Hello, I would like to know if it is possible to add the melodic minor scale in the choice of scale. It is for jazz composition. This question has already asked but I can’t find any answer.
Eventualy could you give me some explanation for working jazzy composition without this scale.
2 Likes
This would be awesome, together with commonly used modes of the Melodic Minor scale:
- Lydian Dominant a.k.a. Acoustic or Overtone scale, Lydian with a ♭7
- Aeolian Dominant a.k.a. Mixolydian ♭6 which gives us a I and a iv chord natively- right now many songs using this scale are sorted as either Mixolydian or Phrygian Dominant
- Superlocrian a.k.a. Altered or Locrian ♭4, although rarer, is an interesting chord scale
Some songs using ascending Melodic Minor or its modes I have found (may be up to interpretation):
- No Surprises by Radiohead (intro in Aeolian Dominant, other parts often borrow its iv chord)
- My Iron Lung by Radiohead (mostly Aeolian Dominant, with some ♮7 leading tones)
- Politik by Coldplay (Melodic Minor)
- Go! by Santigold (Aeolian Dominant and Major)
- Red Clouds by Parallx (Locrian ♮2)
- American Whore by Lana Del Rey (Aeolian Dominant)
- The Simpsons Main Title Theme by Danny Elfman (Lydian Dominant)
As far as I can tell, scales are handled by Hookpad as sets of 7 ascending values, representing the relative interval size to the tonic in semitones. The available scales seem to be defined by this set as well as a parent or ‘prime’ scale they are a mode of, for handling relative key changes. or Any set that isn’t one of the currently available scales shows up as (bor) for “borrowed” in chords.
1 Like
Hi and thank you for your question!
Composing in the melodic minor scale should be no problem in Hookpad, since you can write chromatic melodies regardless of the selected scale. If you also want your chords to follow the melodic minor, you can just borrow the IV and V chords.
Please let me know if this helps.
Dennis
This is possible, but it may create misrepresentations in Theorytabs - i.e. many of the examples I listed for Aeolian Dominant are assigned Major, Minor, Mixolydian or Phrygian Dominant.
This a) makes searching for songs in Aeolian Dominant difficult and b) leads to inaccurate results when searching for songs in, let’s say, Mixolydian only.
PS: it is still fine for scales which are used very rarely for even an entire section, like the aforementioned Locrian ♮2 – the effort required for implementation would probably not offset the net benefit if one is creating a category for one single example
1 Like