What is the point of harmonic and melodic minor?

[jancivil]

I have always enjoyed "Eastern" music and rhythms .. the tablas ... wow...
Are you gonna try any thing like that... I know you can do some seriously interesting drums...

I have Indian-influenced stuff but scale-wise kinda exotic. Lots of tabla tho
Thanks

[jancivil]

This thread looked such a clusterfuck of wrongness initially I felt this board was kinda just hopeless. Bleak

Carry on tho

[Functional]

“You’re not doing yourself a service to ‘theorize’ outside of practice, it’s just talk.“

That is until you know more. The bit regarding ET is non-sequitur and made up a problem quite unnecessarily.

I didn't really think that the ET poses any particular problems (and I don't have any issues using minor, well, anymore). I've been just curious to see where this misconception of there being "three different minors" comes from because aside from speculation about common practice period composers mindset (and it is just speculation in this topic), nothing supports it. Beethoven, among others, used something that is described as "melodic minor" but when he described the minor, he didn't talk about "three separate minors", just about the sixth degree being problematic and then there's the V.

So as far as I understand, we're on the same camp here in this topic; there's just one minor tonality defined by the third degree in particular and any further alterations depend on whatever you wish to achieve with it, not on any fixed notion of a scale (this is the way I see it, that is; not necessarily how you see it)

[jancivil]

Lotta showing off by people just making avoidable mistakes lately

[Forgotten]

I didn't really think that the ET poses any particular problems

It depends which instrument you play and which culture your music is based in.

If you raise the minor 7th (flat compared to JI) to a major 7th (sharp compared to JI) it’s going to be noticeably ‘wrong’ to some musicians in a different way.

[jancivil]

Yes, but melodic minor et al will just be differently expressive; the sitar an object lesson. The intervals there belong to a parent raga, thaat & def. not ET... and I don’t think many listeners hear this... I pretty much do, but does it work is my question.

So, I don’t know who’s bugging. All the fusion of Indian w. the west...
Didn’t stop Ravi Shankar from making a concerto w. Western orch, NB

[jancivil]

Beethoven, among others, used something that is described as "melodic minor" but when he described the minor, he didn't talk about "three separate minors", just about the sixth degree being problematic and then there's the V.

So as far as I understand, we're on the same camp here in this topic; there's just one minor tonality defined by the third degree in particular and any further alterations depend on whatever you wish to achieve with it, not on any fixed notion of a scale (this is the way I see it, that is; not necessarily how you see it)

I agree. Jafo put specific before general but tonality in the strict sense is major or minor, period.

[currentsound]

Harmonic minor was used a lot during the Motown period. It's not that common to hear a song on the radio in harmonic minor anymore but some Latin/Spanish songs are in harmonic minor. If you manage to write a good song in harmonic minor, it instantly stands out as different. I just finished producing an album for a client with a song that was in harmonic minor. He ended up using it as the single. He thought it was just going to be a filler track until I added a bunch of harmonies and counter melodies in harmonic minor and it completely changed the feel of the song. It's not released yet but eventually it might end up on the Current Sound website after he releases it.

[Jojoboy]

Interesting stuff, I’m just (refreshing) learning again all these things. Nice!

[NKF]

It is sort of in the name. The dominant chord in a minor key has a raised 3. A melodic passage over a chord succession that doesn’t use that particular chord will sound appropriate with a Natural minor scale.

The melodic minor , without going into history and the preference for uniform diatonic values with vocal music, is generally used as you approach the V so C minor, you get a sharp 6 and 7 which both provides a less akward passage to sing but also foreshadows thé dominant and sounds aesthetically consistent in that those two altered pitches would be native to the major diatonic set which the V belongs to.

The harmonic minor is more a scale that outlines the minor tonality by including the raised 7 making the borrowed V . It is used melodically but in much less linear way thus it is not so much a melodic device as a set that defines the V harmony .

On a side note, i use the term borrowed V as all minor keys can be conceptualized in a major key. Keys are just frameworks of référence. if your chords use a minor I Vi IV bVII,
I could easily just hear it as vi , IV ii V especially given that for the most part, the chord succession around those minor I VII VI pretty much mirror the way Their major equivalent, vi, V, IV typically interact.

[StudioDave]

This thread looked such a clusterfuck of wrongness initially I felt this board was kinda just hopeless.

Ah, Jan, you know that I think the rubric for this particular forum should be:

"Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate !"

Best regards from the wasteland,

dp

[codec_spurt]

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[hmaringer]

Harmonic Minor and Melodic minor are not just variations of minor scales. They are their own scales with their own modes that are using in jazz ALL THE TIME as well as eastern non traditional music. Learn them.

I learned this from Greg Howe to really spice up traditional lines. Try super imposing on a traditional minor song for instance you are jamming in an Aminor jam.. Try playing a F# Locrian #2 or an G# Super Locrian all modes of the A Melodic Minor scale

[Spring Goose]

just practice being as chromatic as possible.

thanks