Kenny Dorham

Last month, Fretterverse guest author Dr. Matt Warnock introduced us to “that other minor scale,” the Melodic Minor scale. Because it’s such a highly-versatile scale with lots of applications, I would like to start a series of posts on some of the different ways it can be used. If you are not familiar with the scale I recommend you go back to Dr. Matt’s article and get the concept in your head and under your fingers a bit before starting with these ideas.

If you have the general idea for the Melodic Minor scale, down, let’s get to it!

Blue Bossa

I want to use the Kenny Dorham classic “Blue Bossa” as a harmonic template. If you don’t know the song, it’s very simple. The best recording of it – in my opinion – is from Joe Henderson’s “Page One” CD. The song is in the key of C Minor, and measures 4-8 look like this:

Typically what you would do is run through all of the Melodic Minor scales in all 12 keys to figure out which ones will work over each chord. Since I’m such a great guy, however, I’m going to save you the trouble and do it for you.

Dm7b5

Over this chord, we are going to want to use an F Melodic Minor scale:

Tone relationship of F Melodic Minor Scale over Dm7b5 Chord

As you can see, the F Melodic Minor scale hits all of the important notes of a Dm7b5 chord. It doesn’t sound “out,” but that’s okay because typically we don’t want to sound too crazy over this chord; all of the magic happens over the next chord.

G7/G7 alt.

An “alt” chord is basically a Dom7 chord with all of the available tensions/alterations (b9, #9, b5, #5). This is the place within a ii-V-I progression where all of the hip stuff usually takes place. For this chord we’re going to play an Ab Melodic Minor Scale:

Tone relationship of Ab Melodic Minor Scale over G7/G7 Alt Chord

Take a look at all of the color tones in this scale! Especially when the rhythm section is just playing a generic G7 chord, these altered tones sound absolutely amazing when played with good phrasing.

Cmin7

The last two bars of this section is a Cm7 chord. Now, typically you would play a standard C Minor scale over this chord. However, because the preceding bar was a G7 and not Gmin7, you have the option of addressing the Bb or B natural over this chord. You don’t have to address it, since you already took care of it with the G7, but it does sound great over the Cmin7 chord. The C Melodic Minor scale is:

Tone relationship of C Melodic Minor Scale over Cmin7 Chord

The raised 7th (B natural) is the note that truly ties the G7 and Cmin7 chords together. Without it, the improvised line tends to sound bland. That’s not always a bad thing depending on how it’s used, but for my taste at least I love keeping the #7 in the line.

Sequences

Now that I’ve given you some scales to work with, the question becomes how to add them to your lines and use good phrasing to make their application sound good. You don’t just want to run up and down each scale; that would sound like crap!

One tried-and-true way to sound hip is to use melodic sequences. Take this sequence for instance:

As you can see, the first twelve notes of the phrase are grouped into three four-note sequences. The first two groups address the Dm7b5 scale by using F Melodic Minor, and the last group addresses the G7 chord by using the Ab Melodic Minor scale. I could have continued all the way through to the Cm7, but that gets a little repetitive.

Pushing

Perhaps there is a better term for this, but I always liked “pushing.” By pushing I mean that you start the next scale/melodic idea before the first one is finished. Here’s an example:

What I did in this example was start playing the Ab Melodic Minor scale before I got to the G7 chord. This creates even more tension in the line because the notes of the Ab Melodic Minor scale work against the Dm7b5 chord for a beat. It’s almost as if the scale resolves itself to a chord that is already unresolved through the altered tones.

Experiment

This is just one of many ways to use the Melodic Minor scale. We’ll explore it more in subsequent posts. For now, and I know I’ve said it plenty of times in the past – experiment! See what you like and keep it, see what you don’t like and throw it out.

Enjoy!