Famous songs using particular scales

thomasross20

To cut to the chase... banning the major scale modes for now, I'm interested in famous (not obscure!) songs you know which use melodic or harmonic minor modes. 

I remember at one point doing some flamenco and reading up on a load of jazz and getting the melodic and harmonic minor down... promptly to forget them (lots of remembering!) and stick to major modes for pop/rock and acoustic fingerstyle. I don't think I'm huge on the melodic minor sound, and harmonic minor is cool but only for a little while, and obviously handy for the V7 to Iminor. 

To me, learning a scale is exactly the same as learning its modes. You learn the scale over the whole fretboard, then you know it and its modes. But it's a lot of work if you're not a pro musician to remember all that (plus the main scale might sound ok but its modes may be useless, so it's almost wasted effort) so I want to narrow it to what I'll use in practice. Hence wondering what famous songs have used which modes of these scales... to get a feel for them some more. 

YouTube "melodic minor modes," for example, and there's not much (e.g. nobody much does a pedal note and plays the different modes over to see what they sound like). You do it yourself but it's still good to just sit back and listen. 

Anyway - I'm just checking out some SONGS now which use this stuff but will be good for folk to point out any super famous stuff...

stratman3142

Smooth by Santana uses the harmonic minor scale. Also, SCOM at the end - but I expect you already know that .

If you're playing the blues using mixed major and minor pentatonics its the effectively the Dorian mode (with an added major third). On the 5 chord you can add the 3rd of the 5 chord which is the major 7th of the Dorian mode for the key. Playing a major 7th of the Dorian mode turns it into the melodic minor scale - well it's one way of looking at it

thomasross20

Ah! Not allowed to say major 7th on dorian without referring to a song that uses it!

I love that bit in SCOM - used sparingly, harmonic minor can sound awesome. It just "turns" the ear, or whatever the expression is.

stratman3142

thomasross20 said:

Ah! Not allowed to say major 7th on dorian without referring to a song that uses it!

I'm sure it's been done a million times but thinking of an actual song has got me stumped for the moment.

thomasross20

I'm not learning that one then

viz

You'll struggle to find songs with genuine melodic minor in its root position. It's almost always used as the 5th mode on the V chord (in classical, rock or jazz) or the 7th mode on the V chord (in jazz). There are some examples (Autumn Leaves) but not that many. Same with harmonic minor - it's almost always Phrygian Dominant you're hearing, on the V. Check out every Yngwie song ever written. He uses it so often that he calls it "Phrygian"! Whenever the chord chages to the i he flips back to Aeolian - à la classical style.

The Simpsons is the acoustic scale (4th mode of melodic minor)  Drunken sailor, greensleeves are Dorian. All major rock is mixolydian. All minor nwobhm is aeolian (eg 90% of Iron Maiden with its em-D-C progressions). Flying in a blue dream is Lydian. Um, white rabbit is phrygian. There's loads of aeolian (black magic woman) Nothing is locrian apart from a prokoviev piece. Locrian is almost always just V scale (mixolydian) in the 3rd inversion, ie starting on the 7th note of the major scale. There's a satch song in the Enigmatic scale. There's quite a lot of eastern music using the 5th mode of melodic minor as the root scale (hence its alternative name of Hindu scale). 

thomasross20

@viz bang on - I was watching an yngwie vid just yesterday and he "incorrectly" called it phyrgian, like you say.

Thanks for those!

viz

Lol thomasross20 said:

@viz bang on - I was watching an yngwie vid just yesterday and he "incorrectly" called it phyrgian, like you say.

Thanks for those!

Lol yep!

bigjon

"Hush now baby don't cry" from the Disney film 'Prince of Egypt' is Mixolydian b6 - the fifth mode of the melodic minor - a fantastic scale choice for moody 80s-rock ballad solos :-)

bigjon

The pre-chorus section of lovers and friends by the Communards is Superlocrian off the root note, although the key has temporarily modulated to the second degree of the home Dorian minor scale. Listen to the phrase 'Warm in my hands' at 0:42

thomasross20

Will check those out (and all others that may be mentioned later on in the thread). Thanks!

Veganic

Plug in Baby - Muse intro riff might be a contender for harmonic minor but there are accidentals which make it fit all sorts of B minors.  (Which reminds me, maybe Blackmore's thing that probably inspired the Muse thing which was some Bach fugue or something? Winging it now.)




Edit: Something removed and is this thread limited to Harmonic and Melodic Minor?

earwighoney

Television Marquee Moon

D Mixolydian

earwighoney

thomasross20 said:

I remember at one point doing some flamenco and reading up on a load of jazz and getting the melodic and harmonic minor down... 

A lot of Flamenco is based around Phrygian scales.  E Phygian for a Solea and so on.

thomasross20

That's cool - but no major modes, please

viz

If you really want melodic minor on the V chord, almost all baroque and classical period minor pieces use it in their melodies. Bach and Vivaldi have so many brilliant examples. Here are some - I've chosen pieces that have a combination of aeolian and melodic and/or harmonic depending on the context (ie whether the V is in evidence, and whether there is a strong tune or whether the solo instrument is acting harmonically)

bigjon

Veering slightly off topic but I busked through CPE Bach's Solfeggietto in C minor on my mum's piano when I visited last week and it makes a big feature of the melodic minor scale off the 1 chord but only in the DESCENDING direction - this was a huge surprise for me.

viz

bigjon said:

Veering slightly off topic but I busked through CPE Bach's Solfeggietto in C minor on my mum's piano when I visited last week and it makes a big feature of the melodic minor scale off the 1 chord but only in the DESCENDING direction - this was a huge surprise for me.

Nice piece. Actually all the descending lines with raised 6ths and 7ths aren't on the i chord - have another listen. Also all the pieces I posted above have the 7th and 6th raised, in descending lines, at certain points. But always on the V, never on the i. 

By the way this whole "raised ascending, flattened descending" has been so misunderstood, or at least misquoted; it should be said as "raised on the V, flattened on all the other chords"; and it's just that the scale as it is practised is there to demonstrate that V-i resolution, and it happens to do it at the top of the scale. It's not meant to imply a rigid mantra of raised ascending, naturalised descending. You could even practise the melodic minor scale the other way around - it'd be a bit odd but not impossible. You'd be implying a V for the first 4 notes, then a i for the top four, then a V again for the first 4 downward notes, and a i for the last 4. The normal way is more straightforward, albeit it has led to this issue. 

PS - @bigjon I knew you were good at the piano, but to busk that! - you get a wow. 

viz

In fact it's such an interesting point (for me anyway) I just made a dodgy video about it

thomasross20

I never knew you could play piano, @viz - and very well, apparently. Have a wow!

viz

thomasross20 said:

I never knew you could play piano, @viz - and very well, apparently. Have a wow!

Well thanks but I really can't! ) I stopped when I was 12.