Melodic minor modes & chords

[GuyBoden]

This is one of my fav MM chords:





Yes, I like pretty colour pictures, I'm a very visual person, I wish my ears were as good as my eyes.

[Reg]

Yea Rag... that chord, G13b9 is usually pulled from Harm. Maj.
Har M 1 2 3 4 5 b6 7

Yea runningBeagle

That's how I generally play... Functionally. I do tend to expand use of function... with Chord Patterns, modal function and also use Blue Note melodically as well as Harmonically, basically just jazz ways of expanding traditional maj/min functional harmonic concepts.

I use to push this BS on the forum years ago. The problem is most don't understand Functional harmony, difficult to expand without understanding.

But yea personally that's where I'm from. It's another one of those .... have a Reference, create a Relationship with that Reference and .... Develop....

[GuyBoden]

Here's a great Allan Holdsworth MM chord.

Another pretty picture too.

[pingu]

nomenclature ….

Can we all agree to use lower case for
minor and
upper case for major ?

(so melodic minor is mm not MM)

we know and agree what Fm7 means
what does FM7 mean ??

probably not !

[Christian Miller]

Nah. I’m just going to refer to all chords by their constituent intervals ala figured bass. It won’t make sense to anyone, but I’m ok with that.

[ragman1]

nomenclature ….

Can we all agree to use lower case for
minor and
upper case for major ?

(so melodic minor is mm not MM)

we know and agree what Fm7 means
what does FM7 mean ??

probably not !

I thought that too when I saw it but everybody was using it and it was clear in its own context, so when in Rome... After all, there's no major scale that's written MM so... :-)

[Christian Miller]

If harmonic major = 1 2 3 4 5 b6 7…

then the melodic major is major!

[Zephyr690]

I took Jordan’s Seven Days to Melodic Minor Course recently and also like his approach. As you say he starts off with a triad and then adds notes to it. So rather than thinking of scales or modes what you end up with is a pitch collection to “paint” with. It is another way to look at MM.

i.e. play a C major triad over an E7.

So the notes of the C triad over the E7 make it E7#5#9 , the chord tones of the 7th mode of melodic minor. Very interesting


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[pingu]

what does FM7 mean ?

[pingu]

So the notes of the C triad over the E7 make it E7#5#9 , the chord tones of the 7th mode of melodic minor. Very interesting


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to me C triad over E7 sounds too much
like Am over E7

ie I’ve get ahead of myself and resolved
to Am too early

[kris]

what does FM7 mean ?

F maj 7

[rpjazzguitar]

So the notes of the C triad over the E7 make it E7#5#9 , the chord tones of the 7th mode of melodic minor. Very interesting

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And because it's mm, all the other chords generated by that mel min (Fmm) are the same (per Levine), meaning you could play anything you know on FmMaj7, Gsusb9, Abmaj7#5 Bb7#11 C7b13, Dm7b5, and Ealt. All interchangeably.

So, for example, you could take the Fm triad, F Ab C and play that against E7, producing E7b9b13. Or a Ddim triad (D F Ab) producing E7b9 etc etc.

[pauln]

Over the Gb7b5 I used Db MM which is Gb Lyd Dom.

Can I get a hallelujah!

[Reg]

The case ... upper or lower would be reference to the context... Language ....
Melodic Minor... word, proper noun etc... (i'm obviousllly Not the one tooo give advice...LOL). Or in this case the musical implication, notes and chords derived from melodic minor. Or is it Melodic Minor.... I believe there is a Linguist on this forum... maybe he can help.

It is different when the reference is Music Notation and Harmonic Structures... Major, Maj Ma.... even M tends to imply Major Scale, chord or tonal reference. Minor, Min. Mi tend to imply Minor

And then because traditional music tends to related everything to Major and Major functional and melodic guidelines.. the lower or small case is used with analysis etc... amd implies the reference of a minor tonality.

This is kind of a learning thing... kids or beginners. (personally)

But with Jazz.... analysis or Chord symbols always use UPPER CASE or upper case Roman Numerals... they refer to Harmonic Structures. Which can be any reference... Maj. Min Dim etc...

So typically I use MM to refer to melodic minor... or Melodic Minor... even mm, Amm or AMM... what else would it be when we're talking about Melodic Minor... Melodic Maj.?

Melodic Major.... not used that much, some use to call it Octatonic or 8 note scale, C D E F G Ab Bb C.
Most are implying Mixo b13 or 5th degree of a MM, (melodic minor) 1 2 3 4 5 b6 b7.

Again personally is a learning aid... eventually you know what's implied... anyway it's notated LOL. I seen some really lousy charts.

