You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Why Should I Care About The Melodic Minor Scale

Episode Date: April 8, 2024

In this episode, Adam and Peter dive into the Melodic Minor Scale and what we can do with it. Join us for some helpful tips on this invaluable scale and how to use it in your playing. Unlock your FREE Open Studio trial to become a better player today.GALA1. Subscribe NOW (mandatory) https://link.youllhearit.com/subscribe2. Like this video (semi-mandatory)3. Leave us a comment that you've Adhered to the Agreement (optional, but appreciated)Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open Studio🎹 Head over to our YouTube channel for a better look 👀.Follow us on Instagram

Hey, Adam, do you care about this? I like that scale, yeah. What about this one? I like that one too, yeah. Which one? Up or down? Well, it's the same one. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin.

And you're listening to the You'll Hear Podcast. Explaining music. Explaining music. You're workshopping it every week, buddy. Explaining music here at Open Studio. Go to OpenStubuadjazz.com. Start your free trial today. It's not free.

It's free 99. It's the best price ever. Peter... This is our recurring series called What Makes the Scale Great, right? No, this is not a recurring series. We're just going to be talking. So in Open Studio Proland the other day, we started talking about melodic minor modes. We were just really actually talking about the major modes and modes in general. And then I started talking about the melodic minor modes.

And I realized a lot of students really didn't know why they would care, why they should care. Wait, are you talking about modes of the melodic minor? Modes of the melodic matter. And a lot of students didn't understand why they should care about the melodic minor. and what it even is. I think a lot of the classical people knew what the scale was, and we could talk about that. But not the modes, probably.

But not the modes, and especially not how useful those modes can be when we're improvising and doing things like building chords and building melodies. So I thought we could talk about the melodic minor scale today, Peter, why don't you set everybody up with describing what it actually is? Okay, so traditionally, the melodic minor scale is different on the way up than the way down.

Or as we would say in the biz, ascending versus descending. So should we go key of C? Is that okay? EFC is perfect, yeah. So root, second, minor third, minor third, fourth, fourth, fifth, perfect fourth, fifth. And so far you can think about

these are the same as any kind of minor scale. Like harmonic minor, Dorian. Yes, not Phrygian minor or Locrine. I guess it's kind of a minor. Any scale with a minor third. We didn't muddle the waters, my friend. But yes, it's the same as the Dorian,

it's the same as the Aeolian. so far. But I always like to think about to this day, and this doesn't work for everybody, but it can work for anybody, I would say. Maybe not as a primary kind of entry point to understanding scales that you may not know as well. But for me, relating

any scale to the major scale is always useful. It's easy because it's the first thing we learn. It's the first thing we learn, and it's like, you know, the foundation. So same as the major scale except minor third. Yes. And that's on the way up. Right. It's different on the way down. Well, I was just saying to the fifth,

actually all the way up. Yeah, it's the same as the major except for that minor third. And I think that's the easiest way, and we're going to be using the ascending, right? For the modes, but I want to talk about the ascending and descending and the why you might use that.

Because it's just a minor scale, it's a major scale with a minor third. On the way up, right. Is the melodic ascending. And on the way down, it's the same as the natural minor or the a oly with a flatted seventh and a flatted sixth,

so a minor seventh and a minor sixth and that minor third still. So. And I would say, that's the reference point to the major, and then if you're thinking about diatonically, that would be E flat major. Right. That would be the sixth mode of the E flat major scale.

So, again, so on the way up, in the key of C, the melodic minor is C, D, E flat, F, G, A natural, B, natural, C. Then on the way down, it's B, A flat, right? So those are now flatted. And then the rest is the same. F, E flat, D, and C. And Peter, do you know why this works? Why you would use this melodically? Because it is the melodic minor scale.

It is meant to help you write melodies to sound good. Why does this work? Well, because your leading tones are aligned directionally. That's exactly right. And it's actually, this probably comes from the voice, some theorists think, because it's easy to sing. And then when you're going back down, the sort of gravity. Oh, listen to that.

It's a sort of gravity of the situation takes you to this G. So between the G and the C on the way up, you have A natural and B natural. Major scale. It's a major scale. It just leans so heavily into the C. Yeah.

