Double Bass Melodic Minor

TroyK

TroyK

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#1
I was divided on whether this was a theory question or an orchestral question. In either event, it's an academic one. I understand and use melodic and harmonic minor scales and harmonies, but:

Can anyone explain to me why in classical pedagogy, the altered notes are only altered when you are ascending and the relative minor notes are used when descending?

I've always known, but not understood this. I've kind of decided that from a jazz standpoint, it's irrelevant, but I probably shouldn't do that without understanding why it is standard in classical rudiments materials.
 
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#3
It's simple aesthetics really.

To create strong defining melodic movement to the 8, the leading tone was raised. So with a raised 7, what 6 do you use?
Regular 6 means an augmented 2... , too Roma sounding for the "legit" folks, so they raised the 6 too.
Now, 6-7-8 is what's left. It's the sound they wanted.

One could say, leave the 7, and go up by whole step, but then the movement to 8 is weakened according the the tastes of the era.

Going down though, 8-5, the natural minor scales flows very well.

Remember that the "pedagogy" was made to help describe the music of the era, and its aesthetics. They wanted certain sounds, and wanted to avoid other sounds.
 
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#5
Thanks everyone for the responses. Especially @longfinger 's response leaves me feeling like I understand.

In jazz we kind of just "play all the notes", I guess. BeBop scales just add chromatic sections to scales, without feeling like we need to limit scales to 8 notes.

I understand melodic and harmonic harmony better, how chord spellings change around the modes of those scales. The concept that the scale had different notes depending on whether you were going up or down, just sort of broke my brain, but I think that I probably play like that, I just think about those notes as passing tones or leading notes or chromaticism or whatever excuse I feel like justifies playing what I hear rather than following the rules.
 
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#6
TroyK said:
Can anyone explain to me why in classical pedagogy, the altered notes are only altered when you are ascending and the relative minor notes are used when descending?
Click to expand...

If you consider the natural minor to be the default, that is to say Aeolian mode, the harmonic minor is altered at the 7th to create a leading tone. This ensures the chord of the 5th is major (V) not minor (v), which in turn makes the V-i perfect. Unfiortunately, creating a leading tone also creates an augmented 2nd between the 6th (sub-mediant) and 7th degrees, which is difficult to sing and creates somewhat awkward melodies. The solution, since having a leading tone was pretty much obligatory in those early days, was to raise the 6th, thus closing the augmented 2nd back to a simple major 2nd. As an aside, it is worth remembering that all three minor scales (natural, melodic and harmonic) are considered diatonic. Consequently, all of the 13 possible triads that can be harmonised from them are also diatonic in the minor key.
 
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#9
In the old times there were only triads used (beyond the dominant seventh chord, but the seventh doesn‘t fall into that range).
So there was some freedom in these notes at the tonic since no chord tone of the tonic falls into that range. on the subdominant the b6 is fixed by the third of the note and the major seventh is fixed by the (major) dominant chord. So in minor the sixth and seventh may need to be changed from natural minor to fit the chord. But at the tonic there is some freedom.
The avoidance of the augmented second in the old times (as well as the melodic tritone interval) as mentioned before together with the up and down leading notes to octave and fifth easily leads to the different ascending and descending scales in traditional melodic minor.

In jazz we have fuller chords with more notes which fix more of the previous options. So we are used to change scales to fit the extended chords and have fewer options to choose.

An example is V7b9. We have the major third as the major seventh in the scale but also the minor second (nineth) as the minor sixth in the scale. So the only fitting scale (maybe with a few more exotic exceptions) is the harmonic minor scale rooted at the fifth.
The b9 also gives a hint to the expectable resolution to a minor chord since the b9 is the b6 of the tonic and that fits to a minor scale at the root. A nine would be the 6 of the tonic and leads mostly to major (or Dorian).

And even though we might have options, not every combination of options in chord progressions do sound good, so that might limit or choices even more.

I think a lot of classical teachers don’t think about the reason for the different ascending and descending scales (beyond melodic issues) and not about why this mostly doesn’t work in jazz.

