Melodic Minor Modes

It's important to remember that the 6th mode (which we call "Locrian #2" here in Aebersold-land) is a coloristic substitution in a minor ii-V-i rather than an organic part of the overall tonality, as the #2 of the "ii" chord would be the natural (major) 3rd of the eventual chord of resolution.

Translation: while many jazz theory books advocate this scale as "the" hip half-diminished sound to play in jazz, it's not the most common or "inside" choice by any means. Likewise the #4 of the "Super Locrian" mode (called "Diminished/Whole Tone" in Aeberland...), which equates to a #1 of the resolution chord, while all of the other notes of the scale can easily be viewed as organic to the overall key. A careful examination of the melodies to standards in minor keys reveals that what most composers originally intended was a lot more conventional than the reharms of the same tunes that many younger players have grown up with.

 

You could do that, but you'd be missing the harmonic point. The b4 is really the third of the chord, and will be voiced accordingly by whatever chordal instrument is playing in most cases. And both the #9 and b9 are extremely rich color tones which usually coexist together both melodically and harmonically. The sound of the #9 and b9 are an important part of the vocabulary. Why call one of them the third when the chord already has a third?

 

You're getting closer. In order for the chord to be a dominant chord, it has to contain the following intervals above the root:

(R) ...Major 3rd...........Minor 7th....

C............E.........................Bb

Bb..........D.........................Ab

etc.


Just remember that your ear can't tell how the chord is spelled, it only hears the harmonic intervals. So even if you were to spell the first chord above C - Fb - A# and the second chord Bb - Ebb - Ab on paper, it wouldn't matter, because the distances between the notes would remain the same, and would thus sound the same to the ear. Does that help?

 

Ahh, I think I see where you are coming from...you've discovered that the so called "Modes of Melodic Minor" have NO RELATION WHATSOEVER to the chords they are supposed to support from the "parent key" in actual tunes. Good to see I'm not the only one who thinks this is reason enough to dismiss the importance of thinking of melodic minor as having modes which apply to its key center in any meaningful way.

Let's review.

In major, you have the following chords:

IMa7 - goes with the Ionian mode.
iimi7 - goes with Dorian.
iiimi7 - Phrygian.
IVMa7 - Lydian.
V7 - Mixolydian.
vimi7 - Aeolian.
viimi7b5 - Locrian.

Cool, everything pans out. At this point, it all seems easy, as the chords and the scales all line up to the point to where you might reasonably ask, "which came first, the chord or the scale? Are the scales produced by adding up all of the notes of the chords, or are the chords produced by taking each mode and just spelling 1-3-5-7 out of it?". And with major, it doesn't matter, because it comes out the same either way.


Now let's try the same thing with minor:

imi7 - Melodic minor. Okay, sure, sometimes that works, unless you really wanted a minor 7 in the chord, in which case, uh...you have to borrow it from another minor form.

iimi7b5 - Hmmm. Where do we get the b5 from melodic minor? Uh, I guess we'll have to borrow it.

bIIIMa7 - Gee, I guess we'll just have to assume that composers have been writing their chords wrong for a couple hundred years, 'cause I'm coming up with "bIIIMa7#5" here. Okay, sure, we'll just chalk it up to a bunch of composers writing the wrong III chord for a minute...

IVmi7 - Dammit, those same composers must have ****ed up the IV chord as well, 'cause when I use Melodic Minor to build the IV chord, it comes out Dominant. Stupid composers!

V7alt - Man these composers must be really dense. Where did they get that "alt" BS from? When I spell the V7 scale from Melodic minor, I just get a Dominant scale with a b6. Geez, if most of these guys weren't already dead, I'd give 'em a piece of my mind!

bVIMa7 - What????Where the hell did these morons get the b6 from?? Geez, and we've been playing this music all this time????

vimi7b5 - well at least SOME of these guys had the good sense to use the right chord everyonce in a while. At least this one lines up. Locrian #2 it is! Long live Locrian #2!!!

(bVIIMa7) * - Why do people use this chord so often? This isn't in Melodic Minor!!! Duh!

viio7 - Well, at least the dopes got three quarters of this chord right, but from melodic minor, this should be mi7b5. Man, we need to rethink all of this music we've been playing for the past couple hundred years...I mean, it's just theoretically WRONG, you know?


* (You'll see this chord sometimes, and other times you'll see it as "bVII7", which is actually V7/bIII)


See the problem here?

What I'm trying to say is that the chords that have been used in countless minor compositions since damn near the beginning of Western Music do not come from the melodic minor scale...at least not from the "jazz" version of the melodic minor scale. Rather, they come from the "classical" version of the melodic minor scale, which includes an "ascending" form with a raised 6th and 7th (same as what jazz players call "melodic minor"), and a descending form which includes a flatted 6th and 7th (which is the same as "natural Minor", a.k.a. "Aeolian"). Some chords want the b6 or b7, some chords want the raised versions of those two notes.

So my best approximation of a "real and funtional" minor scale for jazz would look like this: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - (b6 or6) - (b7 and/or7) - 8.

The fact that different diatonic chords require different versions of the 6th and 7th in minor is the reason I find the concept of "modes of melodic minor" to be basically worthless in practical application. Does this make sense, or is this only more confusing?

 

I'm not sure of the viocing you're talking about, but I do the same all the time without thinking of melodic minor at all. For example, from the bottom up:

Dmi7b5(sus*) - D, G, Ab, C
G7#9(#5) - F, A#, B, D#/Eb
Cmi6 - A, D, Eb, G

* if you want to be picky about the name

The above voicings behave exactly as you described, retaining the same shape and moving up first by minor third, then by major third (they're rootless, of course, except for the first one). But nothing in them implies Melodic Minor at all, although they allow for Mark's interpretation of chord scales - you could still play Locrian#2 over the D chord, Dim/WT over the G7, and C Melodic Minor over the C-6. But, and this is a large "but", in and of themselves, they also allow for the more basic and original meaning of "minor", as evidenced by what you get when you add all of the notes of the three chords up to form a single scale or tonality:

C, D, Eb, F, G, Ab, A, Bb, B, C


Which leaves me right back where I started. Don't get me wrong: I have nothing against reharms, ornamentations, and interesting color tone substitutions - I just think they should be recognized and interesting and potentially beautiful variations on the fundamental intent rather than the fundamental intent itself.