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Yep. basically:
They started with Aeolian, which had a minor 6th and minor 7th.
Then in Vivaldi's day they thought, hey if we stick slavishly to the minor 6th and minor 7th when harmonising the minor scale, it means that the dominant chord will be minor, which is fine, but it's a bit plain. A bit "modal", too Aeolian for our taste. Not very baroque. Why don't we just allow, in the harmony, for the Dominant chord to have a major 3rd? And we can invent a scale called harmonic minor, that raises that major 3rd over the Dominant (which happens to be the major 7th on the 1 chord). So the Harmonic minor scale will be like Aeolian but with a raised 7th, though of course we’ll all know that it’s to demonstrate the raised 3rd that’s used on the Dominant. We could also name the fifth mode of that scale, going from Dominant to Dominant with its raised 3rd, which we’d call Phrygian Dominant, but let's teach the Harmonic scale from Tonic to Tonic, even though it will never apply to the tonic chord in actual music. Then they said, OK but why don’t we just teach the Phrygian Dominant instead then? Seeing as that's how it's used? And they said, because we want the scale to apply to the key in use, not the key's Dominant chord. And if we taught Phrygian Dominant as a scale, I bet there'd be people would think that the root of that scale were the tonic of the key anyway! We'll just have to trust that people know that the harmonic minor isn't applicable when the tonic chord is being played.
Then they thought, Hey, let’s have another scale which will raise the 3rd on the Dominant, but will also raise the 2nd! Why? they asked. Because then, for whoever's playing the tune, the melody, we don't have to sound like that viking twat/genius Yngwie Malmsteen all the time, with his horrid 3-semitone leap between the 2nd and 3rd that you get with Phrygian Dominant. We could call it Melodic Minor, obviously. It would also run from tonic to tonic, so it would effectively raise the 6th and the 7th, but again, it will only be used when the dominant chord is playing, raising the 2nd and 3rd. And playing it Dominant to Dominant, we could call it Mixolydian b6, though Viz will probably come along in a few centuries and want to call it major-minor scale or something stupid like that. (And of course people will know that the reason the Harmonic Minor scale didn't also raise the 2nd, is because the 2nd isn't in the Harmony. It's absent from the chord. So that's why in Harmonic Minor (or Phrygian Dominant), the 2nd was still un-raised, as per Aeolian.)
Anyway, back to Melodic Minor - so in the Melodic Minor scale, we'll use the way up to demonstrate what happens when the Dominant chord is playing - in other words we'll raise the 6th and 7th, but we'll all know it's the 2nd and 3rd of whatever the dominant is - the 5th degree of the scale; and then for the way down, we'll use it to demonstrate the notes of the key - ie we'll demonstrate the notes when the Tonic chord is playing. So we'll return the 6th and 7th to their normal states. But then someone said, Yes but won't that make everyone think that classical musicians only play a raised 6th and 7th on the way up, and lower on the way down? and they said, No, they won't think that, you tosser. they'll know that on the way up it's meant to signify the notes that you play OVER THE DOMINANT CHORD, where it's the raised 2nd and 3rd, and on the way down we use it to show the notes that are played OVER THE TONIC CHORD, where it's the normal 6th and 7th. And they replied, I'm not so sure - I think jazz will be invented and the jazzers will say that classical musicians are all inflexible because they only play raised 6th and 7th on the way up! And they'll say, No, coz there are loads of examples in classical music that have examples of lowered 6th and 7th on the way UP whenever the tonic's playing, and RAISED on the way down, whenever the Dominant's playing!! So they won't think that. And they said, Oh yeah? Like what? And they said, Like the first 3 seconds of this, for example:
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
Edit sorry - I was whizzing through UTJ, it has a middle 8 earlier than I expected! It does go into minor, but it doesn't quite deploy that progression.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
The song seems to be trapped in the melody as the character is trapped in his reverie. So of course the progressions will be similar
Blue Bossa uses melodic minor, Fly Me to the Moon uses Harmonic minor - the biggest similarity I hear is the descending melody lines at the start of both