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A flat harmonic minor12/15/2023 To use it, simply play the harmonic minor scale built off of the root of the tonic or root of the I chord – so for a minor II-V-I in C minor, play a C harmonic minor scale.The harmonic minor scale has just one tonally effective mode and that is the scale conventionally known as the harmonic minor scale. The harmonic minor scale works great over minor II-V’s. In addition to simplifying the way you think about a II-V-I, the harmonic major automatically liberates you from that often droll “church mode” sound and gets you playing a hip, “exotic” sounding scale. It works over all three chords and has a strong sense of tonality and unity. The harmonic minor is perfect for generating hip II-V-I lines because it has the b9 and b13 of the V7 chord embedded in it and it allows you to simplify the entire II-V-I into one single reductive scale. When you use this scale over a minor II-V-I in C minor, you end up with a D Locrian (natural 6) scale over the II (half dim.) chord, a G Phrygian (natural 3) scale over the V7 chord, and C Aeolian (natural 7) – the tonic harmonic minor – over the I- chord. You can read my recent post for a recap of what the harmonic minor scale is and how it’s derived. The harmonic minor scale is used a lot in jazz, especially in vocabulary from the bebop and hard bop eras (the melody to “Donna Lee” is just one example). I kept this as a separate post because the harmonic minor is so specialized that it deserves its own dedicated post. In this post, I want to cover more in depth the main way the harmonic minor scale is often used over II-V-I’s. I have also mentioned the harmonic minor scale in passing when talking about minor II-V-I’s. In my recent post on the harmonic major scale, I talked about ways to construct II-V-I lines using one single scale.
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