Melodic Minor Scale

The Melodic Minor scale is a 7-note scale in the common family. Minor at the bottom, major at the top — the b3 keeps it minor while the natural 6 and 7 lift the upper half into a smooth climb home. Bittersweet rather than dark, with a polished, modern-jazz sheen. Heard in: Jazz lines over minor and altered chords, film scoring, and classical melodies rising to the tonic — Bach, Mozart, and bebop alike. Like every scale, it is defined by the semitone distances between its degrees, so the same pattern produces the scale from any starting note. Pick a tonic below to see the notes it contains.