Tag: melodic minor scale

Tip #210 – Jazzy Progression with the Hindu Scale

For those that don’t recall the Hindu Scale, I suggest looking back at some music theory posts I have covered. But to bring you up to speed, the Hindu scale is one of the modes of the melodic minor scale – specifically, the fifth mode.

That being said, we can think of the Hindu scale as the dominant (or mixolydian) of the melodic minor scale. And what do you know! Take a look at what kind of chord is built on the root of the Hindu scale. A dominant-seventh chord.

But that isn’t the only dominant seventh chord of the scale. In fact, there are two that are found in it, creating this famous jazz progression:

I7 – bVII7

While this progression certainly sounds modal because of the scale as well as jazzy because of the dominant-seventh chords, it flows well because it is similar to the “backdoor” progression we have talked about before. Only now the tonic is an unstable dominant figure.

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Teach Yourself Music Theory – 32.) Building Triads from Scales

Continuing with our topic of triads, we are going to be discussing what and which triads are built from scales… covering major, natural, harmonic, and melodic minor.

Beside the lead-sheet note note names, the Roman numeral figured-bass and triad quality remains the same from each respective scale regardless of starting pitch.

Let’s start with the major scale:

Building triads on each note, we get what we have above. 3 major triads, 3 minor triads, and 1 diminished triad. Chords I , IV , and V will always be major in a major key.

Now, natural minor:

We have the same amount of major, minor, and diminished triads… but they are in a different order.

As for harmonic minor:

With the inclusion of the raised leading tone, we see a quality of the chords change. Instead of v being minor, V is major in harmonic minor. Also, we have two diminished chords.

Finally, melodic minor:

With two raised pitches, we get another completely different group of triads. Now, the ii chord is minor… but the vio chord is diminished.

NOTE: the “B” symbol in the pictures means “flat” just like the “b” sign.

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Teach Yourself Music Theory – 26.) Modes of the Melodic Minor Scale

Not only are there modes built from the diatonic scales of Major and natural minor, but there are modes of the melodic minor, too.


Similarly, they are constructed with the same pitch-class collections, but starting on different pitches and spanning an octave from there.


Below are the different modes and names built from the A melodic minor scale in the key of C:


NOTE: these are the names I use for the modes. You will encounter multiple names for the same scale, so always be open to change.

Further NOTE: it should be a b6 in the Hindu Scale, my apologies.


Practice building the modes, playing them, and memorizing the names.

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Teach Yourself Music Theory – 18.) Harmonic and Melodic Minor

Review time! What scale is this?:

If you said “a natural minor scale” you are correct! Don’t worry if you didn’t get the answer correctly, you can review on all the past posts on music theory.

We can tell that this is a natural minor scale because…

1.) The key signature has no sharps or flats, and it starts on the A pitch

2.) The scale is built in the intervallic pattern of all natural minor scales of M2-m2-M2-M2-m2-M2-M2.

Now, it is time to introduce two different kinds of minor scales.

The first is called the harmonic minor scale, and it is made by raising the seventh scale degree (the subtonic) up a half-step (the leading tone). It would look like this:

As the name goes, it is used for harmonic purposes to achieve a dominant V sound. More on that soon!

The second is called the melodic minor scale, and it is made by raising the sixth and seventh scale degree up a half-step. HOWEVER, that is only when you are ascending up the scale. Those scale degrees return back to their natural position as you descend down the scale:

As the name goes, it is used for melodic purposes to retain a “minor” sound with the lowered third degree, but have leading motion in the sixth and seventh degrees to resolve to the tonic.

Play those scales in different keys to see how they sound.

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