Melodic Minor Guitar Lessons

I think this Lesson is good for people who already know the melodic minor scale in this position but really don’t know what chords to use it on.  And he also shows you the augmented 7th chord associated with the scale.

So he says that if you play an ‘A minor 6th’ chord you could use the A melodic minor.

This lesson is the continuation of Marty’s lesson, where he tells you that the same scale (A melodic minor) can be played over the ‘D7′ chord.  But he calls it a D lydian dominant, which is correct.
Why?
A: Because if you start the A melodic minor scale on D you would be starting from the fourth note of the scale of the 4th mode of the melodic minor.  So if you are already familiar with the major scale or natural modes, the 4th mode is called the lydian mode.  And the word dominant comes from the fact that the scale is intended for a dominant chord (ie. it has a +3 but a -7)

So, to start you off with some melodic minor sounds this is great.

So I’m going to go to marty again for this third video, I believe his intentions were to create this series.

The altered scale as he says serves as a nice way to find the {#5, b5, b9, #9} as well as the necessary dominant chord tones.  So, as he says, you find the chord you want to use (in this case a G7) and you take your melodic minor scale and shift it up a semi-tone (so now you are actually playing an Ab-melodic-minor scale) and you have an altered dominant scale.

Now, you may think, that ii/v progression he plays (Dmin7 to G7) sounds bad with the melodic minor scale in there, well, I certainly agree, but when you put it into context with a series of integral key changes and things such that are found in the blues or in most jazz tunes, the altered scale is very essential.  For example: here’s john stowell comping on a blues and the tune solar…

Now imagine yourself playing all natural modes over these changes.  You might just be out to lunch.   I’m only now getting into the melodic minor scale, but I’ve already found over 5 licks I can use (in one key), and am learning to play them in all keys, impose them into my solos (I’m performing tonight, maybe I’ll stick some in there… I know I did last saturday).  As well, I’m creating different permutations to the licks that I already have.  Just one lick can be milked dry into several permutations.  So that’s a lesson all alone.

But I’d like to close this review of some of the best melodic minor youtube videos by saying that my jazz teacher in university told me that the most commonly used scale in jazz is the melodic minor scale.