Melodic Minor Scale: The Pro Improviser's Scale

[Music] hey everyone john prew here you know one of the questions i get most often from students is what do i play over a minor 2-5-1 and it seems like a mystery right it seems like very complicated or mysterious of like what do i play i know what to play over a major but what do i play over a minor two five one well i'm gonna show you a very simple approach to playing over minor two five ones and it involves one scale and i bet it's a scale that you already know and use often so are you ready to find out come on let's go alright so you're wondering what that scale is that i'm gonna show you what is it if you guessed melodic minor you are correct but before we talk about the melodic minor scale we have to talk about what a natural minor scale is so in the key of c major for example to find the natural minor we go down three half steps so we go to c major and we go down three half steps one two three and we play a natural minor they also call this the aeolian mode by the way and so that's a they call it it's related to c major in that it has the same key signature no sharps or flats okay so that's the first thing we have to do before we start talking about melodic minor is just to play the natural minor scale all right great so the melodic minor scale what makes it so unique what we do with a melodic minor scale is we take a natural minor scale one two three four five but we raise the sixth and the seventh isn't that interesting so it feels very bright at the end of the scale almost sounds like a major scale right so we again we go raise six and seven and then we come back down now if you've studied classical piano you probably say but don't you lower the six and seven coming down that's a question i get all the time and in jazz i say no we don't we keep it the same because we're using this scale over specific chords and so we can't change it coming down we have to keep it the same so ascending we raise the six and seven and we keep it raised coming down so another way that some students um look at melodic minor scales which can be helpful in terms of learning them it also looks like an a major scale doesn't it [Music] with a flat third so that's another way you can think about it if it's easier for you to think of let me play a major scale but then lower the third that's another way to get to this sound of the melodic minor all right okay so let's talk about what chord you play with a melodic minor scale so if we're talking about a melodic minor the chord that we most often use in our left hand is what's called a minor major 7. sounds kind of funny right minor major seven but that's that's true we have a minor triad a c e but we have a major seven on top interesting sound right they also refer to this as the spy chord maybe you've heard that before too you know you hear that a lot in like spy movies like it was a dark knight in the streets of new york very mysterious sounding right so we have this minor major seven and let's if we play the melodic minor scale against that we have this there's our root nine three eleven five raise six raise seven and root isn't that beautiful again play it like that walking down and in terms of fingering this is this typical fingering that you would use for any major scale you just go one two three and then under one two three four five very typical fingering that you probably have used in other major scales all right great so that's the first thing we do we know we can play a melodic minor in the right hand and a minor major seven in the left hand great how does this apply to two five ones let's find out so before we get into improvising over a minor two five one we first have to look at what melodic minor scales do we play over a minor two five one now it's important to note that we need to learn three different melodic minor scales to play over a minor two five one in any key so in the key of a minor two again would be b minor seven flat five there's the root three flat five seven right then we go to the five chord which is e7 root three five seven we go to our spy chord our minor major seven for the one and then to turn it around they call that a turn around when you go to the sixth chord so that's f sharp minor seven also with a flat five so root three flat five seven and then it repeats okay so we have this two five one six now that's in root position right but we don't always want to play in root position because we're jumping around the keyboard a lot so what we want to do is move into what's called the rootless a and b voicings all right so let's talk about the rootless voicings for this minor two five one we say rootless a and b voicings because if it's an a voicing it has the third on the bottom if it's a b voicing it has a seventh on the bottom just like that so we're taking the first chord the b minor seven flat five this would be the root position and we're starting with the third so we're gonna go with three flat five seven roots you can't really hear the root there but here's the root down here if a bass player were to play it then we're gonna go to the e7 which is the five chord we're starting with the seven it's the b voicing we're going to go to this g which is actually the sharp nine an a flat or a g sharp however you want to think of it as the third and then the c as the sharp five a really cool sound check this out with the bass we have this that nice one of my favorite voicings um again it says a flat not g sharp um we wrote it this way just so you could play it a little bit easier to see it as an a flat but technically it'd be like a g sharp right that would be a major third up from e then we go to a minor major seven right that's the root position so the a voicing would start with the third so we have three five major seven nine and then we go to the f-sharp minor seven flat five and this one we're starting on the flat five so we have a flat five seven root minor third and this is how it would sound like with the bass so here's the way it would sound all together two three four so we have b minor seven flat five two three e7 augmented with a sharp nine and the minor major seven then you only have to move the top two notes to go to the f sharp minor seven flat five pretty cool right so um let's try that together two three four b minor seven flat five e seven sharp nine sure five a minor major seven and f sharp minor seven flat five cool so that's the two five one six using rootless a b voicings great okay now comes the fun part we're going to take the melodic minor scale and we're going to apply it over a minor 2 5 1 in the key of a minor so i said you need to know three melodic minor scales right here's the first one we're going to use we're going to use a d melodic minor scale so again d melodic minor what is d melodic minor first of all we would take