Scales › melodic minor

melodic minor scale

bright minor-major

7 notes

RC 9D b3Eb 11F 5G 13A 7B

guide tones (3rd & 7th — the heart of the sound) avoid (strong clash)

C · D · Eb · F · G · A · B

Play in the key of

What color?

Minor third but major sixth and seventh: a minor pulled upward, dark and bright at once, the sound of minMaj7. The parent of a whole jazz family and a go-to color on a minor you want to feel modern and rising.

Origin & history

The "melodic" minor arises from a Classical practice: ascending, the 6th and 7th degrees are raised to smooth out the augmented second of the harmonic minor. Jazz made it an essential parent scale, generating the altered scale, the Lydian dominant, and several modern colors.

Which chords to play it on?

The jazz consensus (Aebersold) recommends it on:

minor-major seventh chord

Sibling modes

The melodic minor scale is one of the modes of the melodic minor : it shares exactly the same notes as the modes below, but built on a different degree of the parent scale (melodic minor).

Dorian ♭2 (Phrygian ♮6) Dorian with a soft b9 Lydian augmented (Lydian ♯5) suspended Lydian ♯5 Lydian dominant (Mixolydian ♯11, 4th mode of melodic minor) ♯11 dominant Mixolydian ♭6 (melodic major) major with a bittersweet ♭6 Locrian ♮2 (6th mode of melodic minor) half-diminished ♮9, more stable altered (super-Locrian, 7th mode of melodic minor) maximum altered tension

Try it in a real chart

Paste a chord chart into the tool: Pentania tells you, chord by chord, when this scale fits — and what other colors are open to you. Open the tool →