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Cm7 ? Which one? There are all the modal minors and there are the harmonic and melodic, at least. Are we talking 'natural minor' maybe dorian?



My point was very much at a tangent to that consideration; primarily a general one about the potential 'pitfalls' of thinking about scales built on a root of the written chord symbol (minor or otherwise) and not the higher intervals of the chord.

But dealing with your query goes back to your original question at the top of the thread regarding the confusion in your mind over why the natural sixth should appear in what is otherwise supposed to be a pure minor situation. This would have to be dealt with on a tune by tune examination of the primary key signature I think. There are always the possibility of 'accidentals', modal interchange and 'borrowed' chords from parallel modes in a tune and that can't be discarded as a source of the confusion.

Once you are in an improvising scenario however its obviously a choice you have to make whether to observe the presence of say the 6th as an implied dorian scale/chord, a melodic minor (not usually denoted by just a 6th but usually by a maj7) or as some other scale involving a 6th. You could even choose to ignore it altogether. You wouldn't be 'wrong' but you may be going further 'out' than you might want to.


This is where I find Lydian Chromatic thinking useful. The order of 'in to out' scale choices on a Cm13 for example would be C Dorian, C Melodic Minor, C Lydian Diminished mode VI(C D Eb F#G Ab Bb), C Blues. They would be all within a broadly consonant range. Outside scales in order would be C Harmonic Minor, C w/h diminished, C Phrygian, C locrian, C h/w diminished.
In other words scales involving some or all of the following (b2, the maj3rd next to the m3rd, and the #5) would be considered the most 'outside' choices.

I'm not a great fan as i said of always using the 'correct' mode for every chord and even then not one built on the root as it often leads to improvised lines that merely 'agree' with the harmony and can lead one's attention away from referencing the melody at the top note of the chord.

Hope this helps in some way.

Alan