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Original message:375 days 52 minutes ago

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Member: Night Owl

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Alright, I got this chord sequence for a song I'm writing. It goes Am Dm E7 Am, and just loops those throughout the song. The problem is I can't choose what scale I want to use for the main melody. I've narrowed it down to a Melodic Minor or Minor Pentatonic. What are your thoughts?

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Reply:375 days 45 minutes ago
Member: dcunning30

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E7? Have you tried harmonic minor?

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Reply:375 days 23 minutes ago
Member: SATAN

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either one, i LOVE the pentatonic scale though.....

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Reply:374 days 23 hours 48 minutes ago
Member: G_Barber

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Harmonic or melodic minor would be hot.

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Reply:374 days 21 hours 10 minutes ago
Member: Zombre

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Amin =ACE
Dmin =DFA
E7 =EG#BD

Take all those notes and put 'em together, what have you got? A B C D E F G# A whoppin' A Harmonic Minor Scale...
The chords will always tell you what to play....

A Melodic minor (A B C D E F# G#) would not sound so good over the Dminor (D7 would be the chord in there it would like)

But hey, it's all a matter of taste!

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Reply:374 days 20 hours 55 minutes ago
Member: The Rocker

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Because im a bit of an old school player I find the melodic minor to be very outside and jazz sounding. it depends on what sort of style your going for,
I would try and be original without being weired, but if its jazz? do what you like the sound of. pentatonic is very common in rock and can be very monotonous, so if you can use something a little different then go whith what you like. I find that if I think of music in terms of scales I sound a bit robotic and scaleyfied. but hey thats just me.

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Reply:374 days 20 hours 3 minutes ago
Member: Zombre

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Depends on how you use it. The Beatles used Mel Minor all over the place, Jellyfish, Elton John, etc, etc... It can sound atonal, or it can sound very, very cool.
If ya play it like a scale, it'll sound like a scale, that's for sure...It's up to the player/composer to give it meaning I guess...

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Reply:339 days 23 hours 50 minutes ago
Member: gennation

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Natural Minor over the Am and Dm chords, and Harmonic Minor over the E7.

Really you're just changing G to G# between the scales. So, don't get too hung up on the names but listen through the progression and nail that G# over the E7 chord. That's about it in a nut shell.

Beyond that use the notes above and below the 5ths of each chord.

Reply:334 days 23 hours 18 minutes ago
Member: shanejohnson2002

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And you've just hit on an important concept in jazz...the "movable 7th".

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Reply:335 days 1 hours 29 minutes ago
Member: johnmarkh

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use all three.

just know when you can.

if you extended your chords to include 7ths and 9ths...

A C E G

D F A C

E G# B D F#

on the a minor you could use the g natural/pentatonic

on the D you could stick with it...

on the E7 you could go with harmonic or melodic

it all depends on what sound you're going for.

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Reply:326 days 3 hours 21 minutes ago
Member: Zhille

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Play Harmonic Minor over E7 or to make it more interesting, do what the jazz guitarist would do, substitute the E7 for a G#m7 :) or play a G#m7 arpeggio over that E7. Than again, your ear is the final judge :)

Melodic minor won't do over Dm because of a very dissonant diminished second interval you will create with Melodic Minor's F# over D minor's F. The problem would maybe be solved if you played Dm sus2...(D E A)

You have a bunch of choices, if you're going to use Mel. Minor try to use it mostly ascending, and use natural and/or harmonic descending.

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Reply:311 days 7 hours 42 minutes ago
Member: gennation

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There's no Melodic Minor usage in this progression. This would be a straight Aeolian progression if it was an Em as the "V chord" instead of the E7. But, since E7 is the V7 of the Minor progression this is considered "the Key of A Minor". Since Aeolian has no leading-tone, it's not an Aeolian progression. And since the G# in E7 IS the leading-tone in A Minor this is the Key of A Minor.

So, use the A Minor scale UNTIL you get to the E7, then use A Harmonic Minor (or E Phrygian Dominant if you will). But NOT A Melodic Minor.

You could try F Melodic Minor over the E7 if you want, but A Harmonic Minor over the E7 is your scale.

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