Melodic Minor Modes

by Chris Tarry

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Let’s take a look at the C jazz melodic minor scale and its 7 modes.

The jazz melodic minor scale is a minor scale with a natural 6 and 7 and is played the same going up and coming down. If we look at it another way it’s really a major scale with a minor third.

It’s amazing that the major scale and melodic minor scale only differ by one note (Eb) and they sound completely different.

We can derive modes and chords from this scale just as we do with the major scale. Learn all these modes, play them up and down one string, arpeggiate them, listen to them, play them in one two and three octaves. Really get familiar with the sound of this scale.

Below is the first mode the C minor-major or C Melodic Minor. This mode creates the CMinMaj7 chord.