The melodic minor scale can be a super musical tool for jazz improvisation but all the complex
theory behind it can get confusing really fast so I'm going to show you exactly how and where to use
the melodic minor scale in jazz in a way that's super easy to understand hey Brent here from learn
jazz standards so take a look here at this chord progression it has a D minor seven flat five G7
and a C minor seven this is a minor two five one in c minor right so we have D minor seven is the
two chord G7 is the five chord and C minor seven is the one chord this is kind of you know basic
Harmony 101 but most importantly to understand is this chord progression the minor 251 is one of the
most important chord progressions in all of jazz so getting good at improvising mover is a really
good idea and we can use the melodic minor scale as a tool to help us start to generate ideas of
what kinds of notes and colors we can play over top of these chords but first what is a melodic
minor scale and how do you actually play it so a C melodic minor scale sounds like this
foreign
so C is the root D is the second tone E flat is the minor third f is the fourth G is the fifth a
natural is the major Sixth and finally B natural is the major seventh now when we look at the
melodic minor scale it sort of starts out like a natural minor scale with that minor third in there
going to the fifth but then when it kind of merges and also becomes a major scale at the same time we
go to the major sixth tone there and the Major Seventh and that's what makes it a melodic minor
it's almost like you're combining the natural minor and a major scale together now there is
so much different melodic minor Theory out there that it gets overwhelming really quickly so what
I want to show you is three applications of the melodic minor using the chords here in this minor
two five one showing you a melodic minor scale that you can play over each one of these chords
so let's go to the very first chord which is the D minor seven flat five or the half diminished
chord well over top of this D minor seven flat five you can actually play an F melonic minor
and the rule here is anytime you have a minor seven flat five chord or a half diminished
chord you can play A melodic minor a minor third up from the root of that chord to say
it again any half diminished chord you can play A melodic minor scale a minor third up from the
root of that chord so D minor seven a minor third interval up is going to be F and so if we play
the F melodic minor scale all those notes are going to sound good you've got to hear that too
no
and so that is a melodic minor application playing a melodic
minor a minor third up from the root of that chord let's not move over to
the G7 chord and over top of the G7 we can play the a flat melodic minor scale
tool that you can apply over any dominant seventh chord that you see is you can play
A melodic minor scale a half step up from the root so in other words when
you see a dominant seventh chord you can play A melodic minor scale a half
step up and all the notes there are gonna sound good now if you're paying attention
you may notice that some of those notes sound a little bit dissonant or a little bit of tension
in there let's explain why looking at the a flat melodic minor scale what are the notes that we're
actually playing as it pertains to the G7 the a flat is actually the flat nine okay and we
know that over top of dominant seventh chords we can play a lot of alterations and extensions the
extensions being the ninth the 11th and the 13th and the dominant seventh chord has the
most possible alterations to those extensions you can play the flat nine the sharp nine the
sharp 11 and you can play the flat 13. so we start with the flat nine which is a flat the
B flat is actually the sharp nine the C flat is the third of the G7 the d flat is the sharp 11.
flat is the flat 13. and then the f is the flat seven and then finally the G is the root
of G7 so essentially when you play a melodic minor a half step up from a dominant seventh
chord what you really get is this tense sounding altered dominant seventh chord which is awesome
because Jazz musicians use these sounds all the time to create tension in their lines
that resolve to a more stable chord Now we move on to the last one here which is the C minor
seventh chord and over top of the C minor seven we can play the C melodic minor scale
so the rule here obviously is whenever you see a minor seventh chord you can play A melodic minor
scale starting on the root so you might wonder why would that be because whenever you see a C minor
seven that means that the seventh automatically is flatted and in the melodic minor scale as we
discussed before there's a major seven in that chord while this really all goes back to minor
Harmony Theory which states essentially that there are three minor scales that you can harmonize with
seventh chords there's the natural minor there's the harmonic minor and there's the melodic minor
and out of the different scales you have there when you harmonize them with seventh chords you're
going to get some different options that you can actually play or different chords that you can
play in the diatonic series meaning what's the one chord two three four five six and seven chords of
the harmonic series obviously if you harmonize A melodic minor scale with seventh chords the very
first note C is going to be a C minor Major Seventh chord which sounds like this foreign
so what you can do in jazz if you see a C minor seven on a chart you
could superimpose a minor major seven instead
and those sounds create color and interest in that chord now by the way if any of this music
theory went over your head at all and you're not quite sure what I mean by chord progressions and
harmonizing scales together and all the stuff I just mentioned or even basic scale construction
not a worry at all I have a free guide I'd like to give to you it's called The Jazz Theory made
easy fast track guide completely free I'll leave a link to that on the description down
below as well as up here on the screen for you to download and I'll send it to you right away
get everything cleared out of your head when it comes to Theory Additionally you may wonder
what are some other scales that would be helpful to know for jazz and Jazz improvisation well on
the screen right now I have a video called the most important scales in jazz so feel free to
check that one out if you think that would be helpful as well if you like this video
hit the thumbs up subscribe to the channel and we'll see you in the next video cheers