a d natural minor so d natural minor would be this and what do we do we raise the six and seven so we go raise the six and the seven again another way to think of this as a d major scale with a minor third [Music] okay so we're having a d melodic minor scale over what a b minor seven flat five pretty cool huh so we have a b minor seven flat five that's the two chord in a minor two five one so what we do is we go up a minor third from b which is the root of the chord right so a minor third again three half steps one two three and we play this d melodic minor listen to this [Music] really beautiful sound isn't it and if we were to start this scale on the root we would another name for this maybe you've heard this term before it's one of the modes and they call this the locrian sharp two so if we started on the root we'd have the root the sharp two minor three eleven flat 5 minor 6 minor 7 and the root so that's what the notes are technically but an easier way to think about it is just to think again up a minor third from b three half steps one two three is d melodic minor and you play that over b minor seven flat five and it's fun even just to take that and just do a little improv just even on that one chord so just can go like this [Music] pretty fun right so just just start with that scale and play it over the two chord before you move on to the next chord just to really get the flavor and i love this sharp two of this scale because it's so beautiful ordinarily a locrian scale which is b locrian is seven in the key of c so it's a c major scale starting on b but when you raise the second ah that's the that's the beautiful note right there so i would say focus on that sharp two when you're playing this scale but again it's just a d melodic minor scale another way of thinking of it improvising using that let's move on to what to play over the v chord again the v chord in the key of a is e e7 right so we have this e7 so for this one i said we're going to learn three melodic minor scales right we have d melodic minor the next one we're going to use is up a half step from the dominant chord so if it's an e7 what's up a half step f f melodic minor again we have to think of okay well first what is f natural minor f for f natural minor now we're going to raise the six and the seven raise the six raise the seven again another way of thinking about it you can think of it as an f major scale with a flat three another way of thinking of it all right so if we if we played that f melodic minor scale over an e seven how would that sound check it out beautiful isn't it now why does that work if we look at the notes themselves if we started on e we'd have the root the f is the flat nine the g is the sharp nine then we have the three the sharp 11 the sharp five the minor seven and the root beautiful right they also call this the altered scale maybe maybe you've heard of that term or another one they refer to this as they call it the diminished whole tone scale and i love that description of it because if you play this scale descending starting from e you have all whole steps like this e d c b flat a flat or g sharp see how that's all whole steps right just like the whole tone scale very dreamy and then you have diminished which is half step whole step half step so whole tone and then half step whole step half step just another way of looking at the scale right but again if you want to get that scale automatically think of a f melodic minor scale go up a half step from the dominant f and play that melodic minor scale f melodic minor and again you can just play with this scale before moving on to the next one by improvising using those notes so you can go like this for example [Music] fun right and it's really really has some beautiful colors in there so again we've done the d melodic minor for the b minor seven flat five chord and we've done the f melodic minor for the e seven all right one more scale and you already know this because we've already practiced it and that is over the one chord remember we talked about the minor major seven chord the spy chord but we're going to use just a regular a melodic minor finally one melodic minor scale that's used over the one chord a melodic minor so again a natural minor as we talked about is a c major scale starting on a and we just raise the six and seven raise the six raise the seven and play that over a minor major seven and we have this and again you can improvise on that just to before you go on i'd advise even just playing it like out of time like i was just doing not even really playing it in time at first just really focusing on the colors if you hit a note you like it hang out there for a second [Music] beautiful right now we go to the the minor seven flat five and this is a cool thing because we're gonna use the same scale that we just played i love it we're gonna use an a melodic minor scale so again you've already played the a melodic minor you just played it so let's play it again but in our left hand let's play f sharp minor seven flat five so we have this [Music] or if we started on f sharp again they call that locrian sharp two doesn't matter for now just play it to see how it sounds starting on f sharp but what i love about this is because we already went from this minor one and we played the a melodic minor scale a great exercise is just to go from the one chord to the sixth chord but keep the scale the same isn't that nice again play the one chord and then go to the sixth chord but keep playing that a melodic minor scale so what we've done is we've done three melodic minor scales we did d melodic minor over b minor seven flat five we did f melodic minor over e seven and we did a melodic minor over a minor seven fl a minor uh major seven and f sharp minor seven flat five pretty cool right i know it seems like a lot three scales over uh two five one but when you play it and you put it together and what we're gonna do next with improv you're gonna see how this all comes together it's a really beautiful sound great so now comes the fun part of putting this all together and making music and improvising using these three melodic minor scales so i'm going to show you how we can use these scales over b minor 7 flat 5 e 7 sharp 9 sharp five you already know these voicings because you practice these right so for the first example um we have a d melodic minor scale actually let me play it through once first and then we'll talk about it so here we go three four one [Music] pretty cool huh so it doesn't sound like there's three different scales going on in there but that's actually what's happening in the first example of the b minor seven flat five we're using a d melodic minor scale but i started on the on this major seven like this and then on the next one we're using f melodic minor so i go [Music] and then that leads nicely