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The Melodic Minor Scale

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The melodic minor was invented in order to give an answer to the strange melodic sound of the harmonic minor scale.

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Remember how talked in the previous page about how the leading tone of the natural minor scale was weak because it was distanced a whole tone from the root note of the natural minor scale?

In the harmonic minor scale we saw that the leading tone (the seventh note) was raised but that created a problem since the distance between the sixth note and the leading tone (In A minor for example the F and G#) was one tone and a half.
Such distance is not acceptable to the ear.

So, Then came melodic minor scale and the sixth note was raised too. So if you'll play A minor in its melodic version as shown in the example above you'll notice that it is far more pleasant to the ear then A harmonic minor.

Now we have to realize that the problem of the leading tone exists only when we play the scale upwards since the effect of the leading tone takes us toward the root note.
for the reason most of the time, melodic minor is used only when ascending. When descending composers prefer to use the natural minor scale.

Going up in A melodic minor and down in A natural minor.

Here's a list of all the melodic minor scales.

A list of all twelve melodic minor scales

And here's a free printable version.

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There are few reasons to learn to play piano scales. Scales will help you to understand the logic behind a piece you play, and give you tools to build piano chords and harmonize tunes by ear, and if you want to improvise you should use scales to play a solo to really impress your friends and fellow musicians.