What everybody ought to know about melodic minor scales

By Hear & Play Team

September 11

harmonic minor scale, melodic minor scale, natural minor scale, raised 6th, raised 7th

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Lately we’ve been talking about minor scales.

Yesterday, I introduced the harmonic minor scale and how easy it is to play when you know your natural minor scales.

Today, I’ll go a step further and teach you how to form the melodic minor scale.

Let’s start by reviewing the natural and harmonic minor scales.

C natural minor

C D Eb F G Ab Bb C

C harmonic minor

(simply raise the 7th tone a half step)

C D Eb F G Ab B C

Later on, composers thought the interval from “Ab to B” (which is an augmented second) was awkward and preferred a whole step between the 6th and 7th degrees.

So they raised the 6th tone a half step and called this the melodic minor scale since it made melody writing in minor keys smoother.

So let’s take our C harmonic minor scale and see what happens when we raise the 6th.

C harmonic minor

C D Eb F G Ab B C

Raise the Ab to A

C melodic minor

C D Eb F G A B C

So essentially, to create the harmonic minor scale, we raise the 7th tone of the natural minor scale.

Similarly, to create the melodic minor scale, we not only raise the 7th tone but we also raise the 6th tone of the natural minor scale.

Natural minor >>> creates >>> harmonic minor >>> creates >>> melodic minor

Note about raising tones: As long as you never ever change the alphabet letter, you’ll be fine. In other words, if you’re raising a “B,” you shouldn’t change that “B” to “C.” Instead, you need to write it as B#. Yes, I know… B# isn’t used that much but that’s just what you have to do (B# is the enharmonic equivalent of C; they make the same sound just like the words “there” and “their” but they aren’t the same). Even if the key you’re in mainly has flats, it is alright to change a “G,” for example to “G#.” That particular key will simply have flats until it’s time to get to the raised tones. The idea is to never skip an alphabet letter so if you change a G# to Ab, then you’re skipping the alphabet letter G in the scale. Do what you gotta do to never change the actual letter.

I like to look at the melodic minor as simply the major scale with a flat third because that’s exactly what it is:

C major

C D E F G A B C

C melodic minor

C D Eb F G A B C

There you have it! The melodic minor scale!

Exercise: Let’s use the comment area below to list all 12 natural, harmonic, and melodic scales. In your post, list the natural minor scale first, then raise the 7th to create the harmonic minor scale on the next line… then on the final line, take the harmonic minor scale and raise the 6th to create the melodic minor scale. Let’s try to list all 36 of em below! I’ll start it off!