(back to main page)
(back to General Area)
Melodic Minor Scales
The first thing you should realize is that there are
3 types of minor scales:
1) Natural, or Pure, Minor
2) Harmonic Minor
3) Melodic Minor
This page will introduce the Melodic Minor scales.
The Melodic Minors have 2 forms:
(an ASCENDING and a DESCENDING form):
ASCENDING Melodic Minor Scales are basically major scales with
a lowered THIRD scale degree. For example,
a Bb- melodic minor scale would
look like:
Bb - C - Db - Eb - F - G - A - Bb
(looks a LOT like Bb major.......except
for the Db)
DESCENDING Melodic Minor Scales are simply the Natural,
or Pure, minor. For example, if I play a descending
Bb-melodic minor scale, it looks
like:
Bb - Ab - Gb - F - Eb - Db - C -
Bb
This all came about because composers
liked the sound of DRIVING towards the tonic pitch. As
the
melody climbed, they wanted a sense
of pushing towards the top tonic.....
and they liked the "gravitational"
effect of FALLING towards tonic on the way back down.
** Notice the HALF-STEP before
tonic on the ASCENT.....the LEADING tone is preserved from Major.
The sixth scale degree, then, is raised (as compared to natural
Minor) to avoid the Augmented Second that we hear in Harmonic
Minor.
As with your Major Scales,
you should practice the following scales with a METRONOME
Strive for beautiful intonation and memorize these
as soon as possible.
(Not a problem if you know your Majors!)
Start slowly, learn them CORRECTLY. Then work for speed.
Don't be afraid to write positions
over any notes that give you trouble. ALTERNATE positions should
be marked for sure!
If some of these are out of your range, don't fret.
Just start them in the octave you can manage and work your way
up. Challenge yourself, though, and TRY them in the extremes of
your range.
*TIP:
once you've got a handle on all these scales, print this page.
Then, cut the scales into little strips. Fold them and put them
in your trombone case. Every day, as part of your Daily Routine,
pick 4 at random and do the Warm-up
with them.
Or, refer only to the key signatures by
printing out this handy guide: 
Just like when we learned our Major
Scales, we'll start with NO Flats and add one with each new
scale. We'll do the same with Sharps, too.
A Melodic Minor:
D Melodic Minor:
G Melodic Minor:
C Melodic Minor:
F Melodic Minor:
Bb Melodic Minor:
Eb Melodic Minor:
Ab Melodic Minor:
At this point, we'll break for the Sharps. If we
continued with a Db-Melodic Minor scale, we'd be into
the world of double-flats. Not that these scales
don't occasionally crop up in music, but they are very rare
and more "theoretical" possibilities than
practical scales.
Later down the page, I'll show you what double-sharp
scales look like........
And now, onward to the Sharps:
E Melodic Minor:
B Melodic Minor:
F# Melodic Minor:
C# Melodic Minor:
G# Melodic Minor:
D# Melodic Minor:
That's it! Congratulations once again!
(back
to main page)
(back
to General Area)