There is no "one" minor scale. As was mentioned before, there are many of them. Every scale in Western music (jazz, rock, country, classical, whatever) is based on the major scale as the reference. Modally, they progress from the "most Major" sounding to the "most Minor" sounding. Lydian is the most major sounding mode. Locrian is considered the most minor sounding.
There are techniques you can use to even make up your own scales, but I imagine at this point, they have been pretty much figured out and cataloged. There are hundreds of scales... Some just tend to be used a lot more than others. Just like there are thousands of words, but you can use just a few out of that huge number to pretty effectively say what you need to say. Some words just tend to be used a lot more than others.
So, the scale you use, particularly in jazz, simply depends on what you want to hear while you are playing it.
Music is about expressing a sentiment and communicating, not about expressing theory. To put it into a language context, you can say, "My girl left me and I was sad". You could arguably say that is a minor sounding sentence. But if you say, "My girl left me and I was devastated" , that is much more minor sounding. The point of music is to try to express yourself in some way. To get your point across. You PLAY what you want, in the same way that you SAY what you want. It irks me no end when people come here and say stuff like, "you play the Dorian minor over such and such progression." like it's a rule or something. You can play what you want within the limits of good taste and the general knowledge of what the genre sounds like.
It takes awhile and a lot of playing to get your head, (and fingers) around this concept. It's not something you can just read about and do. You have to play and practice a lot, preferably with a good teacher.
In my opinion, this expression thing has more to do with soloing in jazz rather than playing set basslines because basslines tend to be "prewritten" in genres like rock and country, etc. But even then, the songwriter can choose to use a, say, the Harmonic minor scale to play his bassline. It's still expressive.
In Jazz, you are able to be the most expressive, communication wise because everything you play is done within a skeleton framework of chord progressions. What you do play is up to you. That's when knowing the various modes, scales and arpeggios becomes really important. Anyway, that's the way I see it.
There are techniques you can use to even make up your own scales, but I imagine at this point, they have been pretty much figured out and cataloged. There are hundreds of scales... Some just tend to be used a lot more than others. Just like there are thousands of words, but you can use just a few out of that huge number to pretty effectively say what you need to say. Some words just tend to be used a lot more than others.
So, the scale you use, particularly in jazz, simply depends on what you want to hear while you are playing it.
Music is about expressing a sentiment and communicating, not about expressing theory. To put it into a language context, you can say, "My girl left me and I was sad". You could arguably say that is a minor sounding sentence. But if you say, "My girl left me and I was devastated" , that is much more minor sounding. The point of music is to try to express yourself in some way. To get your point across. You PLAY what you want, in the same way that you SAY what you want. It irks me no end when people come here and say stuff like, "you play the Dorian minor over such and such progression." like it's a rule or something. You can play what you want within the limits of good taste and the general knowledge of what the genre sounds like.
It takes awhile and a lot of playing to get your head, (and fingers) around this concept. It's not something you can just read about and do. You have to play and practice a lot, preferably with a good teacher.
In my opinion, this expression thing has more to do with soloing in jazz rather than playing set basslines because basslines tend to be "prewritten" in genres like rock and country, etc. But even then, the songwriter can choose to use a, say, the Harmonic minor scale to play his bassline. It's still expressive.
In Jazz, you are able to be the most expressive, communication wise because everything you play is done within a skeleton framework of chord progressions. What you do play is up to you. That's when knowing the various modes, scales and arpeggios becomes really important. Anyway, that's the way I see it.
