Melodic + Harmonic Minor Scales - usage, progressions etc?

[TristezaOrange]

When I sit down to compose a track I usually just play some chords and find a progression I like etc. so I usually don't think a lot about the theory behind the stuff. BUT I'd really like to know some basic stuff about minor scales. Sure, I can play a couple, I know how they are formed [the tone-semitone-tone-tone-semitone thing] etc. but when someone decides to write a track in eg. Fminor, does he use a harmonic minor or a melodic minor[I'm mainly referring to pop music but some classical examples wouldn't be bad]? And what chord progressions are usual? [something like the I-IV-V stuff in major that fits minor?]

It's not going to change the way I make music, probably, but I'm just really curious about the mystery of minor scales. There was a CM issue that dealt with this, and I read some music theory books on the matter but i believe I can get better answers here.

[Krakatau]

These question are of my interest too ...

i second

[very angry mobster]

i've been pretty curious about minor scales for a while too.

[Sascha Franck]

Ouch, I really don't have the time to elaborate on this more carefully right now, but, very often you won't find those minor scales in a "pop context".
At least not in a way that all used chords would actually build up on them (such as often happening with major scales).

What you will find VERY often however is a "dorian progression" of some sorts.
The thing happening is that you'll take the IIm7 chord of a plain major scale and treat it like the tonic chord.
Then you may add other chords (still deriving from the same major scale) and still treat your minor chord as the tonic.

Probably the most common example: Let's say we're (ab)using the key of G major. The IIm7 chord would be Amin7.
Now, when you play a riff with that chord, it surely won't sound like being in G major. Still, the G major scale would fit nicely on top of it (probably even better than A natural, harmonic or melodic minor). What you are experiencing is a "dorian" sound.
Now, let's add some further chord to our progression, say, a D7.
Am7, D7 - you may think "right, we're even more in G major as the dominant of G is even present".
That would only be true partially - in case the progression is never resolved to G, you will still feel like being in *whatever* sort of A minor key.
One of the most famous examples of this progression might be "Oyo Come Va" from Santana (I don't know which key it is in).
IIm7 | V7 all over the place, but you would NEVER think it's in Imaj but rather treat the II chord as the tonic.

Now, just as with a major tonic, you might want to add a dominant chord.
Fine. But now it's getting more difficult.
You could easily add an E7 to the above mentioned progression - but which key would we be in now?
G major, because our Amin7 and D7 derive from it? No - we don't have an E7 in G major.
A harmonic minor? No, we don't have a D7 in A harmonic minor.
A melodic minor? Probably - there's an E7. But hold on, there's no Amin7 in A melodic minor. We could now adjust our Amin to follow the melodic minor scale. That would mean to use Amin/maj7 instead of the plain Amin7. Does that sound "poppy" at all? Certainly not! At best it will sound jazzy. At worst it'll sound like poo.

Lesson to learn #1: Even if our progression sounds plausible, even if it actually DOES sound like a minor progression, none of our commonly used minor scales will actually suit all chords.
As a result of that you will have to change scales on certain chords (in this case for the E7).

There's a few minor progressions that *may* fit inside a single minor scale though, the most common one probably being Im-IVm-V7 (in our example key A it'd be Am-Dm-E7) - but don't expect to find much of them in pop music. Might be suitable for latinbased, ballad-alike and probably some soul oriented things, but you won't find it much though.
The same progression is happily living with a IIm7b5 replacement for the IVm chord (so: Am7-Bm7b5-E7). Still, it doesn't sound all that "poppy".

Regarding the melodic minor scale, the name is allready telling you, why it was originally used: For melodic reasons (basically in classical music).
It has also been called "melodic minor ascending". Why? Yeah, because it was indeed only used on ascending lines, while on descending lines natural minor was more appropriate.
Later on, melodic minor (and partially harmonic minor too) have been "abused" by jazz musicians. Some clever mind found out that for an altered dominant chord the most appropriate scale would be the mel min scale found a halftone above (so, for G7alt one might use Ab mel min).
And it has also been abused by them as a tonic scale.
None of those should be of too much interest for anything pop though.

Allright - as you can probably see by now, minor scales aren't all that easy to treat.
The most obvious thing to get into them would be to use, say, natural minor. In case of our Amin tonic, that'd be the diatonic parallel of C major.
Try to use chords that don't relate too much to C major (i.e. making the listener suggest you'd finally end on C anyways). A common progression would be Am, Fmaj. Or Amin, Fmaj, G(7). Or Amin, Dmin.

