ok, so there is melodic minor, harmonic minor, and regular natural minor, right?
so if im making a song in g# minor, would i use the regular minor scale for the base of the instruments? would i use the harmoic minor scale for the chords and chor progression? and would i use the melodic minor for the melody?
i know you can modulate or whatever its called to another root note. so would i change the use of all the scales at that point to match the one i 'modulated' to?

i know there is no BLACK and WHITE with music, its, "just what sounds good". but im asking if this is a general trend people notice or use during song production. thanks-

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Errrm, no. Harmonic Minors and Melodic Minors are different keys and shouldn't be used together. You can modulate to your hearts content thereafter, but the track needs to be founded on one root key and not several.

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I would stick with natural minor

Harmonic minor kinda gives you an exotic middle eastern type of scale

Melodic minor should be avoided altogether unless if you really know your music theory and know what you are doing.

Most trance tracks use natural minor and I'm not trying to tell you to be like everyone else and copy them but it is just generally what "works"

Also, instead of using G# minor I would use a key one semitone above or below such as G minor or A minor... G# minor isn't a popular key... G# A# B C# D# E F# G# (too many sharps) whereas G minor only has 2 flats and A minor has no sharps or flats

Here's my general advice:
- For chords make sure EVERY note is in the natural minor scale
- For the melody make sure that the melody line always contains at least several notes in the chord of the song at the moment. Now if you want, you can try to CAREFULLY add some notes that are not in the key of your track to add some interesting melodies. Oh yeah, and if it doesn't sound good, it means it doesn't sound good so scrap it.

Kewlness got it pretty spot on, only thing I'd add is it's called transposing, not modulating.

ok thanks for the tips. i always wonder about stuff like this and have no one to ask, so i may still have a few strange questions coming like this one.

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Unity in Diversity-

Yeah, most of it has been pretty much covered already.

I slightly disagree on the "avoid melodic minor" bit, though. Melodic minor is what's classically used more often than natural minor, thanks to the leading tone in the scale.

The reason most trance (including most of the stuff I write) is in natural is because of the chord progressions. Many trance progressions are in stepwise motion, instead of moving around in a more classical format (i.e. moving down from I, to vii, to VI, rather than the typical I-iv-V or something). You don't want to linger on the leading tone if that's how your chords are moving. Generally speaking, of course.

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nice bit of help there for a newboy (myself), cheers kewlness

i knew there was some sort of reason for all the notes splattered all over the midi lane of a trance lead )

are there any more sources were you can get further info on this.

is there a better explanation on i vii and VI? thanks..

Im still learning on these stuff.

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Can someone post some midi files with these different scales in them?

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maybe this is what you're looking for....

http://www.completechords.com/Pages..._Full_Index.htm

was posted somewhere in this forum.....thanks for the dude who posted it.....

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The riff from Binary Finary - 1998 is in Melodic Minor, so that should tell you something about whether or not it works well for trance

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"When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading."

i hate to be an ass, but actually it is not...
first of all.. let's look a the key.. it's in B-minor (that is it starts and ends in that key for all intensive purposes)...

and the main melody goes like this
B-E-F#, F# G# A

while G# is in melodic minor and not natural minor, A is in natural minor and not melodic minor...

So what accounts for this G# and A?? Simply the transition between the keys...

Looking at the main riff again, we have
Bmin
B-E-F#

and then
Dmaj
F#-G#-A

The D major chord has G# and A
while the Bmin natural has G and A...

Now how did I find the key for the song?? Listen to the bassline and listen for "important" notes in the melody. Also take note of the harmonizing notes and take into account if the notes that are being played is in the key... Generally, you don't really have to know all that, but just wanted to share what 10 years of classical and jazz music training has taught me