Scott Paul Johnson
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Music Theory for Guitar II | 7 | Melodic Minor
🕑 Added 2025-02-24 18:21:42 +0000 UTCWhere to Start • Lesson Archive • Recommended Lesson Plan • Book a Private Lesson
Hi Everyone!
In this lesson, the minor key people figure out a way to fix a problem, resulting in yet another extra chord.
Check out the PDF for helpful homework and chord charts.
If you’re not familiar with Major Scales, Minor Scales, Intervals, the Circle of Fifths, and Triads - you should watch Music Theory for Guitar I first!
Use this Community Forum thread to post homework and discuss the series. Have a question? Ask on the weekly live Q&A, called Office Hours. Also, check out Practice Thoughts if you need help figuring out how to practice.
How to Join the community forum.
Once you’re done with this lesson, move on to the next in the series:
Music Theory for Guitar II | 1 | Chords in a Key
Music Theory for Guitar II | 2 | Roman Numerals
Music Theory for Guitar II | 3 | 7th Chords
Music Theory for Guitar II | 4 | Chords in a Minor Key
Music Theory for Guitar II | 5 | Harmonic Minor
Music Theory for Guitar II | 6 | The V of vi Chord
Music Theory for Guitar II | 7 | Melodic Minor (current lesson)
Music Theory for Guitar II | 8 | The V of V Chord
Music Theory for Guitar II | 9 | What's Next?
Comments
Tasha McManus
Thanks for working so hard for us. You should raise your prices.
Scott Paul Johnson
You're right! But this is part of the story - you COULD argue that people write songs strictly in harmonic minor with that weird minor third between the 6th and7th note of the scale. There are songs that use a minor iv chord and a dom7 V chord. When someone writes a melody over that progression, they are using harmonic minor. But I agree - it KIND of doesn't matter because Melodic minor contains harmonic minor
Mark Fletcher
It seems to me that Melodic Minor makes the Harmonic Minor obsolete. If raising the 6th note is entirely optional and you choose not to and just raise the 7h (which is Harmonic), Melodic Minor is both Harmonic and Melodic in one neat package. I wondered about this in MTM and still wonder about it. Why even talk about Harmonic Minor at all other than historical? Is there a practical purpose for talking about Harmonic Minor?
