Been trying to learn scales by learning songs. What are some songs I can use to learn harmonic minor?
Preferably songs that don’t just borrow chords from the scales. The songs can also use the modes of the harmonic minor.
This is mostly phrygian dominant, the fifth mode of harmonic minor.
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The truth is that not a lot is actually written in specifically harmonic minor or any of its modes. The idea of harmonic minor being its own distinct mode is fairly recent (and by that I mean 100 years). Back in the day (day of common practice/tonal harmony/functional harmony) the harmonic, melodic, and natural minor were all extensions of the minor scale and intertwined fluidly depending on what both the harmony and melody required. This is more of a deeper music theory discussion though.
If you are a rock guitar player and want songs that reek of it - All of Yngwie Malmsteen’s catalogue. Like seriously, all of it.
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Yeah, what Fossegrim said - if you want something to practice harmonic minor in, play or write in natural minor but then every once in a while add a V-i resolution. You can certainly just write a melody in harmonic minor and then flesh out chords around it and go from there, but more traditionally would be a song in a minor key, and possibly including the occasional minor 5 chord, but that modulates to harmonic minor for V-i modulations.
Idunno, something like Am - C - F - Em - Dm - F- C - E and repeat.
If you don’t want to go about it in this sense, then maybe just play an A drone and improvise in A harmonic minor, and every now and then drop an E under the G#. But, definitely think about the A harmonic minor as having not a major 7th to the tonic, but a major 3rd to the 5th.
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^ this is pretty much it. If one wants a really simple description it is basically a way of implementing a stronger V-i resolution in a minor key since you have a lot of pull both downward and upwards to the tonic by doing that. You may find something that may be classified a modal harmonic minor vamp, but not typically. Both harmonic and melodic minor were mostly seen as tools to adhere to good voice leading.
Melodic minor is another permutation used in mostly melodic contexts, and for the same voice leading principles as above but you guessed it to handle more of the melody lines in a piece. The two could be used simultaneously in the piece. Nobody back them considered them distinct modes or scales, they were all just the minor scale that would augment the 6th and 7th degrees depending on what was needed from a harmonic/melodic/voice leading perspective.
Melodic Minor however has come to prominence starting in the 20th century as a standalone and is super popular in jazz.
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Man that is hardcore megadeth… what song is that? … If dave stole that, humm…
Sails of Charon from Scorpions. Predates Megadeth by a good 6 years.
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Really just adding to what others have said. You could also look at baroque period music (especially Bach) and transcribe parts / lines.
It’s easy to confuse scales with keys. You don’t necessarily write in the scale of harmonic minor, you write in a minor key and use harmonic minor where necessary / intended, etc. All of these ‘altered in some way’ scales and modes often have the best effect when used occasionally.
Take a simple i, iv, V chord progression.
Am - Aminor
Dm - Aminor
E - A harmonic minor / E phrygian dominant (really hammer home that G#).
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More hardcore YJM. Uli was one of his influences no matter how much he wafts in and out of claiming otherwise.
So it’s contextual right. It really depends on the use case, and what you are trying to achieve and maybe something that is best looked at holistically in many cases. You could write something that is primarily modal; it just has certain limitations, and in many cases there may be a better interpretation of what’s actually happening.
The difficulty with strict modal writing is that with the exception of a few of the modes, you are really just stuck with a relatively small number of chords before whatever you try to compose starts to become an unstable progression and lose its gravity towards an established tonic.
It’s often the case that much of what people may claim is modal, is really just a good example of modal interchange. Which IMHO is a far more useful concept.
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