Natural, harmonic and melodic scales

[rbarata]

Hello my friends

Can you, please, tell me what the difference between natural, harmonic and melodic scales?

Please keep it simple 'cause I don't know nothing about it.

Thanks in advance

[jopy]

In the key of C:

Natural minor:
C-D-Eb-F-G-Ab-Bb-C
1-2-3b-4-5-6b-7b-1

Harmonic minor:
C-D-Eb-F-G-Ab-B-C
1-2-3b-4-5-6b-7-1

Melodic minor (is different depending on whether you're going up or down):
Ascending--
C-D-Eb-F-G-A-B-C
1-2-3b-4-5-6-7-1
Descending--
C-D-Eb-F-G-Ab-Bb-C
1-2-3b-4-5-6b-7b-1

The raised 7th degree in the harmonic minor scale is done for harmonic reasons--so that the V chord in the key is a true dominant rather than a minor chord. The reason for raising the 6th and 7th degrees in the melodic minor scale when ascending is for voice leading.

People often use one scale or the other more for effect or mood rather than specifically because they want things to work out with formal harmonic or voice leading principles.

Does this help?

[PurpleCatfishBettie]

If you did it in 'a minor,' natural minor would be all white keys. For harmonic, you would replace the 7th (g) with a g#. For melodic, replace the 6th (f) with an f#.

What i did was to learn natural minor, then begin to figure out where all of the raised 7ths were, and then the raised 6ths.

When you learn a scale, learn it across all of the strings, and from open strings to the highest fret. Learn the entire scale, across (and along) the entire fretboard.

Once you have figured out major/natural minor, adding in the other notes becomes easier.

One thing about the guitar which perhaps makes learning scales a bit strange; is the way the 'b string' is tuned only 2 steps higher than the 'g string.' That has always proven to be a bit weird.

It makes great sense for barre chords, but for scales, it seems to make for some odd fingerings.

This might help; just kind of threw it together. The black notes are the notes of c maj/a min. The yellow notes are the g# notes, or raised 7ths in 'a harmonic minor.' The blue notes are f# notes, or raised 6ths (in combination with the raised 7ths, you have 'a melodic minor'). The whole thing repeats itself after the 12th fret (octave). I would recommend memorizing the entire thing.

There are a lot of other approaches, though.

As for this, there's got to be a better diagram out there. Hopefully this will be a start:

The numbers are fret numbers. All of the open strings fit within the C maj/A natural minor scale. The note markings are for the outer strings ('high and low e') at the given fret position.

Notice how, in C major, you can play any open string, 5th fret note, 10th, or 12th fret note, and they're all within the overall key.

Beyond all of that, i would just say play, play, play.

Get a sense of what others are doing, and then what you want to do as well.

[rbarata]

Many thanks for your replies.
As far as I could understood, the differences between Natural, Harmonic and Melodic are the notes (of course).
So I think it's correct to say that these differences imply different intervals.
So, the scale's modes are different between each other because of different intervals too.

So, my question is: where's the difference between a Natural, Harmonic and Melodic scale and a mode?

[Ogg Vorbis]

So, my question is: where's the difference between a Natural, Harmonic and Melodic scale and a mode?

Some "real" theoretician may disagree with this but the Harmonic and Melodic minor scales are actually artificial scales in that they are derived from modifications to the Natural Minor (Aeolian mode).

It is as though alterations in intervals in very specific melodic or harmonic contexts caused some genius to go, "Hey, you can make a sort of scale which includes these alterations."

The Harmonic Minor scale is simply a Natural Minor scale that accounts for the raised seventh degree (the use of a leading tone) which is borrowed from the Major Scale.

It's a derived scale. That is, it is an artificial "list" of notes that are used when you use a "borrowed" major dominant harmony.

The Harmonic Minor introduces an awkward augmented 2nd interval between the 6th and 7th degrees. So a further alteration, the raised 6th degree (again, "borrowed" from the major scale) smooths over the Aug. 2nd and provides a leading tone when ascending (resolving back to the tonic).

This Melodic Minor scale is actually not seen much "in the wild" and it actually implies a Major Subdominant harmony (IV) in minor, which I have not seen very often in real music.

Artificial scales are everywhere. If you think about it, the Chromatic Scale is simply a list of all the notes by semi-tone that divide an octave.

These artificial scales are different from the seven natural modes which are diatonic scales.

Diatonic scales use a combination of major and minor 2nd intervals to divide the octave into seven steps. This is actually derived from the naturally occurring harmonic series of overtones...at least that's what I THINK. (Pythagoras, back me up here.)

A mode is a particular emphasis (tonally) of one particular member of the diatonic sequence.

Diatonicism provides the tonal foundation of western music. Modes that result from the diatonic sequence DO occur "in the wild."

History has all but sifted out the modes into two very common ones...the Major scale (Ionian mode) and the Minor scale (Aeolian mode). However you still hear plenty of Mixolydian and Dorian modes today too.