Just believe me, as soon as you're going to add any dominant chord for the minor tonic (in our case any E7), you'll either be sounding "classical", "jazzy", "latin-ish" or run into "scale assignment" problems.
Not that those would be impossible to deal with, but for now I can't explain anything more...

However, as stated in the beginning, I could almost bet that the most popular minor "mode" being used would have to be "dorian" - which actually is nothing else but the second degree of a major scale. In addition (see first example), some other diatonic chords will be used, and you may find some dominants too - which would then require another scale to be used for them.

So much for now.

[nuffink]

Fear not. ChordSpace is coming.

[Sascha Franck]

Fear not. ChordSpace is coming.

Eh... (will comment on your last screenshot later on).

[nuffink]

Thanks Sascha.

[rockin1]

Fear not. ChordSpace is coming.

For the mac?

[nuffink]

Fear not. ChordSpace is coming.

For the mac?

Given how long it's been since I coded anything I wouldn't hold your breath.

[pekadan]

Ouch, I really don't have the time to elaborate on this more carefully right now, but...

Thanks Sascha! Great stuff! I got all inspired now to experiment more with progressions. There's so much to learn. Feel very free to elaborate more whenever you have time. Pretty please.

[japut_99]

[quote="Sascha Franck"]Ouch, I really don't have the time to elaborate on this....

There really are no dominant 7ths in melodic (well you can construct it on the fifth tone of the melodic and all the pieces are there but we don't do it because it has to do with the descending change) and only one in the harmonic minor sequence (on the 5th tone-phrygian nat. 3rd-although there are way better substitutions imho i.e augmented chords-aug. 7ths). Makes it a little hard to find that key tonic.

Basically it boils down to this though- major theory equals natural minor theory . (check Cmajor vs Amin like Sascha suggested-Amin=Cmajor just reordered. This will apply for all keys in major/nat minor theory) However there are seperate constructions of the melodic minor and harmonic minors and there resultant chords.

To delve a little further into your question though there really is no right way anymore. I think what Sascha is decribing is more of a "blues" theory approach. When we decribe something like a standard Dmin chord 1-flat3-5 (sorry, just the easiest minor chord to show as an example) we have to approach it as a function. Does the dmin function as the 2nd, 3rd, 6th in major theory? This will change your perception of how that chords sounds by having certain chords pre and pro-ceed it. Good examples to try this out in are f mj, bflat major and our favorite do-re-mi cmajor. It could be a dorian, phrygian or an aeolian(nat minor) within these three keys. The 1-4-5 chords in natural minor equals the 2-3-6 chords in major theory ( I for one like the dominant 7th on the fifth tone in natural minor-gives a lot of resolve to the issue although we are told to use the phrygian and its related chords to retain diatonic-ness ).

Lets' go back to Sacha example of the min1-min4-dom5. He mentions that e7 is the fifth tone in amaj/f#minor(I hope I got your example correct.) This chord cannot be constructed in C nat maj/minor theory because on the third tone(E phrygian) the order starts 1, flat 3 etc. So technically there goes our dominant 7th(1,3,5,flat7). Even though our progression starts in a minor in this instance we will resolve to a major because of the e7(dominant 7ths are usually reserved for the fifth tone). So we have set up a minor modulation to Amajor from Aminor when we hit that e7 dominant chord. Not a bad thing but far from right in the eyes of those who tempered the keys not that I have met any of those guys.

A little more on topic is that all your standard progressions wil function within the harmonic and melodic sequence i.e 2-5-1 1-4-5 and on and on. Although the chords get a little bigger and have more alterations to deal with you can actually gain a little flexibility by switching in out of the harmonic and nat maj/minor sequence. An example would be using the harmonic minor and then using the third, fifth or sixth tone to construct a major/nat minor scale respective to the harmonic minor series for more resolve, dissonance or whatever.

I highly recommend the keyboard or guitar grimoire by A Cadmon for a little further on the subject. He has some excellent visual aids of keeping scale/mode shapes together.

[TristezaOrange]

Thanks guys Great stuff here [I just wanted to say that I consider jazz stuff as pop in this case, I meant 'not stricly classical' so I don't mind sounding jazzy or anything - actually I love it].

But it does indeed get a bit complicated eh?

[Sascha Franck]

If I find the time I'll post some more or less familiar sounding minor progressions as MIDI files tomorrow, hopefully along with some explanations about how to possibly treat them.