In Blue Bossa I suggested improvising over Do - G7 - Cm7 using the C natural minor scale, which has the same notes as Eb major. By doing this you are really treating the key of Cmasif it were its relative major, E>. The chords that fitC natural minor are thesameas the chords from the scale of Ebmajor, startingon Cm7: Fig 10.11: C natural minor scale and the chords constructed from it Cm? D* BM Fm? Gm? ABA Bb 3667 b. ' W mW vv v vl vil Although this is a convenient and simple solution, it is not completely satisfactory, mainly because of the lack ofa dominant chord on V. The harmonic minor scale As its name suggests, this scale gives another set of chords which correspond better to the flavour of the minor key: Fig 10.12: C harmonic minor scale and the chords constructed from it Cm = D* Eb Fm? G7 ADS BO 56 |a7 bs 1 " mW v v vw vil There's now a dominant seventh (G7) on V, but the I chord has changed to CmA because of the major seventh in the scale. ‘We've already come across the harmonic minor in the following contexts: © Montuno for Monty (Vol. 1, p.74) Key Dm: D harmonic minor over VI triads: A—Dm (@ Fly Meto the Moon (Vol. 1, Fig 4.18) Key Am: A harmonic minor over l-V—Ichords: Bo-E7—Am7 Take care not to let the G in the scale clash with the G in the Am7 chord © Summertime (Fig 8.23) Key Am: A harmonic minor over alternating IV chords: Am—E7 There's no clash here, since an Am triad is used as the Ichord. © White Russian (Vol. 1, p.215) Key Fm: F harmonic minor overbWI-V-I chords: DeA~C7—Fm As above, this works because 7 is absent from the Ichord. ‘Try using a C harmonic minor scale to improvise over all three chords of a t—-V =Hin C minor, as in the solo sections of Softly as in a Morning Sunrise overleaf: Fig 10.13: Horizontal improvisation using C harmonic minor scale Cm pb a Cm ‘The Cm chord in Fig 10.13 is given as a R3 shell to avoid the clash when Cm7 or Cmé6 are played with the harmonic minor scale, See also ‘Major and minor tonic chord choices’, Vol. 1, p.213.