Have You Ever Knowingly Used The Melodic or Harmonic Minor Scales?

There is one major scale, also known as the Ionian mode. Tone-Tone-Semitone-Tone-Tone-Tone-Semitone.

There is a natural minor scale, which is where you move three times to the left on the Circle of Fifths and play the resulting major scale, but starting on the original tonic. Also known as the Aolian mode. Tone-Semitone-Tone-Tone-Tone-Semitone-Tone.

Then there is the harmonic minor scale: Tone-Semitone-Tone-Tone-Tone-Three SemiTones-Semitone.

It gets worse. The melodic minor scale: Tone-Semitone-Tone-Tone-Tone-Tone-Semitone (upwards) and play the notes of the natural minor scale on the way down. Hint: don't do trills or clever up-and-down phrases at the upper end of the scale.

Kids have to learn this stuff at Grades Three and Four for piano (but not in all keys).

It's in the book of clarinet scales I once thought would be a good idea to use for the guitar. (The two have a very similar range.)

There's never been a time when Gerald Plumbtones on Radio Three has said "and Mahler wrote this in E harmonic minor".

When something is written in (say) E-minor, it's the natural minor they use.

The only song I know in a harmonic minor is the Great Society version of White Rabbit. Even Derby Slick's solo is in the harmonic minor.



One of the ways of learning something is to extemporise around it. I may have grabbed A harmonic minor, noodled away, and thought on occasion "that sounds a bit Keith Jarrett-y". I suspect KJ used it from time to time.

Lower grade pianists also have to learn the whole-tone scales (both of them) and the chromatic scale (only one of them). No pentatonics, because this is Music Theory and they didn't do pentatonics in the Classical era. Bear in mind there are guitarists who barely do anything else.

So other than for practice, have you ever knowingly used the melodic or harmonic minor scales?