Now take the same steps, but with the A melodic minor scale, starting with the root-position arpeggios , followed by the block chords . Just as you did with the triads in the previous week, notice which chords are shared between the A harmonic and melodic minor scales, and which are different. Both scales include Am, for example, but while A harmonic minor contains Bm7b5, its melodic minor counterpart includes Bm7. Example 12b shows just one possibility—rolling arpeggios between the Am and G#m7b5 chords. The harmonic minor scale sounds at home played over the chords its intervals, and other similar minor scales create.
This is why some chord progressions that seem like they are derived from the natural minor scale have a V7 . To understand how the harmonic and melodic minor scales are constructed, first take the A natural minor scale . The A harmonic minor scale (A B C D E F G#) is the same, except the seventh is raised, lending a somewhat mysterious character. In this lesson, we'll be focusing only on the ascending form of the melodic minor scale.
Besides the natural minor scale, the melodic and harmonic scales can also be used as a fundament for chords progressions. The harmonic minor differs from the natural minor with a raised seventh; the melodic minor differs from the natural minor with raised sixth and seventh. Still, the majority of songs written in minor keys use the natural minor. Things gets interesting this week, harmonically speaking, as seventh chords come into play. Example 9 shows all of the seventh chords in root position within the A harmonic minor scale, starting off with the colorful Am—an Am triad with a major seventh (G#). In Example 10a, these chords are presented in guitar-friendly block chord voicings.
As a bass player, you may or may not need to worry about applying the harmonic minor scale in the same way as a soloist. But, if you were playing a more scalar, melodic bass part, fill or solo, you might apply the harmonic minor scale over the major V chord in a minor key. The harmonic minor scale is best thought of as a theoretical construct to describe how some composers deal with composing in minor keys. When approaching the tonic chord in minor, it strengthens the sense of arrival if the seventh scale degree is a half-step below the tonic pitch. In a minor key, that means raising the seventh note of the scale a half step, which, presuming no other changes, gives the harmonic minor scale. And the chord preceding the tonic chord would be a diminished chord built on that raised seventh scale degree.
The harmonic minor scale is a seven-note scale that has the same notes as the natural minor scale with the exception of the seventh note that is raised by one semitone. This seventh note works as a leading tone to the tonic, that's why it is used often on dominant chords going to a tonic minor chord. Because of this, the harmonic minor scale is an essential scale to learn and apply to your solos.
Chords can be constructed from scales and these are the chords that corresponds to the Harmonic Minor Scale including triads and four-note chords. The chords are not as practical for building progressions as the Natural Minor Scale since it includes more diminished and augmented chords. Also notice the uncommon minor major seventh chord and the augmented major seventh chord (maj7#5) that represent the I and III four-note chords respectively. Chord identification The G harmonic minor chord V is the D major chord, and contains the notes D, F#, and A. This dominant chord's root / starting note is the 5th note of the G harmonic minor scale. The roman numeral for number 5 is 'V' and is used to indicate this is the 5th triad chord in the scale.
Therefore, many musicians think of the major V chord in minor keys as a temporary change from the natural minor scale to the harmonic minor scale. For instance, a soloist might approach playing a major V chord in a minor key by applying the harmonic minor scale while using the natural minor scale on the other chords in the key. There are a number of approaches depending on the specific song. It's the raised 7th that distinguishes the harmonic minor from the natural minor scale. The major 7th allows the 5th scale degree to be a major chord and therefore a dominant 7th. But that 7th also creates a fully diminished 7th chord and other eerie chords.
This step shows how to identify the notes and the name of a triad chord whose root note is the 7th scale degree of the G harmonic minor scale. This step shows how to identify the notes and the name of a triad chord whose root note is the 6th scale degree of the G harmonic minor scale. This step shows how to identify the notes and the name of a triad chord whose root note is the 5th scale degree of the G harmonic minor scale. This step shows how to identify the notes and the name of a triad chord whose root note is the 4th scale degree of the G harmonic minor scale. This step shows how to identify the notes and the name of a triad chord whose root note is the 3rd scale degree of the G harmonic minor scale. This step shows how to identify the notes and the name of a triad chord whose root note is the 2nd scale degree of the G harmonic minor scale.
This step shows how to identify the notes and the name of a triad chord whose root note is the 1st scale degree of the G harmonic minor scale. Play through this example slowly, using as little motion as possible when switching between the chord shapes. Be sure to listen deeply to their unusual sounds, which might take some time for your ears to get accustomed to—this is not your father's blues! After you've worked through the entire lesson, keep playing around with deriving chords from harmonic and melodic minor scales, or any others. Not only is this a good workout for your fingers and ears, it can provide you with fresh chords for spicing up your music.
