Ok, here's the scenario:
You're on a gig, hot lights, smoke, lasers, big red rubber fire breathing dragon in the back... and all night long, your most mind bending, paint peeling off the walls, apocalyptic, licks of devastation have absolutely no effect on the drunken audience...All of the sudden, from a dark corner of the room, someone screams for the dreaded "Freebird" and you know your last minutes as a respected guitarist are flying by faster than greased moose poop... your legs buckle, your stomach churns, your hands sweat, your mind is putty...

What do you do next? WHAT DO YOU DO!?


Have no fear, my frightened little friend, just play the MELODIC MINOR scale!


Most rock or blues players tend to stick to the Pentatonic scale (which i will now refer to as "mommy" since, just like mommy, it's so comfortable to run to whenever our playing starts to head down uncharted paths and gets us in trouble). Running to "mommy" is just fine, some players make a career on it. Some of us even went on to bigger and better things such as the major scale and it's modes or even...GASP!... the harmonic minor scale (thanks Yngwie!).

i'm writing this lesson, however, for the players out there who aren't satisfied with the standard sounds we've all come to know and become comfortable with, such as "mommy". Many of you may have already at least played through a fingering for the Melodic Minor scale and decided it's too weird, or too hard, or too... not like "mommy". You do not make progress at anything on the instrument unless you make things uncomfortable, such as working new tonalities into your playing. This is where the Melodic Minor comes into play. There are not many places to hear this wonderful scale in rock music, but that's kinda the point of doing it. Let us now try and...


dum dum DUM!


Demystify Melodic Minor! (repeat the word "minor" here several times and fade for dramatic effect)


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