Beyond The Major Scale
Divide & Conquer some more
I started this fretboard anatomy thing from the major scale, but let’s see how we can move forward from there.
As a first step, let’s flatten the 3rd, creating the melodic minor scale.
(You'll see why I included C lydian b7 in a second).
Here’s what C melodic minor looks like across the neck:
(The red squares are the root notes, in this case “C”.)
Pretty simple, right?
Now instead of going for other modes or harmonic minor, let’s go for the diminished scale.
This is a symmetrical scale which, pretty much always, gets pictured with this diagonally symmetrical pattern across the neck.
This might seem convenient, but I find it incredibly disorienting and it just forces me to “play the pattern”, instead of being aware of the notes.
There are 2 diminished scales: half/whole and whole/half.
So, what do the melodic minor scale and the diminished scale have to do with each other?
Well, if we take a closer look at the intervals written below/between the notes, we can see that this pretty much happens:
To go from C melodic minor to C whole half diminished, we have to “split” the 5th into two.
And to get to C half/whole diminished, we can take the Lydian b7 scale and split the 2nd into two.
(Note that is actually the same process as the first one but in G melodic minor).
So now that we know this, we can construct the diminished scales in 7 positions again and keep a nice overview!
(Other note: the “relatedness” of the melodic minor and diminished scale is more relevant to us in relation to the anatomy of the fretboard,
i.e. how we can go from octave shapes → major scale → melodic minor → diminished.
They’re not necessarily related in a harmonically functional way, although they can both be used over dominant chords.)
Here are the diagrams of the diminished scales:
I added in some doubled notes here and there on strings 2 & 3, where it made sense.
These diagrams are for reference only.
They should NOT be memorized.
You have to be able to generate this for yourself by knowing:
where the root notes are (aka the octave shapes);
which direction you can go in;
what the intervals are in relation to the root.
Happy practicing