This week you'll start expressing the A harmonic and melodic minor scales in triads, all using closed voicings. You can do this by stacking two thirds from within the scale on top of each note, as shown in Example 5. If you struggle to play these chords—in particular, the Bdim on the "and" of beat one requires a pretty big stretch of the fretting fingers—don't worry. The point of this exercise is so that you can see how the chords are built and get accustomed to their sounds.
Example 6 contains the same triads, but played as eighth-note triplets, for a good fretboard workout. If you're already familiar with playing natural minor scales, you'll notice that the harmonic minor scale shares all but one note with the natural minor scale. The raised seventh gives the harmonic minor scale its unique flavor. The G harmonic minor chord III + is the Bb augmented chord, and contains the notes Bb, D, and F#.
This mediant chord's root / starting note is the 3rd note of the G harmonic minor scale. The roman numeral for number 3 is ' III' and is used to indicate this is the 3rd triad chord in the scale. The harmonic minor scale in key of G consist of 7 notes; G, A, A♯, C, D, D♯ and F♯. Of course there is no reason to restrict yourselves to only those notes.
Scales can have more or fewer notes; all the way up to the chromatic scale . In some styles it's very common to add extra notes every now and then, you can get away with many things in music. You can also limit yourself to be more safe, for example the pentatonic scales only have 5 notes.Some say you cannot play wrong notes.
Some might sound more dissonant than others, but you are always one semi-tone away from being in scale. This site gives you a reference of how the theory works, but it's exciting to find out that music is always about breaking the rules. By the way, in A minor, you will often encounter C#, D# and Bb as well. Even harmonic and melodic minor combined are not enough to cover for-dummies level polka song harmony. Repeat the same ideas with the ascending A melodic minor scale, as shown in Examples 3–4.
Though the A harmonic and melodic minor scales share all but one note in common, they impart noticeably different moods. Mainly, I want you to understand what the harmonic minor scale is and that it is sometimes used to "fix" the problem of the V chord in minor keys. With the help of the harmonic minor scale we can change the natural minor's weak v chord to a strong major triad or dominant 7th V chord.
Just as you can build chords from the major scale and natural minor scale, you can build chords from the harmonic minor scale. As we've discussed, the V chord of the harmonic minor scale is a major triad or dominant 7th chord. Several other chords of the harmonic minor scale differ from the chords from the natural minor scale, too. The harmonic minor scale, with its raised 7th, gives its V chord a major 3rd instead of a minor 3rd like the natural minor scale's v chord has.
The raised 7th of the harmonic minor scale is what creates the major triad or dominant 7th built on the 5th note of the key. Chord identification The A harmonic minor chord viio is the G# diminished chord, and contains the notes G#, B, and D. This subtonic chord's root / starting note is the 7th note of the A harmonic minor scale. During the dominant chord, the 7th scale degree has to be raised or otherwise it's not a proper dominant chord. Trying to use the harmonic or melodic minor scales modally is not a basic thing.
We've also shown you melodic minor keys, which raise the sixth and seventh notes of the scale but only when ascending. When descending, the melodic minor scale is exactly the same as the natural minor scale. The best way to practice playing the harmonic minor scale is to keep playing it over and over. Start by playing the E harmonic minor scale in ascending and descending order up and down on the low E string of your guitar. Next, practice playing the same scale on the high E string, and notice how the same notes sound in a higher register.
You might try engaging your picking hand more in this exercise by adding in tremolo picking for a bit of a surf effect. Setting the E harmonic minor scale aside for a moment, let's take a look at a moveable harmonic minor scale pattern. Because scales and chords are based on intervals, many guitar scales and chords are based on moveable patterns. Learning one of these moveable scale patterns gives you the power to play this scale in any key, anywhere on your fretboard. I'll be focusing on the natural minor scale, the harmonic minor scale, and the melodic minor scale. The harmonic minor scale differs from the natural minor by one note – the 7th scale degree.
D natural minor is the relative minor of F major and you use it to build the harmonic minor scale on the note D. Here are the chords built from each degree of the harmonic minor scale. Triad chords are made of three notes stacked in thirds and tetrad chords made of four notes stacked in thirds too.
