PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Woodshedding - Learning to Play! Question about minor II V I's

I have done a lot of work on this since I posted . I am beginning to get a hold on all this, so I thought I would post my current view.

The subject is VERY confusing, one needs time to really digest what's going on, but here is my run down.

I suggest a relaxed mind...

Minor II V I's do NOT draw from one parent scale like the majors do (in rudimentary interpretation).

Lets consider the minor II V I in C. This is commonly:

D half diminished, G7alt, D minor 6.

I would see that as a bog standard minor II V I.

Looking at the one chord first:

The one can be any minor, it can be dorian, harmonic, melodic, natural...

The only minors that have a natural 6 are the dorian and the melodic. So, if you want to keep the major six in your I chord, then you can play one of these two scales. If the sixth is flattened then you can deal in either harmonic or natural minor, maybe at a push a Phrygian (rare).
If you are still playing a leading tone on the I chord (B in C major) then this kicks you out of thinking natural minor. It also means that Phrygian and Dorian scales don't fit on the seventh tone. If you want to keep the minor third (practically the only thing left signifying a minor sound), then you probably want ot be in I melodic minor. This has the b3 and the major 7th - B in this case.

The II half diminished is a locrian chord. If the minor key were drawn from the natural minor, then this would make sense, as its true that the natural minor key is a minor third down from its relative major and therefore the II of such a key would be back up a whole tone to a semitone below the major root - the Locrian Mode of Eb major (relative minor of C).

With me so far?

The Locrian Mode fits well over this II chord, however many jazzers, modern jazzers use the Locrian Raised 9th.

What is a Locrian Raised 9? well, its also a mode. Its the sixth mode of the Melodic minor! So, what's confusing is its not the 2nd mode of the melodic minor, its the sixth mode! This means that if we were playing a D Locrian raised 9th scale we would be in the key of F melodic minor not C!

My head hurts!

Turining to the V chord of a minor II V I in C, G Alt, although this functions as a dominant, and its also true that the Alt scale is often played over a dominant in a major II V I, the Altered scale is NOT very close to the dominant or myxolydian mode.

Over the V in II V I you can play a G Alt chord, and you can pair this chord with the Altered scale. The Altered scale is Root,b9,#9,Major third, #4,#5, b7.

This is a spelling for the notes, it may not be strictly correct. The Altered scale is a very strange beast. Enharmonically, it has two thirds, both the minor and the major thirds.
If you count the notes and respell the chord it has:

1
b2
b3
b4
b5
b6
b7
1

Its like a major scale with all notes flattened. Obviously, if you took this one further, and flattened the root, you would have B major - a major scale a semitone down.

The 'normal' chord sounded over this scale is NOT the root, third note and fifth note. A bog standard sounding of this chord in G would be G B (the fourth tone), D#(! the sixth tone of the altered scale) and if you wish the flat seventh. If you were to be strict and voice the root the third note and the fifth note, you would instead end up voicing a half diminished chord! Paradoxically, its easy to hear this chord as Root Major third and #fifth. Its enharmonically equivalent to this, but if you count the notes the third is not in the third position and the raised fifth is actually in the sixth position.

My brain hurts more...

The altered scale is also known as the Super locrian mode, as the Pomeroy scale, the Ravel scale, and the diminished whole-tone scale (due to its resemblance to the diminished scale and the whole-tone scale) as well as the dominant whole-tone scale and Locrian flat four.

I quite like the term 'diminished whole tone' as the scale ascends (in C) C Db Eb E, which is like a diminished scale going from half step, to whole step, to half step and then whole tone steps from there on. But we will stick with altered scales.

The Altered scale is a mode of the melodic minor, but which melodic minor?

Maybe you could expect it to be the fifth mode of C melodic minor? No. Its not so easy. The altered scale is the SEVENTH mode of the melodic minor. In other words if you were playing in C melodic minor, you would find this scale starting on B NOT G! If you were playing in G melodic minor, you would find the altered scale at F#. We want the G altered scale, which is found as the seventh mode of Ab!

G is the 7th mode of Ab melodic minor - so if you were to go with this way of thinking, you have to think Ab over the V chord over a minor II V I in C!

So, summarising: We find that a minor II V I, has no real 'parent' key.

To recap:

The II chord can be either a D Locrian or Locrian raised II

The 5 Chord is 'altered' the altered scale is the seventh mode Ab melodic minor not C or G.

The I chord can be any type of minor - natural, melodic, harmonic or Dorian. If it has a Im6 then this boils down choices to Dorian and Melodic.

All this leads me to suspect that one thing is going on. In the five chord the third is raised from what modally would be a Bb to a B. This gives the V chord a dominant function and it ties in with the melodic minor scale type of thinking. Often a harmony is simply about this, increasing the dominant function of the V chord, so as it releases more tension to the I chord. All this talk about melodic and harmonic minor scales can boil down to this - often - in a way at least.

When I think about all this in real time, its too easy to get confused when you improvise, it gets too much for instant recall.

I have been taking this stuff through all 12 keys, and for me,

I have simplified my thinking by:

1] Realising there is no real parent key.

2] Playing a Locrian over the II, sometimes raising its second. If I want a locrian for a given tone I just play the major scale a semitone above, from its seventh tone.

3] Learning the altered scales as a unique scale rather than as the sixth mode of whatever... The way I see these notes are as a 'pretty Arabic pattern' up to the major third then whole tone scale until reaching the octave - whole tone steps between major third and octave. Pretty Arabic pattern equals root, b9,#9 maj 3rd.
Simply playing an altered chord (G B D# F) over the altered chord, I now realise its wrong to think of this as a stack of thirds. There is NOT one note between the Root and the 'major third' (used in the chord), but two. Similarly the #5 is actually a flat 6th if we are talking altered scales.
Filling in the gaps between the #5/b6 and the neighbouring chord tones actually means there are no fill notes between the #5/b6 and the flat 7 (in the altered scale) and from the #5/b6 to the 'major 3rd/flat fourth there is only one tone, the #4/b5. It takes a relaxed and focussed mind to get all this in place.

As for the one chord, this is fairly easy, as long as you are sure which kind of minor you want.
Up until the perfect fifth most common minors are the same (except Phrygian). It's the sixth and seventh that can vary. One has to be very careful, because playing a major sixth where the band is playing minor, or playing a major seventh where the band is playing minor (or vica versa) is to my mind clash city. If you do so, a trick is to disguise it as a passing tone to the correct seventh.

Rarely I suppose one can have a I of a Phrygian, or even a I major, but these are exceptions I guess.

Takes a while to get all this going...

Obviously, there are other options, but this seems a good place to start. Chromatic framgents and passing tones work well too.


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