Yea Rick I've worked and played gigs with Mark, will miss him. Anyway his somewhat Modal approach to MM or mm... is almost old school embellishment jazz playing approach for piano. ( he was pretty old). It pushes the ears too much personally, but obviously works when creating voicings below a line. I personally still use MM Functionally... and generally with Dorian as reference. Which makes the standard use of the common chord patterns.... subVs, II V's, modal patterns etc... easy to work with and not push the ears that much, can still feel like were playing a Blues.
But I'm a pretty vanilla player really... Anyway Marks playing also always felt almost vanilla also, at least from many jazz artist's playing.

Mixing the 2 tritones gets out. Have you tried using that approach to comping, all MM chords are interchangeable?

I never could get it to work without using an almost pedal approach etc... too many strong harmonic conflicts.

[pauln]

Quick question...

For a named chord type with a specified bottom we write X/Y where the left of the slash is the chord, right is a single note.
Roman numeral representation of the same , X is the numeral scale degree and chord type, but what's Y right of the slash?

[rpjazzguitar]

Mixing the 2 tritones gets out. Have you tried using that approach to comping, all MM chords are interchangeable?

I never could get it to work without using an almost pedal approach etc... too many strong harmonic conflicts.

I use it in spots, but not anywhere near the full extent of what Mark wrote about it.

Ex: I play a tune called Rapaz De Bem. Two bars of Fmaj9 followed by 2 bars of Bb7#11 at the start of the tune.

So, Bb7#11 can be seen as coming from Fmelmin. That means, per Mark, that the other 6 chords generated with Fmelmin tertiary harmony should all work. To my ear, they all do, although they don't sound the same and I like some better than others.

I also tried using random groups of notes from Fmelmin and moving them through the scale. I found a couple that really don't work.

I sometimes use a stack of fourths moving through the scale.

If I were learning chords from the beginning it might work to learn all the chords of melmin as one thing. Instead, I learned them all individually at different times. So, for example, if I see Abmaj7#5 I think of certain grips that I learned with that name. Or I think C/Ab. But, I'm slower to think it's all Fmelmin and use all the different stuff in my melmin bag.

[ragman1]

Can I get a hallelujah!

Certainly... Hallelujah! Because you are the Lydian Dominant Man!

'I invented (discovered) Lydian Dominant decades before I knew

it was a thing and had a name. I have never intentionally played

Melodic Minor, however it occurs all the time in my playing as an

artifact because Melodic Minor is one mode of Lydian Dominant.

I think I found Lydian Dominant first because it directly connects

to other things like diminished, augmented, and whole tone, etc.'

[kris]

[kris]

You only quote me partially. What I've said many times is that I don't practice exercises, etudes, scales, arpeggios, and so on. Of course, I had to work things out from books at the beginning but that was years ago.

What I do is play tunes a great deal. In other words I play and improvise always with a context, not out of context. For the simple reason that if one plays a lot of exercises, when you improvise it can sound like an exercise. This is an oft-repeated instruction and many well-known players have said exactly the same.

As regards using MM scales or scale-fragments, it's in playing in context that one finds out where they work and where they don't. And after a while it becomes second-nature; one can feel it arriving, so to speak.

But there's nothing mysterious or hidden about where they work. Most posters have said it on this thread already. Besides, the MM is rarely the only option one has in certain situations, it's just one of several.

Of course, one can abstract any of this sort of thing and get lost in technical terminology. It amuses some people but it has little to do with real-life application.

So I don't practice exercises, never have. I play actual music and improvise. If you want to call that practice, so be it. And, of course, bragging has nothing to do with it, it's just the fact. And, for what it's worth, it's hard work, much harder than trawling laboriously through some exercises which simply become repetitive and rather tedious.

The best post so far on this is from Alter. It's simple, straightforward, practical, and it works.

Melodic minor modes & chords

All exercises with scales are to play nice melodies and develop your hearing. The musician must feel confident and know what to play-improvise.
This is the creativity of jazz expression - first you need to know the language of jazz.
It has to be practice, not just theory.
Need to practice!!!
I have several hundred brilliant /jazz/ books and I've learned something from each one.
In all these brilliant books it is clearly written what and how to practice to become a jazz musician.
In the times we live in, everything is already explained what you need to practice to play jazz.
After all, jazz is music created during concerts.
That's why playing live is the most important for me - that's where you learn the most.

[GuyBoden]

If harmonic major = 1 2 3 4 5 b6 7…

then the melodic major is major!

Yes, indeed.

All good stuff.

melodic minor mode one, could be called Dorian Natural 7, I remember it being called Jazz minor not so long ago, but I'm not a professional.

[Reg]

I use it in spots, but not anywhere near the full extent of what Mark wrote about it.

Ex: I play a tune called Rapaz De Bem. Two bars of Fmaj9 followed by 2 bars of Bb7#11 at the start of the tune.

So, Bb7#11 can be seen as coming from Fmelmin. That means, per Mark, that the other 6 chords generated with Fmelmin tertiary harmony should all work. To my ear, they all do, although they don't sound the same and I like some better than others.

