You’ve probably at least heard of the melodic minor scale—it’s one of the main common minor scales, along with the natural minor and harmonic minor. It’s got the darkness of the minor third paired with the lightness of the major sixth and major seventh, and its diatonic sevenths are so unique and colorful. This beautiful scale can be used all over our jazz improvisation.
Today, we’re going to talk about five ways you can unlock the power of the melodic minor scale. Everything we’re going to talk about today is covered in our resource titled 70 Melodic Minor Phrases, which features a variety of essential melodic shapes for melodic minor improvisation. It’s written in all 12 keys and includes recordings and backing tracks to help you through it. If you want to hear Nathan play through these exercises we cover today, make sure to check out our accompanying YouTube video!
Let’s get into it!
Contents
Diatonic playing
The first way we can approach the melodic minor scale is through your standard diatonic playing. Let’s check out a page from our resource 70 Melodic Minor Phrases and break it down.
So what’s going on here? Well we start off the first four-note cell with an ascending DmM7 arpeggio. Then we’ll embellish the root of our chord by diatonically approaching it twice—first from above, then from below.
We’ll do the same embellishment right after, this time around the minor third F. From there we’ll ascend up in diatonic thirds until we reach the 9 and approach the major 7. Then we’ll play a backward 1, 2, 3, 5 cell in D minor, followed by a three-note enclosure around the root, ending off with a sustained fifth.
Approach notes and enclosures
Our second way to tackle the melodic minor scale is with approach notes and enclosures. Let’s check out another example from our resource and break it down.
Now we start off with the chromatic enclosure targeting the third, then dip down tot he fifth and play a chromatic approach note below and return. Then we’ll play the scalar figure that eventually targets the sixth. From here, we play a Bm7b5 shape, which is also the third inversion of Dm6—the shape that this entire line is based off of. Anyway, we play this until we land on a high D and from there we’ll play a two-note enclosure around the sixth by approaching it with a diatonic note above and a chromatic approach from below. Then we play a descending m6 shape with an added ninth, ending it on a sustained root.
Major b6 pentatonic scale
This next way is something a little different—the major b6 pentatonic scale. This interesting scale is found on the fifth degree of the melodic minor scale. For this case, if you’re playing in F melodic minor, you can use the C major b6 pentatonic scale.
What’s happening here? This line is based on the C major b6 pentatonic scale, but occasionally borrows notes from the full F melodic minor scale. This first four notes is a cell that diatonically decorates the ninth of our FmM7 chord. Then for the next four notes, we diatonically decorate the seventh in the exact same way that we did in the beginning of this line for the ninth.
Right after this, we’ll diatonically approach the third of the C major triad and descend through it again. Now we’ll play the b3 here, which is the b6 of the C major pentatonic scale, and we’ll ascend the pentatonic scale until we get to the fifth of the scale, which is the ninth of this chord. Then we play a nice embellishment on beat three and double target the seventh of this chord to end it off.
1, 3, 4, 5 melodic cells
We’ve talked about melodic cells in a bunch of our blogs, and they’re a great way to move through any kind of music. While a 1, 3, 4, 5 cell may sound a little sterile on its own, it can sound really great when combined with other rhythmic motifs and the full range of your instrument. What makes it cooler yet is that it’s a pretty bright, happy sound, but it can sound right at home diatonically in the melodic minor scale from the fifth degree.
Why does this matter? Well chords that come from the melodic minor scale are generally pretty dark, so when you have a bright happy shape within a dark sounding chord, there are no unpleasant or dissonant intervals, which makes for a really interesting color.
Breaking this down, we’ve got a six-note motif that consists entirely of the notes of D 1, 3, 4, 5, then we play it again because it’s a six-note motif. A kind of cool syncopation happens here on the last note of the motif, we diatonically approach the fifth and take this resulting scalar pattern from the cell and do it to the next cell here, too. Finally we’ll land on the dark minor third, really revealing the sound of minor and end with this classic Charlie Parker resolution in minor by sustaining the ninth.
Triad pairs
Our final method to spice up our melodic minor playing is triad pairs. For this, we use two major triads a whole step apart, in this case of E melodic minor, we have A major and B major. Let’s see it in action.
Let’s break this all down. We start off with the four note figure using the B major triad, then the next four-note cell is based on the A major triad. The next three notes are the B major triad, followed by three more from A major. Then we have a little trick here, where you’d expect the next two notes to be from B major, we return to the A major for four notes, ending our syncopation journey that we had going on. We’ll finally play our first minor third to balance it out with a feeling of darkness after all those major triads. We move on to a variation of an E minor 1, 2, 3, 4 cell, and end the phrase off with an inversion of the B major triad.
Then we finally play our first minor third to balance it out with the feeling of darkness. After all those major triads. we move on to a permutation of an E minor, 1234, cell, and in the phrase off with an inversion of the B major triad.
That’s all for today, if you want to learn more about this, make sure to check out our YouTube video, Unlock the Power of the Melodic Minor Scale, as well as our resource, 70 Melodic Minor Phrases.
See you next time!
Comments