Printable Version of Topic

Click here to view this topic in its original format

GMC Forum _ THEORY _ Harmonic Minor Scales For Guitar - Mode 3

Posted by: The Professor Sep 5 2013, 12:47 PM

Harmonic Minor For Guitar - Mode 3



In today’s lesson, the third in a series on the Harmonic Minor Modes, we’ll be looking at the different sounds produced by the third mode of the Harmonic Minor Scale.

Used to solo over Maj7#5 chords, the Harmonic Minor 3rd Mode and Arpeggio bring a strong sense of tension to your riffs and lines as it contains the #5 interval over a Maj7 chord.

In this lesson, we’ll be exploring various shapes for the scale, arpeggio and chord derived from the third mode of Harmonic Minor, as well as improv exercises that you can use to solo with this scale/arpeggio over minor chords in different musical situations.



Harmonic Minor Mode 3 One Octave Scales



To begin, we will explore four different one-octave Harmonic Minor 3rd Mode shapes so that you can bring these sounds to your practicing and soloing ideas.

The Harmonic Minor 3rd Mode is built with the following intervals:

R 2 3 4 #5 6 7 R

Or, in the key of C would be:

C D E F G# A B C

Start by working the first shape in all 12 keys across the fretboard, before learning the next 3 shapes.

Once you can play all four shapes from memory, try playing them all back to back in one key, so the 6th, 5th, 4th and 3rd -string root shapes back to back over Amaj7#5 for example.







Harmonic Minor Mode 3 Two Octave Scales



You can also play two-octave versions of the Harmonic Minor 3rd Mode, and here are two fingerings for those scales to check out in the practice room alongside the one-octave shapes presented above.






Harmonic Minor Mode 3 Arpeggios



When breaking up the third mode of the Harmonic Minor scale into an arpeggio, by playing the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th notes of the scale in order, you produce a Maj7#5 sound when using this arpeggio in a soloing situation.

The Maj7#5 arpeggio, as seen below, is used to outline a Maj7#5 chord, which are usually found as a sub for the Imaj7 chord in more modern tunes and progressions.

Here are two shapes for the Cmaj7#5 arpeggio that you can practice and apply to your soloing ideas to bring the Harmonic Minor Mode 3 sound to your riffs and phrases.






Harmonic Minor Mode 3 Chords



You can also play all of the Maj7#5 arpeggio notes together to form the Maj7#5 chord, as you can see in the example below.

Mostly used in jazz and fusion, this chord is a bit tense for most rock and pop songs, but it’s worth exploring in the practice room to see if you can come up with various musical situations to apply this cool-sounding chord.







Harmonic Minor Mode 3 Soloing Exercises



To get started with applying the third mode of Harmonic Minor to your soloing, here is a backing track that you can use in the practice room.

Start by soloing over the track using only 1 one-octave shape, until you’ve covered all four, then start to mix and match them all together.

From there, you can solo over the backing track with the two-octave shapes, and finally the Maj7#5 arpeggio.

The chord progression for the backing track is, 4-bars per chord:

Cmaj7#5 - Dmaj7#5 - Emaj7#5 - Amaj7#5 - Dmaj7#5 - Gmaj7#5 -


 Maj7_5_Backing_Track.mp3 ( 4.18MB ) : 254



Do you have a question about the third mode of the Harmonic Minor Scale? Share your thoughts in the thread below.

Posted by: verciazghra Sep 8 2013, 10:12 AM

https://www.dropbox.com/s/w2uocsc2oxvrwdy/Harmonic%20Minor%203nps.jpg
Hey, this can be helpful when learning these scale patterns! Great article my friend!

Posted by: The Professor Sep 10 2013, 09:44 AM

Thanks, glad you dug the article and thanks for sharing the fingerings!

Powered by Invision Power Board (http://www.invisionboard.com)
© Invision Power Services (http://www.invisionpower.com)