And if you were to do like the A flat and the B flat on the way up, it's not as, it doesn't lean into the C as much. No. As that. Right? But on the way down, that doesn't lean into the G.

as much as it's actually easier to sing too. Right? So this to me is what the melodic minor scale with the different ascending and descending scales is all about is between G and C. Absolutely. And so even just doing this

where I'm going up and down between those and you can see this, to me that's a super useful ear training exercise to hear that. And think about the bebop line. That's kind of playing around with it. So I was going to say, so just before we even get into the most,

of the melodic minor scale, like just using it as it was intended to create your melodies is an amazing way to improvise. Herbie Hancock uses the melodic minor scale in its compositions too. But if you look at a tune like Beautiful Love, right? Like the wrong chord there, but so this, you look at that melody here in the little B section. Allotic symmetry.

We're in the key of D minor, so it's D melodic minor and it goes up A natural, B natural C sharp, right? Which is the natural sixth and seventh of a D melodic minor. And it surrounds the D here. But on the way down, C natural B flat on that G minor, right? It's such a clear-cut example of how a composer will use this melodic minor scale. And that sounds so good. Yeah, and a lot of people might be saying, wait, you're on a G minor.

So that's like the fourth to the third. But that's more the function of the chord you're at. But in terms of the melody, it's still right up in there, right? Yeah, right? So if we were to play. play this tune. Let's play a little bit of this beautiful level. I'm going to blow on a little Peter if you can accompany me, but I'm going to use, to met to, to improvise, I'm going to use, especially on the minor, D minor sections. I'm going to use the melodic minor scale, different

ascending and descending, and just notice that it kind of plays itself. It's a great way to sort of splash around and get melodies. One, two, I want to three, three. Ah. Oh, I forgot that. I I really know this tune. So I'm really trying to be deliberate with every time I'm going up, I'm going up that melodic minor. And every time I go down, so even on this first chord, right, this E minor 7 flat 5.

Yeah. I can play an E minor 7 flat 5 in my left hand. Yeah. And play that natural. Yeah, yeah. Right? And it doesn't sound bad. No, no.

Because of the voice leading, right? Right. And it's almost like you're anticipating where it's going to resolve to, too, like the melody's ahead of the harmony across the bar lines, which we know works now. So you don't have to think too hard about it. It's actually a great tool. Is it too early to introduce?

That's great. And I'm sorry, I was screwing up. I was thinking we're going to play the melody, which was going to clue me into the changes. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't really know the tune. Oh, that's okay. It's all good.

It would be too early to introduce a different melodic ascending, like the G minor ascending over that E half diminished? Oh, so. No. A little too early, we're getting there. But we'll keep on with Beautiful Love as our example so that we can get there.

Because, yes, that is one of the load. That's what I thought you were going to say when you said the first core. That's kind of where we're getting. But just to note that you can get a lot of mileage out of the melodic minor scale as it was intended, as a scale for melody that is different ascending and descending. Even, you know, just throughout a minor key.

I'm really trying to exaggerate that. But it works so well. You know, I've never thought about it like this, but I realize I definitely play that. You definitely, I've, one of the, one of the light bulb moments I had transcribing you, Peter, was hearing you do this. Yeah. And I was like, oh, that makes so much sense. It does make sense.

And I think, too, one entry point could be, so you're looking at that 251 to the D minor. So that this is all over the, didle be do be did, like that sound. That's just, I know I'm coming down there, but it could also be booby-de-de-de-de-d-d-it. It's more about a jut, like so you're in the horizontal direction of the line. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. You know, kind of making those adjustments.

Another great example of this is the classic. Right? That last phrase on autumn leaves. Yeah. That's the melodic minor ascending. And, you know, a lot of people are, even if you played a D7 flat nine, doesn't sound bad. That's right.

Doesn't clash because of where the melody is. Right. Because that's like a leading tone to go down to there harmonically. But do boo, bo do, do. is opposed to boo-d-d-boo-boo-wee. That sounds weird. Sounds weird.

Yeah. So the melodic minor in that regard is... Don't tick on my fancy. Go there. The next way that you might think about it, and I think the way that... For me, this is like...

