#25: The Mysterious And Dark Sound Of Harmonic Minor [YouTube Early Access]

Hey John, first of all - welcome to the community! :) I just sent out your membership certificate, thanks for being part of this! You are right, harmonic and melodic minor are closely related. Often that's a great thing since we just have to change one note, sometimes that can lead to misunderstandings since those 2 scales and sounds are confused with each other. The best way to study them for me is to compare them to the scale they are based on. I never really have to study a harmonic minor shape since I know the minor scale all across the fretboard and I can visualize all notes on the neck. That means I can raise the 7th by a semitone and get harmonic minor that way! So to get A harmonic minor I would just have to raise G to G#. After doing that I could move on the melodic minor scale, there I also need to raise the 6th - so we have G# and also F#. I could also use the dorian scale as a basis, there I have to raise the 6th scale degree - so if I raise the 7th scale degree of dorian I get melodic minor too :) That all might be a bit confusing but it's important to know the relationship all those sounds are in, that way I can memorize the difference and build one scale from another scale I already know about. As for the second question, yes you can emphasize the characteristic note to bring out the sound further! This is absolutely essential when you work with exotic sounds, if you just learn the scale positions and where to put your fingers you won't be able to fully use these killer sounds since you have no idea which notes are responsible for creating it :) I hope that helps a bit!

Bernd Brodträger

The 2 scales are so similar that I have problems remembering the difference unless I have a book in front of me that shows the scales in 7 positions. Thanks,

Hey Bernth: I'm a new member here in the community. I know the concept or idea of playing the Harmonic Minor scale in 7 positions across the fretboard, using the same notes within the key/or scale. I'd like to ask you when it comes to using Melodic Minor scale there is only the 1 note difference from the Harmonic Minor scale. Is it simply a matter of knowing what that one note is (different) from Harmonic Minor in all 7 positions? do you concentrate on the sound of that note or do you concentrate on the name of that note when learning Melodic Minor in 7 positions vs. Harmonic Minor.