harmonic minor scale question

Lango-Django

OK, I know I should've done this a long time ago, but I'm trying to learn some sort of version of the harmonic minor scale... For simplicity's sakes, lets just say the Am harmonic minor scale.

Now I'm currently working on the fingering that's centred around frets 5 to 8, which seems to be the easiest one on offer, and I'm finding it challenging to get it under my fingers, so I'm really kind of hesitant to commit to learning all the other positions.

OK, I'm fully aware that a REAL player, which I'm not, would just suck it up and learn all the different positions.

So my question, as a kind of halfass player--- What I'm thinking is just mastering this one position and then trying to use it to pull some good licks out of it.

Would that be a cunning plan?

hanear21

Though it doesn't seem like the most economical approach, I think this would work just fine as long as you transpose the licks onto different positions of the fretboard and in different keys.

Buco

Mine and many others problem that are trying to advance their playing while in the advanced age, musically speaking, is that we think of a whole pie when faced with new horizons.
Take it, not even a slice, but a bite at the time, even though I'm sure you can teach me about that much more then other way around.
Anyway I don't think there's anything wrong or halfassed about learning and mastering a single position. As long as you can use it during performance it'll only make you sound richer and cooler when you hit that raised 7th note, sooo gypsy.

Bones

From my transcriptions of Django, TYPICALLY (but not always) he plays the scale on the way down (lower pitch) but when going up usually plays a 7b9 arp or a diminished arp (obviously uses it over a dominant 7th chord).

You'll want to learn the vertical positions of it and maybe even a couple horizontal ones. They show up a lot in the transcriptions (i.e minor swing, dark eyes, ou es tu,.....).

I find that if I use them in context it helps me to remember them.

Lango-Django

Great advice, Stuart. Playing those notes up at frets 9 and 10 on the G and B strings is very handy and sounds great... and so much easier than actually mastering that @#$! harmonic minor scale.

Can I come to you for all my advice from now on?

Jazzaferri

Or you could play an C major scale starting with your little finger in S6 and working up in that position. then play that same Cmaj scale but start on the S6 A with your pointer finger and raise the 7th or not as the whim takes you. Now you have two scale postions.

Te most important scale to master ismthe chromatic scale ...as then you just leave out the otes you dont want

Lango-Django

OK, Stuart, since you hit the jackpot on my previous question, I'm going to try you with another one.

Just today I started fooling around with an idea that seems to be promising, I call it the "sixth sandwich".

I play some kind of a sixth on say strings five and three... lets say we're on an Am chord... so I play an E and an C like this

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-----------------5---------------------------
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--------7------------------------------------
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and that sets me up to play some kind of an Am-ish phrase on the D string, eg

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-----9-----7-----9-----7------------------
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Ever messed around with this idea? I'm not sure where I heard it, but it seems like it's in the idiom.

I don't really like sixths on the E and G strings because they sound kind of like guitar cliches, but on the lower strings they sound kind of cool.

Any thoughts?

Buco

Lango-Django wrote:

OK, Stuart, since you hit the jackpot on my previous question, I'm going to try you with another one.

Hey give a guy a credit heeya, I need a nudge too:

Buco wrote:

it'll only make you sound richer and cooler when you hit that raised 7th note, sooo gypsy.

I was too vague, I meant a raised 7th degree of a relative minor. Or you meant something completely different and I'm just making a fool out of myself..

HarryR

Will, To me the problem with learning any scale in 1 position is that it extremely limiting. Imagine the Givone method limited to 1 position, or 1 key only. One thing I found really helpful when I wanted to try and nail Harmonic minor was in the Wrembel book, "Gettting into G.J. There is a page of exercises that ascend as the common diminished run and descend as harmonic minor. There are 4 examples each starting on a different note in the diminished chord [ 7b9] and the H.M. scale returning down from 4 different places. The beauty of this is with each position you can learn what makes harmonic minor what it is. The b6 becomes the b9 of the dom. chord , the maj 7th the 3rd ect. In the book I think the examples are in Dm but just like the Givone method they should be played in the other keys once you have them under you fingers. Harry

richter4208

Simplify, try learning just the 1,b3,5,7 arps in all positions.

VERY useful.

Bones

Or try it in the context of the 7b9 chord.

Play your D7b9 arp going up (higher pitch) and G harmonic minor scale going down (lower pitch) and resolve to either the D or the G.

Do it in all the keys (E7 to Amin, B7 to Em, etc.) and all the positions.

It's always easier for me to remember it by using it in the context.