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One thing that has helped me is to think of scales like we think of chords: often and almost always changing. As an example, applying the natural minor in one verse, and the melodic minor the next time it occurs, can give a song just enough variation to become more interesting, yet not so much that the listener thinks of it as a different section of the song. One of the easiest mistakes to make is that, for whatever reason, you have to either be in the natural minor scale or the harmonic minor scale, and can’t be in both – or that we have to be in the melodic minor scale the entire time, and never in the harmonic minor scale, for instance.įor some pieces you may want to stick with one scale and its endemic modes/positions, but for most musically intensive compositions, switching scales and modes is not only a common thing to do, it is generally encouraged and might sound a bit odd if you don’t change scales/tonal centers over the course of a piece.įor most rock and popular music, you won’t switch keys or scales that frequently, but even in more accessible styles of music, a little bit of derivation can go a long way. So, the key of A melodic minor will have:Īscending : 1 2 b3 4 5 6 7: A B C D E F# G#ĭescending : b7 b6 5 4 b3 2 1: G F E D C B A.Īnd here is the harmonic and natural minor again for comparison:Īscending and Descending: 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 7: A B C D E F G#.Īscending and Descending: 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7: A B C D E F G. Where the harmonic minor retains the b6 (flat 6) of the natural minor scale, creating the sometimes unwanted, augmented 2nd, the melodic minor takes the 6 from the major scale, fixing this problem (if it is one). When ascending, the melodic minor’s formula is: 1 2 b3 4 5 6 7, and when descending, the melodic minor’s formula is the same as the natural minor’s formula: 7 b6 5 4 b3 2 1.Įssentially, the melodic minor is a combination of the minor scale and the major scale, much more so than the harmonic minor scale. The Melodic Minor scale, in traditional application, has a different formula when ascending and when descending. Now that we have talked about both the natural minor and harmonic minor scales, lets take a minute to introduce the 3 rd minor scale in our repertoire: the melodic minor scale.