Lesson 47: Minor Keys, Part 2 — Melodic Minor and Modal Mixture

Play melodic minor with the asymmetric ascending/descending pattern.
Recognise modal mixture — borrowed chords from the parallel mode — in a Baroque piece.

Lesson 46 — natural and harmonic minor.

Melodic minor.
Modal mixture.
Borrowed chords.

The melodic minor is the minor scale trying to sound natural.

Melodic minor exists to solve a problem: the augmented second of the harmonic minor (between the natural sixth and the raised seventh) is hard to sing. The melodic minor raises both the sixth and the seventh on the way up, then returns to the natural minor on the way down. The result is a scale that sounds smooth ascending and modal descending — a compromise that worked for centuries of vocal writing.

A melodic minor

D melodic minor on your alto staff

Ascending: A B C D E F# G# A. Descending: A G F E D C B A (no sharps). Same key, two paths.

On your alto staff (the transposition of soprano's A minor): ascending D E F G A B C# D; descending D C Bb A G F E D. Same key, two paths.

Modal mixture — borrowing from the parallel

A major-key piece can briefly borrow a chord or note from its parallel minor (the minor scale with the same tonic). The most common case: a Baroque major-key piece dipping into the minor sixth degree for expressive colour.

Phrase in C major; the Ab in the middle is borrowed from C minor. A momentary cloud across the major sun.

On your alto staff this reads in F major; the Db in the middle is borrowed from F minor. A momentary cloud across the major sun.

Now play these

Telemann: Sonata in C minor, TWV 41:c2: C minor — three flats — with all three forms of minor in different passages.; Reads in F minor on your alto staff — four flats — with all three forms of minor in different passages.
Handel: Sonata in B-flat major, HWV 377 (Allegro): Major-key piece with modal mixture moments — brief darkenings, quickly resolved.
Telemann: Sonata in D minor (complete): The complete D minor sonata. Multiple movements; all three forms of minor appear.

When you can play melodic minor in two keys and recognise modal mixture in a piece you have not seen before, move on to Lesson 48 — the start of the ornament-and-repertoire half of upper intermediate.