For example the first chord, C minor, is built by stacking C, Eb, G and B respectively root, minor third, perfect fifth and major seventh. Theoretically the harmonic minor scale should be played over minMaj7 chords, but it can also be used over minor chords like m6, m7, m9, m11, m6/9. Playing the harmonic melodic scale over a minor 7 chord creates tension because of the major seventh. To attenuate this tension you need to resolve you lick on a proper note.
Try to sing the harmonic minor scale ascending and descending and then sing the natural minor scale ascending and descending. This is really good ear training stuff to learn to recognize scale notes and analyzing melody. This step shows how to identify the notes and the name of a 7th chord whose root note is the 7th scale degree of the G harmonic minor scale. This step shows how to identify the notes and the name of a 7th chord whose root note is the 6th scale degree of the G harmonic minor scale. This step shows how to identify the notes and the name of a 7th chord whose root note is the 5th scale degree of the G harmonic minor scale.
This step shows how to identify the notes and the name of a 7th chord whose root note is the 4th scale degree of the G harmonic minor scale. This step shows how to identify the notes and the name of a 7th chord whose root note is the 3rd scale degree of the G harmonic minor scale. This step shows how to identify the notes and the name of a 7th chord whose root note is the 2nd scale degree of the G harmonic minor scale. This step shows how to identify the notes and the name of a 7th chord whose root note is the 1st scale degree of the G harmonic minor scale. If you keep all the notes of the harmonic minor scale the same but change the tonal centre, you create a new scale or mode.
Basically, a mode is a scale created by setting a new root note from the given scale. Modes are so to say a different way of thinking about scales and keys. Using modes allows us to assign an individual mode/scale to every single chord in a progression. Chord progressions using the harmonic minor scale will often be mixed with chords taken from the other minor scales. It's common therefore to see something like i - iv - V7 progressions where the V7 is taken from the harmonic minor while the rest of the chords are taken from the natural minor. Due to the fact that the rest of this scale functions like a natural minor scale, we want to make use of the raised 7th to convey the sound of harmonic minor scale guitar playing.
When learning harmonies generated from the harmonic and melodic minor scales, play them both as block chords and arpeggios. Next, try playing this same scale pattern but starting with your index finger on the 3rd fret, G, instead. Don't forget to shift your hand back a fret when you reach the G string so you can play notes on the 2nd fret with your index finger. Here's a diagram of that same pattern we used for F# harmonic minor without specific note names. Instead, this chart shows which fingers to use on each respective fret.
I think the B♭ major chords sound great following the D minor triad, especially with some open strings. The 6th scale degree builds major, minor and diminished chords – 11 in total. So far, the seven-note scales we've discussed are each a unique series of whole-steps and half-steps. By raising the 7th, the harmonic minor scale breaks this pattern of only whole-steps and half-steps.
In the harmonic minor scale the distance between the sixth and seventh scale degrees is a step-and-a-half (three half-steps, also known as a Minor 3rd). This harmonic minor scale is based on the natural minor scale with the same key / tonic note – G natural minor scale. Since the natural minor key is itself on the Circle of 5ths – G minor on circle of 5ths, this means that this is a commonly used harmonic minor scale key. The harmonic minor scale raises the seventh note of the natural minor scale by a half-step, when ascending and descending the scale.
For example, the notes of the G natural minor scale are G – A – B♭- C – D – E♭- F – G. For the G harmonic minor scale, the notes are G – A – B♭- C – D – E♭- F# – G. The seventh note of the scale has been changed from F to F#. Minor keys and their relative major make use of the same notes. The notes of the G minor scale as we've seen are G, A, B♭, C, D, E♭, and F.
The sixth note of a major scale becomes the root note of its relative minor. And if you want to know more about chord progressions, read the article series. But as we mentioned, the harmonic minor is just used in parts of a song, particularly over V7's. All those other chords will not be used as much as the major V in a minor scale. And you would only likely be playing the A harmonic scale over the E7 chord. Our example key is G, and the G root note is highlighted in aqua blue in the fretboard diagrams below.
The flat 7th altered scale degree is highlighted in orange which makes it stand out as being the only difference to the natural minor scale. And because by using the relevant melodic minor scales you remove all the avoid notes found in the harmonic minor scale. Try this finger-busting, ear-bending exercise, in which chords are derived from the C melodic minor , B melodic minor (B C# D E F# G# A# B), and C harmonic minor scales . For extra credit, see if you can identify the parent scale for each chord; for instance, Ebmaj7#5 comes from C melodic minor. If you go up one more fret and start this scale with your index finger on the 4th fret, you'll be playing the G# harmonic minor scale. The starting note for this scale is its root note, so you now have the power to start this scale at any note on the low E string of your guitar.