This lights students up when they realize that this is a thing. But it's using the melodic minor as a vehicle for modes and the way that you would use the C-major scale as a vehicle for modes. In other words, by modes, we mean like something that can be a tool to help you

choose a color palette of notes over a certain chord. Right. So if we go back, let's go back to C melodic minor. In this case, we're just going to use the ascending version of this, right? So the ascending version of C. And is that by rule or kind of just by tradition or usage? I think it's just by tradition, by usage, and especially amongst modern jazz musicians. So if we take this C melodic minor ascending and we start making some seventh chords out of it,

in other words, skipping a note twice. So we have C, E flat, G, and B natural. That's a C minor major 7, right? And this would be like the one chord of the modes of the melodic minor, right? Just the regular melodic minor. Now, if we go here, this is our D. Maybe we can see this on chord, you might be helpful. Because I need to visualize it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's our C melodic, sorry, our C minor 7. Yep. Sorry, our C minor major 7. And again, that's just the first mode of the melodic minor. And if we move all of those up the melodic minor scale, we've got a D minor 7, flat 9, Peter, right? It's that mode.

And you could use this on a minor chord with a flat 9, right? If we take it up again, we've got an E-flat major 7 sharp 5. Now, this is something that you will see used a lot. And you will see the C-melotic minor used, right, a ton in this regard. What's the root there?

E-flat, right? E-flat. Okay. So this is the E-flat major-7. sharp 5. Right. And the melodic minor is the perfect choice.

Next up is an F7 chord, but not just any F7 chord. If you look at it from F to F, that is an F7 sharp 11. So this is probably one of the most common uses of the melodic minor

is for that Lidian dominant sound, right? So it's a dominant sound with that sharp fore. Never know that was the same chord. Same scale. You're kidding. No.

I mean, I could feel that it's the same. I never thought about it. That is the fourth mode of the C melodic minor. Interesting. But see, remember what we talked about the beginning in terms of learning the melodic minor scale, ascending and descending in relation to the major scale? That's why I've always thought about the leading dominant. It's like a major scale with a raised up with the leading tone going up to the fifth.

Which it is, which it is. But it is part of it. It is fun to have different entry points. And that can become handy, especially when you're using things like voicing. Like if we look at this voicing, a rootless voicing, I've got E flat A and then D, G and B natural, right? That's a G minor tried. So this works as a voicing for C minor major 7. Yep.

It works as a voicing for E flat major 7 sharp 5, right? That third mode. It works as an F7 sharp 11. Yeah, very well. And it works as an A minor 7 flat 5 with that natural 9, which we'll get to in a second. Yeah, yeah. But like that's why knowing that these are all part of the modes, you can reuse things like voicings and some, even some language.

Yeah. The language. Yeah, the melodic language floating on top of these different harmonic areas is where the magic of this really unveils itself. Next up is our G7 with that flat 6, right? G to G, the C melodic liner. And you can use this. It's not used as much because it's got, for the G7, it's got a natural 9 and then that flat 13 kind of sound, you know? And so you can certainly use it, but it's nice.

You can build some nice shapes out of it for sure. But it's not as common as others. Now, next up, we do have something that is used quite a bit, especially by people like Bill Evans. And that's A to A with our C melodic minor. That's A, B, C, D, E, flat, F, G, and A. That's an A minor 7, flat 5. But it's what we call the Locrian Sharp 2.

So it's like a lochrean, but it's got that raised second. That natural 9, the B natural. So normally a lochrean, which is the seventh mode of the major scale, right, would have, this would be from the B-flat major scale. The locian, also known as the most useless scale. Well, but you could use it over like a minor 7 flat 5, right? And so this, you could also use over minus 7.5,5, but now it's got that raised second, that natural 9.

Right? And then we have the seventh degree, B to B, and this is, again, maybe the second most used, because this is known as the altered scale. So this is what you would call, what Peter would call, what do you call the diminished, Lydian diminished, where you used to call? No, the alter scale. The alter scale.