to a melodic minor but i'm starting on the fifth here i put a little triplet in here [Music] and then on the a minor seven or the f sharp minor seven flat five rather i just finished it out with that a melodic minor scale so again we're using the three melodic minor scales and rhythmically it's kind of an interesting line too we're starting low up higher back down lower going up and ending up and actually this that kind of sounds like a question too doesn't it it doesn't sound like it's quite finished because this f sharp minor seven they call it a turnaround because it wants to repeat and go back so what we're going to do is we're going to play this i'm going to play it through the first time and then i'll have you repeat the second time all right here we go with the track two three four [Music] two three your turn [Music] very cool awesome okay next i'm going to show you this this lick that's commonly done in jazz and maybe you've heard of the song crimea river that's the one that goes like this maybe you've heard that tune beautiful song so in jazz what we've done and and this is a very common technique in jazz sometimes we'll quote songs and this is called the crimea river lick because it's a it starts on the well first of all let me play this for you so you can hear how it sounds and then we'll kind of break it down so it goes like this listen for the crimea river lake i'll do it again for you here we go so we have [Music] isn't that cool now why does that work well it's we're still talking about melodic minor believe it or not we're still using the notes from the first chord which is b minor seven flat five we're using a d melodic minor but we're starting it on what is this note b in relation or e in relation to b that would be the 11th right so we go 11 this is the third 7 flat 5 root 7 so and notice too it's not just adding a little bit of rhythm so it's one two and three and one two and three and that's kind of the rhythmic uh makeup of it and then when we get to the five chord the e7 notice what note we start on we start on the g which for an e7 that's the sharp nine so we go sharp nine flat nine sharp five three sharp nine flat knight isn't that so cool i love that sharp nine flat nine sharp five three sharp nine flat and then when we get to the one chord which is a minor seven a minor major seven we're gonna start on the ninth of that a minor which is a b nine root five three nine root and then ending on the seventh of the f sharp minor seven so that's one way you can play this lick is to for the two chord which is b minor seven start on the 11th okay here's the 11th for the five chords start on the sharp nine and for the one chord start on the nine and then i just resolve to the seventh there pretty cool all right so let's try it together i'm gonna play it the first time then you do the second time here we go [Music] your turn go [Music] and now that i showed you that lick i'm sure if you go and listen to a bunch of jazz recordings you're going to hear this somewhere in some of those recordings in their improvisation okay great and the last look i wanted to show you and it's kind of like when i was showing you earlier how you can use some different triads within the chord it's taking what they call poly chords all that means is that in the right hand you're playing what looks like a triad so in this first example what is this that i'm playing in my right hand if you look at it in thirds it's an a major triad isn't it so you're playing an a major triad over a b minor seven flat five now why does that work well again it comes from d melodic minor doesn't it here's d melodic minor and notice there's a c sharp in there isn't it so if i played the d melodic minor there's that a major right there um so i'm playing an uh a major triad starting on the third so go like this and i'm kind of starting with my two finger here and then crossing under that's one way to play this so you go two one two three five three two then when we get to this um next chord this is an interesting concept we have a e7 right but look what we have up above we have this what is that chord oh it's a b flat major triad that's interesting that is a tritone away from e a b flat triad really a cool sound and now why does that work because if you look at it we have a flat nine well first of all here's the seventh then the flat nine and this is the sharp eleven the b flat and again i would start with my second finger and go under so two one two three five three two and then listen with the bass note it's kind of hard to hear with this but listen ooh so cool love that and then we get to the final chord which is a minor major seven and what chord am i playing up above an e major triad again because that's all within and if i played an a melodic minor scale and i started playing them in thirds we have an e major in there don't we so and then when we get to the f sharp i just played just the 11th of the f sharp so we're going from an a major triad [Music] to a b flat major triad to a e major triad and if we put it together it sounds like this three four one that beautiful let's try it together i'll play it the first time you play it the second time maybe we can go a little slower maybe around like 90 i think on this one just because it's a little bit more tricky in terms of the arpeggios let's try it two three four [Music] two three your turn go [Music] very cool so i hope this has helped you demystify the the mysterious melodic minor and how we can apply these three melodic minor scales to a minor two five one how we can improvise over them again you can take all of these licks and we started just in the key of a minor but sky's the limit you could transpose this to all keys if you'd like have fun with this enjoy it you already know the scale again you're just using melodic minor over all of these chords but three melodic minor scales so have fun and i hope i really helped you demystify this melodic minor thank you thanks for watching and if you enjoyed the lesson be sure to check out pianowithjohnny.com we have over 1 000 step-by-step lessons for all playing levels where you'll learn your favorite songs styles and how to improvise at the piano thanks for watching and i'll see you in the next one

Channel: Piano With Jonny

Views: 80,971

Keywords: melodic minor, melodic minor scale, melodic minor modes, jazz scale, jazz piano, jazz improvisation, jazz piano lessons, minor scale, jazz scales, jazz piano improv, jazz piano improvisation, minor 2 5 1, minor 251, piano improv, scales for improv, scales for improvisation, how to improvise jazz piano, minor jazz piano, easy jazz piano, advanced jazz piano, john proulx, jonny may, piano with jonny, minor piano improv, jazz piano for beginners

Id: GNqEjrMk070

Length: 26min 42sec (1602 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 02 2022