Modes of Melodic Minor
Melodic minor played from each of its seven degrees, the same trick that turns the major scale into the modes. Two of the results are used constantly in jazz and the rest are mostly names. Each one plays here over the chord it belongs to, because without that chord none of them mean anything.
- 7 notes
- melodic minor from each degree
- depends which mode
which styles use it
- Jazz
- Neo-soul
- Big band
- Fusion
How it is built
Melodic minor going up is the major scale with a flattened third. Start it from the fourth degree and you get Lydian dominant, which is a dominant scale with a raised fourth. Start it from the seventh and you get the altered scale, which contains almost every altered note a dominant chord can take.
Lydian dominant sounds bright and slightly untethered. The altered scale sounds maximally tense, which is exactly what you want one bar before a resolution.
Where to use it
Over dominant chords, which is where almost all of this lives. Lydian dominant over a dominant with a raised eleventh. The altered scale over a dominant heading home with flattened or sharpened ninths and fifths.
The chords that go with it
Each mode exists to fit one chord. Lydian dominant belongs on a 7 sharp 11. The altered scale belongs on a 7 alt. Playing them anywhere else produces the sound of someone practising scales.
What it gets confused with
With the ordinary modes, which come from the major scale and behave very differently. And with the diminished scale, which covers some of the same altered notes by another route.