Yeah. Oh, it's the half hole combined with the whole That's when you get to the, to the, but this you would use over a B7 altered chord. Like if you were doing a 251 to E minor,

you could use this C melodic minor starting on B to B. And again, remember that voicing? E flat A, DGE, or DGB. It works as a B7 altered chord. It's fantastic. We've got the flat 13,

sharp 9. So this is why we should care about the modes of the melodic minor. It can save us a lot of headspace as far like reusing some stuff. You know what I mean? So, Peter, if we go back to Beautiful Love, that first phrase, it's a 25, it's a minor, 2.5 to D minor. And you would already notice, like, can we use the G melodic minor ascending over that E minor 7-55?

And that you can, right? Because that is part of that D melodic minor is that E, right, that lochrean sharp 2. the 6 mode of the G melodic minor. So on the E minor 7 flat 5, you can use the G melodic minor scale ascending to create voicings and improvise. On the A7 altered, you can use the altered scale,

the A altered scale, that's the 7th scale to be. The 7th scale to be of the B flat melodic minor. That's right. And then on the D minor 7, the D minor, you can use the D melodic minor. And you might use it how it was intended. Exactly. So here we have in a minor 2-5 in the key of D.

We've got three melodic minor scales, right? We've got G-melotic minor over that E-minor 7-5, B-flat melodic minor over the A, that's the altars scale. And D-melodic minor. Yeah. And you can do that on any minor-251. If we were to play, what is this thing called love? There are G-minor 7-5.

I'm going to use B-flat melodic minor from minor third up. For the C-7, I'm going to use the C-altered, right? The D-flat melodic minor. On the F-minor-7, I'll use the F-melod. Let me see if I can do that over there, just use it. I mean... Yeah. And then you can stay on that F melodic minor for the D.

Yeah. Yeah. A flat melodic minor, right, over the G7. Yep. And then you get to C, big C major. But even if we go to the bridge, right? Yep. You could use the E flat melodic minor over that A flat 7 sharp 11, right?

Lidian dominant sound. So it can be used in all kinds of places. And I want to just, go ahead, Peter, I see you have something. There's a thought churning. I don't want to interrupt. Don't tickle our fancy. Would this sound tickling your fancy? So I was just saying that some people like myself, you may be thinking, well, say,

for instance, on the last one, A flat 17, 8,000, 8, 13, sharp 11. It's like, why I think about that as an E flat minor melodic? I'm already thinking about it as a Lidium Dominic. The Lidium Dominant is the fourth mode of the E flat melodic minor. Right. So it's the same note. So you might think, well, that's going to overcomplicate things. So this is not to overcomplicate.

This is to give us options into how we're going to actually manifest this into interesting music. So if I'm on the A flat 13 sharp 11 and I'm only thinking, you know, jazz arpeging up or maybe boo-to-bo-bo-be-bo-be-bo-be-bo-be. That's cool. But once you start thinking E-flat, you can get even up higher. And then surrounding. That's when you get. Sometimes people are like, what's that other sign you go to? And they're like, but it sounds like you're playing all notes within that scale, the Lydia dominant.

This is how you get to that. Well, so this, you're bringing me right to where. You're bringing right to the breadbasket. You are welcome. So here's what unlocks this for a lot of people. Yep. And I know we're throwing a lot of stuff at you. No, just one thing, melodic minor.

But there's a, there's a kind of a lick that is very useful. And it is what you said. So if we go back to C, with the cordi up maybe on this one, too. If we look at this from the nine down, right? So there's our C melodic minor. that D, and again, when we talk about it in this way, we're going to keep it the same, it's all going to be ascending. Yeah, we're using the notes and be ascending.

So 9753, and even like 9-1, right? Or you can do this on the way up. I'm going to surround that E-flat and go up the 357-9, right? Just up that jazz arpeggio ascension and down. But this is what unlocks it for you. Yep, for sure. So do that over an F7. Yep.

Right? Do that over a B7 altered. Exactly. Right? Do that over an E flat major 7 sharp 5. Do that over an A minor 7 flat 5 with that raised 9. Nice. So if we go back to our beautiful love, and we do that over those three, right?

