This may be a biased statement, but I would assert that the most common usage of melodic minor is to cherry pick modes and/or chords that afford enhanced usefulness to the ‘standard’ mode/chord they’re ‘replacing.’ This can apply to functional harmony as well as modal, though the latter can easily be looked at as simply using melodic minor itself.. 32 bars of X7#11 isn’t exactly grounded to the Ionian, but I will touch on this again shortly.
note: at some point in the middle of runners, I made the decision to refer to the more common skill set as “Ionian,” so as to increase clarity and not have to re-explain what I’m talking about.
Now.. first, regarding functional harmony- When I say “enhanced usefulness,” I am most commonly mean simply adding consonance.. One of the ways I teach younger players about thingsOne of the ways I teach younger players about things like using the Lydian as the major, is basically that you want more notes you can play long. Holding out a high F# has a more typically convincing intuitive sonic function than a high F. In that spirit, using the Locrian^9 you find in melodic minor as the ii in a minor ii-V-i affords you more consonance, more useful long notes, compared to the typical locrian approach you would use diatonacally.. this type of substitution, borrowing from melodic minor modes, is again some of the most common, if not ubiquitous usage of the entire mode set. In this usage paradigm, it simply seeks to either add some color and convincing interest to the tonality moment by moment, or it does that while also adding to the tension and release
And of the functional harmony it’s being substituted into, by adding additional Halfstep resolutions.
The second usage I mentioned is a more modal context, In which the emphasis is on “vertical harmony,” which for most of us is simply saying that the emphasis is on the tonality of the cords into themselves, with less emphasis on chords leading into each other functionally. This is another fantastic common usage, which requires less explanation. Vamping on a X7#11 or oscillating up and down between A+^ and B+^ (augmented major 7/ Lydian augmented ) is fantastic and spacey.
But what I’m here to discuss, what I’ve been playing with lately, what is somehow a “newish” point of interest, despite having been something of an elephant in the room, is diatonic functionally harmonic usage of the melodic minor scale. I have less to say about this, as what I really want is to spark some discussion- who has some progressions they’re fond of, who has some stories of jamming and arriving in a place that ended up basically being diatonic functional harmony based on the melodic minor modes instead of the Ionian modes?
an interesting example to me, as I run out of time, was simply setting up a looper to practice arpeggios. I simply went chord by chord, 2 bars each with rhythm bass and chords 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 up the chord scale. What I noticed, is that it has this eerie endless kind of feel- it never feels like you really arrive anywhere, unlike the Ionian version of this progression. It would take some intentional thought and concentration for me to establish where I am in terms of distance from “1.” I’ve been spending some time thinking about to what degree this is an inherent feature of this Mozart, versus it simply being an artifact of my relative unfamiliarity- it’s familiar enough, don’t get me wrong, but I think we can all agree that Ionian modes are always for 99.999% of us going to seem much more familiar.
anyway rant over for now, I’d love to hear from some of you who have pent up thoughts, anecdotes, angry letters, etc.
note: at some point in the middle of runners, I made the decision to refer to the more common skill set as “Ionian,” so as to increase clarity and not have to re-explain what I’m talking about.
Now.. first, regarding functional harmony- When I say “enhanced usefulness,” I am most commonly mean simply adding consonance.. One of the ways I teach younger players about thingsOne of the ways I teach younger players about things like using the Lydian as the major, is basically that you want more notes you can play long. Holding out a high F# has a more typically convincing intuitive sonic function than a high F. In that spirit, using the Locrian^9 you find in melodic minor as the ii in a minor ii-V-i affords you more consonance, more useful long notes, compared to the typical locrian approach you would use diatonacally.. this type of substitution, borrowing from melodic minor modes, is again some of the most common, if not ubiquitous usage of the entire mode set. In this usage paradigm, it simply seeks to either add some color and convincing interest to the tonality moment by moment, or it does that while also adding to the tension and release
And of the functional harmony it’s being substituted into, by adding additional Halfstep resolutions.
The second usage I mentioned is a more modal context, In which the emphasis is on “vertical harmony,” which for most of us is simply saying that the emphasis is on the tonality of the cords into themselves, with less emphasis on chords leading into each other functionally. This is another fantastic common usage, which requires less explanation. Vamping on a X7#11 or oscillating up and down between A+^ and B+^ (augmented major 7/ Lydian augmented ) is fantastic and spacey.
But what I’m here to discuss, what I’ve been playing with lately, what is somehow a “newish” point of interest, despite having been something of an elephant in the room, is diatonic functionally harmonic usage of the melodic minor scale. I have less to say about this, as what I really want is to spark some discussion- who has some progressions they’re fond of, who has some stories of jamming and arriving in a place that ended up basically being diatonic functional harmony based on the melodic minor modes instead of the Ionian modes?
an interesting example to me, as I run out of time, was simply setting up a looper to practice arpeggios. I simply went chord by chord, 2 bars each with rhythm bass and chords 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 up the chord scale. What I noticed, is that it has this eerie endless kind of feel- it never feels like you really arrive anywhere, unlike the Ionian version of this progression. It would take some intentional thought and concentration for me to establish where I am in terms of distance from “1.” I’ve been spending some time thinking about to what degree this is an inherent feature of this Mozart, versus it simply being an artifact of my relative unfamiliarity- it’s familiar enough, don’t get me wrong, but I think we can all agree that Ionian modes are always for 99.999% of us going to seem much more familiar.
anyway rant over for now, I’d love to hear from some of you who have pent up thoughts, anecdotes, angry letters, etc.
