Whenever it was optional to do harmonics or melodics I always chose harmonics! But now since I have had to work on both, I get confused! My piano teacher now has a 6 week holiday and without her I have no idea if I'm playing them right or wrong! To make things worse my exam is in the autumn somewhere so if none of my piano work is up to scratch I shall fail the exam!

Has anyone got any advice to help me with my scales?

For melodics going up, play the major scale with a flattened third note, then come down in the natural minor, which is the key of the flattened third.

So A minor melodic, go up in the major but play C instead of C sharp, then come down in C major, which is the natural minor.

For the harmonic, go up and down the same way, play the natural minor with a sharpened 7th, with A minor again, all naturals with the exception of the G making it a G sharp giving that wonderful augmented 2nd at the top.

Another way of thinking about it is to play the melodic scale in the same way as the harmonic except for the fact the 6th note is raised as well as the 7th going ascending. Descending, follow the key signature. So for A minor, there is an F# as well as a G# going up, and then coming down, effectively you play all the white notes as there are no accidentals in the key signature.

Car Expert

Thankyou!
I'll definately take those into consideration.

Or get yourself a scales book to refer to until you are sure.

If you know the rules of the melodic scale, it is then easier to start learning...

1. When you are ascending, raise the 6th & 7th Notes a semitone (half-tone) higher.

2. When descending, lower the raised 7th & 6th notes back to the original notes.

Start with the easiest minors... like A minor & E minors. DON'T look at the book just to try to learn it blindly... If you look at it with understanding of the rules, you are able to learn faster.

P.S: I make it a point to teach the studen from grade 1 up all minor scales in the Melodics too. For the exams, they get to choose if they want to play the harmonic or melodics.

Some of them choose to play the melodics even at grade 1... much to the plesant surprise of the examnier

Probably not at all helpful, but when I was young and first learning scales I just remembered that harmonic sounds a bit like snake charming music at the top end, and is the same both up and down. Melodic is exactly what it says in the key signature on the way down, and sounds major on the way up except for the flat third. It's a good idea to know the theory though!
N

They're easy to work out. Spend some time playing natural minors first (the same notes as the major key starting a minor third higher, so A minor is like C major, E minor is like G major etc). Once you have the feel of those, on the way up, sharpen the 6th and 7th notes and play the natural version on the way down. That's all there is to it. After learning a few this way, you will probably have learned how they are supposed to sound, so could work out ones starting on other notes by ear.

Learn the basic theory behind how the scales are constructed and check out how they sound by playing them from a scale book. IME you'll find them much easier if you understand them, rather than them just being a random selection of notes.

When I first learned these I thought of it as the sharp (or natural) from the way down had hopped over to the other side, so there's two on the way up and none coming down. Probably not a very useful comment