Back in the 17th and 18th Centuries composers started getting pretty bored. So why not screw around with the minor scales? Sounds like a good idea to me, if you're a dork. But anyway if you're dorky enough to be interested in this stuff (like me), then read on.
You already know the natural minor scale. The natural minor scale we talked about in Lesson 1.
Okay, back in the 17th and 18th Centuries composers started to change the minor scale. Composers did not like the interval between the flattened seventh note and the eighth note. So they decided to make the seventh sharp, just like the major scale. This scale became the harmonic minor scale:
w h w w h 1.5 step h
1 2 b3 4 5 b6 #7 8 (Notes in bold are natural)
C D Eb F G Ab B C
A 1.5 step is a distance of three frets on the guitar. This 1.5 step gives the scale kind of a Middle Eastern sound.
But once again composers got bored. They didn't like that 1.5 step so they sharpened note 6 also, which created the melodic minor scale.
w h w w w w h
1 2 b3 4 5 #6 #7 8
C D Eb F G A B C
But composers loved the way the natural minor descended, so they decided that the melodic minor scale would ascend as written above and descend with the normal natural minor scale.
I know this is confusing. If you don't understand it, forget it.