there..

The Lydian Dominant I heard as a Flat II thing against the Dominant 7 flat 5 chord..
I realised that Flat II chord was like a C 7 Shape with the root moved a Tritone,,leading me to Super Locrian also..

The iv minor to I Major I hear as Harmonic Major..
Although my Knowledge of that scale is thin..
Beautiful Sound though..

Melodic Minor itself I hear as having a Brooding John Barry James Bond thing going on..

viz

KevS said:

I find there is usually a mode I am attuned to better than the Parent Scale..

With Melodic Minor that is Lydian Dominant..

With Harmonic Minor Phrygian Dominant.

Cool. Harmonic minor was invented to be played in its 5th mode, ie Phrygian dominant, for playing over the V chord to show what a proper V chord in a minor piece sounds like. It’s just that the scale is named and practised from tonic to tonic, which makes people think it’s a real thing, which it isn’t really. Or wasn’t, I should say. So that’s good that you hear it in phrygian dominant mode, you’re supposed to

Melodic minor was similarly intended to be used in 5th mode, which I call the major-minor scale (but which is properly called Aeolian dominant scale / Hindu scale / Olympian Scale / Mixolydian♭6 scale and others). Anyway, melodic minor was also invented to show what a proper V sounds like in a minor key. Just wondering if you hear that a lot too?

A bit like what Claude’s doing, except he’s using major-minor scale in tonic position. 

Lydian dominant and altered are also v useful as well of course.