I also tried using random groups of notes from Fmelmin and moving them through the scale. I found a couple that really don't work.

I sometimes use a stack of fourths moving through the scale.

If I were learning chords from the beginning it might work to learn all the chords of melmin as one thing. Instead, I learned them all individually at different times. So, for example, if I see Abmaj7#5 I think of certain grips that I learned with that name. Or I think C/Ab. But, I'm slower to think it's all Fmelmin and use all the different stuff in my melmin bag.

Hey Rick... so play a vamp of that Fma9 to Bb7#11. (I know the tune)... so try and use the other Chords form Fmm instead of the Bb7#11. It's difficult... I think I can use Dbmm chords a lot easier... work off the other tritone of Bb7#11
the E and Bb or #11 and Rt of Bb7#11 so you get Gb9#11 and C7alt... can get almost Blusy.
I'm mean the E7alt works... but personally the bottom line is ....I to IV is just to strong of a chord pattern to change the functional feel that much.... I can also hear and understand F dorian and all the chord patterns and harmonic possibilities.next time we play... lets play the tune... I'll get a chart to Tom and Craig, They're not as relaxed as I am etc... It's their band LOL

[Reg]

Quick question...

For a named chord type with a specified bottom we write X/Y where the left of the slash is the chord, right is a single note.
Roman numeral representation of the same , X is the numeral scale degree and chord type, but what's Y right of the slash?

hey pauln this might help... it'd old but still one of the standards

[setemupjoe]

Quick question...

For a named chord type with a specified bottom we write X/Y where the left of the slash is the chord, right is a single note.
Roman numeral representation of the same , X is the numeral scale degree and chord type, but what's Y right of the slash?

When using Roman numerals with slash chords, it looks like this.
Ima Ima/3 IVma etc

Chords are Roman numerals, the bass indicator on the right of the slash pertains to a single note and is therefore written with Arabic numbers.


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[Christian Miller]

Yes, indeed.

All good stuff.

melodic minor mode one, could be called Dorian Natural 7, I remember it being called Jazz minor not so long ago, but I'm not a professional.

sure

In a similar vein Allan Holdsworth called D melodic minor D(x) (that’s d with a circled x) as opposed to Dx which was D Dorian. Simple, compact and clear.

he chose Dorian as his master scale because it has intervallic mirror symmetry which is neat (it inverts into itself.)

His was an applied system - he didn’t use modes he applied scales. So D(x) on G7 for example, not Glydian dominant. What mick Goodrick called ‘derivative thinking.’ You have a limited number of scales with lots of applications you haven’t to learn as opposed to the parallel system which has a lot of scales to learn but trivial applications (Goodrick, the Advancing Guitarist discussion page 62-64)

Otoh intelligent and not to difficult to understand system for parallel or root based system of modes for CST would be to name the chord scale the same as the chord symbol. So, G lydian dominant becomes G7#11 scale and so on (using a convention that reduces lengthy names, for instance other notes default to diatonic major or something)

the mode name serves ‘merely serves as a label for the scale and serves no other purpose’ as Allan said. So reducing the number of names you have to learn would seem to me to be a pedagogical no brainer.

If you enact my suggestion chord scale theory application would involve almost no theory (except in a couple of special cases) other than a knowledge of the intervals in the major scale - it would be a matter of nomenclature. (You could then suss out the avoid notes by ear or using that daft Berklee semitone rule that doesn’t really work.)*

I daresay we are stuck with the convoluted jazz school mode names though because if you don’t learn it you won’t be able to understand what a written in books etc (though I suspect this may be less of a disadvantage than many suppose.)

So by using Feymann’s argument it’s more important to know the melodic minor is a Dorian with a raised/natural seventh than something called the melodic minor. I agree. Of course the label is useful, but to be honest we can hear it using our ears and that is really the important thing. Not so much for K-mesons.

Also: Bloody Yorkshire

*tbf I haven’t considered that keeping things needlessly convoluted may fulfil an important social function for theory professors.

[rpjazzguitar]

One of my teachers named scales by chord names, as in "play a G7#11 scale". I knew which notes he meant. I'd have known too if he'd said "G lydian dominant".

If he wanted some other alteration of G7, say a G7b9b13, the chord name would still tell me all the notes I needed. Having to think "fifth mode CHarmMin" would take me longer.

And, when I'm playing, if I'm thinking about harmony at all, it is likely to be based on chord subs, not scale names. And, I figure that if I'm off by a note or two from Nettles and Graf, I can adjust by ear.

I guess there's a disadvantage if you know fingerings for, say, melodic minor, and you want to use them for the various chords which take mel min. Then, I guess, somebody might think "G7#11? That's D melodic minor and I can get the chord tones on the downbeats by starting my usual fingering on G .... ". Maybe that would be quicker if you knew the fingerings but not the individual notes.

Obviously, you can get to the same place either way. I'm sure I must be missing some advantage to the scale name approach.