That keys that in for a lot of people. Yeah. That sort of like arpeggio of the important notes. Yeah. Over what you're doing. So if you're like an F7 Lydian dominant, using that C minor seven, C minor major seven, jazz arpeggio up to the nine,

that unlocks all the juicy bits. Yeah, that's a great way to think about. I love it. And then, you know, kind of for later on and moving to some other sounds once you start to get these locked in. And you can always play with this a little bit as you're practicing,

just as like a premonition to where you can go. Like moving just one, you know, getting to that diminished with the perfect fourth. By the way, this is what just happened here, I think is an important point that I want to point out. We just got super heavy on the theory and we put it in a lot of boxes. But what was the first thing that Peter Martin did

is he threw the theory out the window and said, you can just move these notes around and follow your ears with this. This is, I want to just point this out for all of our listeners and viewers. This is what makes great players like Peter Martin exist. It's like he's not confined by the boxes of the theory.

The theory comes afterwards to explain this stuff. He's still messing with it as he's going and he doesn't care that it doesn't fit into the box. I just want everybody to take that home. even as we're learning this stuff, it's great to know the rules, but only so that you can break them eventually and follow your ear. Absolutely. And they're not mutually exclusive. Like you can understand the theory. You can come to it later. You can start with it as long as the reason I would suggest and just try a few things because you can sometimes we think, oh, we've got that locked in. Now let me, la la la, I'm not listening to anything else. No, now use that to get creative with. Forget what you just learned. It'll still be there. Yeah, for real. You'll come back tomorrow and like that's part of the creative process. Part of the fun in this. That's part of like the attenuation of your ear. ear training, in fact.

And then just explore and just talk and come up with your own rules. It doesn't matter. By the way, none of it matters. None of it matters. If you made it far as this far as to the episode, none of this matters. Right. No,

you know what? It only matters insofar as what it unlocks for your... That's exactly right. And that's not going to necessarily be... Like, you can unlock your understanding of it, the theory, which is great. It's always going to take a little bit longer for your ears to catch up. Or maybe not. I mean, but...

You know, how much I love to, like, make up terms for the stuff that we talk about. Oh, I know. fun and kind of like catchy, because I love writing a little catchy. I know, well, I get dragged in YouTube comments from it sometimes. Like the moo chord is the mew, and I'm like, well, there's a reason behind that. But the reason why I love making up terms, and I like to remind people with this, it's all made up. All of it is a concept that some human put a label on some kind of sound. And we get to, by the way, it's a very short life we have.

We get to do whatever we want with it. And so I love coming up with catchy terms for me to help me remember and give me like a little personality on the stuff. And I realized that for some people that's very, that's triggering. Well, it shouldn't be because what is this? So what voicing. Right. Well, that's actually so what, but I was going to say, what is this. So what voice. So what voices. Right. You know, even though they're not exactly like I'm moving up to Italian TV. Yeah, someone would call those like Ravel voicings ripped off or whatever. But it is fun when you connect it with music, when you connect it with the theory, when you make a couple different connections, when you look at

these as like, oh yeah, this is altered, you know, altered half, whole half. They remember. going all the way wholesome. Damn, I never thought about it. Whatever helps you connect to it and freeze it for you is how you can frame it. Yeah, because then you have multiple entry points to play around with this and create music. It's great. And also, if you can do that, then you're not, I think sometimes people get obsessed with like, I got to find the best theory, right? And if I just knew more theory and I understand it, and I just want to just let everybody know, everybody's making this stuff up, how it came to be. Yes, it's a great way to communicate it. And some people have come up with great ideas. But if you get too stuck on the idea of theory as a tool,

to help you play better, it doesn't work like that. 100%. Yeah, I mean, it can be prescriptive, but it's much better descriptive. And look, this is just the way we look at it. I think we could kind of sum it up to say, like, we're more about theory in terms of how it explains how something works or how something sounds or what the possibilities of once you understand that of how you can apply that to your playing,

as opposed to like, this is how you codify and apply rules that you can't break. Yeah. Like, we're not as interested in that. That's fine if people that are into that. But that's, but you can have your cake and eat it to. You can understand, like you can open up the box and understand the engineering. Be like, wow, this is cool. Wait, turn it upside down.

Oh, it looks cool like that too. That's so true. Yeah. Well, till next time, you'll hear it. You'll hear it.