BTW, if you want to harmonize classical melodies with extended chords, you need to change the chords for ascending and descending parts in that range, even if the root stays the tonic.
 
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#10
TroyK said:
I was divided on whether this was a theory question or an orchestral question. In either event, it's an academic one. I understand and use melodic and harmonic minor scales and harmonies, but:

Can anyone explain to me why in classical pedagogy, the altered notes are only altered when you are ascending and the relative minor notes are used when descending?

I've always known, but not understood this. I've kind of decided that from a jazz standpoint, it's irrelevant, but I probably shouldn't do that without understanding why it is standard in classical rudiments materials.
Click to expand...

1. It's the rules.
2. With 20th century (and later) music, there are no rules.

I'm slightly paraphrasing the 2nd from a piano instructor I had whose primary instrument was the double bass. I suspect he was pretty good because he had to miss our final one semester to go fly to Germany to play with an orchestra (I wish I remembered which one).

At any rate, I suspect that so much of it has to do with how it sounds and that rules sprung up to codify what sounded good to the ears at the time.
 
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#11
A rule without an explanation might be true but it could not be proofed. That’s what I meant with classical instructors. They only tell you a rule because they learned it to be a rule but never questioning the background of the rule.

An augmented second is a lot less melodic than minor and major seconds and is closely related to Eastern European folk and gypsy music. That kind of music entered European art music rather lately, mostly with Russian and other Eastern European composers but often to mimic the folk music over there.

Indeed, what is acceptable or not changed a lot over the centuries and art and folk music can differ a lot, even at the same time period. But since we talk about harmonic and melodic minor, that mostly starts with baroque music.
 
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#12
Don Kasper said:
Yes, and...don't forget the Dorian Minor - a VERY useful Minor Scale form if you're playing tunes written in the past 150yrs!
IMFO, of course.
Thanks.
Click to expand...

Yes of course Dorian is a very important minor form, but not really considered part of the minor key and it's derivation from the sub-mediant of the major key. What is interesting is that Dorian mode can 'represent' the sub-dominant of the minor key (4th mode of natural minor), but thanks to the availability of major 6ths and 7ths in the minor key, the Phrygian mode with the tricky minor 2nd and 3rd can be legitimately avoided as representing the Dominant. That's why I believe it is important to consider everything diatonic - it avoids getting bogged down in academic debates over borrowed chords, parallel modes and so on - it's all just minor!.
 
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#13
Good explanations above by @longfinger and @SteveCS . Although I practice scales often, I’ve long thought the way they were taught was not helpful; I prefer to think of them as note collections at this point, which mentally de-emphasizes the tendency to think of necessarily playing them in order. A note collection is more like an artist’s palette, where the colors have more meaning when used to paint a desired image and their order on the board is less important.

In the context of this discussion I consider minor to be 1-2-b3-4-5-b6-6-b7-7-8, where the resolution tendencies of the line determine which 6th/7th is used. But when practicing minor as straight up and down scales, I use the traditional “raised/ascending lowered/descending” as a personal default.
 
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#14
I was taught piano formally and melodic minor was practiced differently ascending vs. descending. There were complicated theoretical rules about determining when you were ascending or descending if you turned the scale on the 6th or 7th.

When I resumed serious scale practice on saxophone, for jazz improvisation purposes, I stopped playing scales as long strings of notes from the bottom to the top of the instrument, as that's not useful vocabulary for improvising. Instead, on saxophone I use various scalar patterns. In practicing these to get them under my fingers, it became apparent that the ascending/descending thing was BS, at least for actually making melodic lines from actual notes for actually playing on an actual instrument. So now I practice minors three ways: 1) The natural minor gets practiced simultaneously with the relative major. Because I start at the very bottom of the instrument and repeat the patterns I'm practicing to the very top and back again, I'm not starting on the tonic anyway, so there's no difference between practicing Pattern R in C major and in A natural minor. 2) Harmonic gets practiced as it is: raised 7th lowered 6th. 3) Melodic gets practiced as raised 6th raised 7th in all directions. My purpose in practicing scales (which, as noted, I practice as patterns not as long ascending/descending strings) is to get as many "blocks" under my fingers instantly accessible as possible.

