The Melodic Minor Scale is essential for every advanced improviser as it provides some very usable options for soloing on minor, dominant, altered dominant, and even major chords. For me, it was a very accessible way to step outside the confines of diatonic harmony and get some of those other tones into my playing like my heroes John Scofield, Mike Stern, and Allan Holdsworth, among many others.
The Melodic Minor Scale is very subtle and requires you to spend some time really listening to it before it reveals itself. This can be achieved by getting it onto the fretboard through consistent practice, which is what this book is all about. Here you’ll find the patterns for all 12 Melodic Minor Scales with their corresponding triads, seventh chords and modes.
BONUS: If you’ve studied the patterns in Hacking the CAGED System (Book 1) or Major Scale Modes Designed for the Guitar, you’ll have a huge head start as these Melodic Minor Scale patterns are based on the Major Scale ones used in those books.
In this book, our focus is less on theory and more on getting the information onto the fretboard, then when you come to learn the theory behind it, you’ll be able to apply it in a practical way. Indeed, if you check out Hacking the CAGED System (Book 2), it contains these patterns plus an in-depth look at the chords, arpeggios, and modes of the Melodic Minor Scale and the theory behind them.