On double-bass, with far more limited experience, technique, and time to practice, I still run scales as long ascending/descending strings, but I always do them from the lowest note on the instrument (E or F) to the highest one I can reasonably reach, and I do melodic the same in either direction. I don't need to double-practice descending major scales.
 
#15
I just looked at first few bars of Eccles 11 sonata, which is a classical student piece. Seems to me that the melodic minor rule is breached as often as it is kept. See for yourself:
ecc.jpg

(sorry for the ugly Win+Shift+S adjustment)

To me it's actually very interesting question to think about. Knowing a rule, does it help create something, or does it stand in a way?
 
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#16
I'd say that most of music theory rules about which notes when, are constructed after the fact by listening to music that "works" and trying to construct rules from that. We've all seen how well that works out. The problem of a theory of aesthetics cuts across all the arts. The general pattern goes:

- observe art that "works"
- construct a theory of why it works including a bunch of rules
- People of modest talent use these rules to make uninspiring bland copycat works
- People of immense talent ignore the rules when their artistic sense tells them to, and create art that "works".
- Theorists observe the new art that "works", and construct new theories and new sets of rules, either pasted onto the old ones, or entire new frameworks.

So, as proposed above, the concept of ascending/descending differences in melodic minor was constructed to explain some art that "worked", some centuries ago, and it's become enshrined as a "rule" long after it ceased to actually mean anything.

Most anyone who's studied art (of any type) will feel somewhat conflicted about theories of aesthetics, as just going out there and (in the case of music) making some notes that don't have anything to do with anything will sound awful; yet slavishly following "the rules" will get you stuff that works in the dentist's office but has no soul. Our rational frameworks of analysis don't work well for understanding what makes a piece of art work and what makes it not work.

I'd point out that I'm NOT talking about things like standard notation for written music and how to make the dots so everyone has a common understanding of what's meant; that falls into the category "music theory" but it's not the same thing as theories of aesthetics. Standardized forms of notation are more like learning how to spell, compared to learning how to write a story.
 
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#17
I'd also point out that "major scale" mostly has one meaning, but "minor scale" doesn't. Yeah, there are three common forms, but in playing an improvisation (or in composing fixed music), all three of these forms will be used according to the degree of tension desired at the moment and what the accompaniment's doing. There are more than those three, really, that could be loosely characterized as "minor" - there's the Dorian form, for example. Some of the more "exotic" scales might also be appropriate at places over a generally minor chord.

And then there's the listener's and player's own perspective. In jazz, for example, if you saw Dm-G7-C in 1930 and you played notes from the Dm scale, F#maj scale (as C#7), C maj scale, it would have been perceived as an error. In 1945 it would have been perceived as "progressive". In 1965 it would have been perceived as a cliche. Today you can hear the tritone substitution played in the Muzak at the department store. The sound hasn't changed, but what people perceive as "dissonant" or "tension" has changed, due to exposure.
 
#19
It’s all about which notes are fixed by the chord. A “major” (or maybe not) no3rd chord really means root and fifth only, so you can choose second, third, fourth, sixth and seventh. (Or even a dominant diminished or Spanish Phrygian eight note scale fits here.)
It depends on the context which is close to the chord before and after and which is more distant and if selection makes sense in a larger context.

You can even change the scale on the chord from the possible selections. This is the same with the different ascending and descending minor in classical music. The scale (set of note pitches related to the root) is changed, but the chord can persist as the changes do not collide with the chord notes.

BTW, the harmonic minor is a collection of notes from the minor tonic triad, the subdominant triad and the (major) dominant triad.
So you can play harmonic minor without a change over the whole cadence.
If you want to avoid the augmented second interval, just jump over the next note(s).
 
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