7 notes · the natural 7th over a ♭3
Natural minor with the seventh raised back up, so the key gets a real dominant: the V is major and its leading tone points at the tonic. The cost is the step of three semitones between ♭6 and 7, which is what makes the scale sound the way it does.
Heard in: Minor-key classical harmony, gypsy jazz, neoclassical metal.
The whole scale. Choose a chord below and this row will show which of these notes it uses.
Take every other note of the scale and you have a chord. Do it from each degree in turn and you have the key. Each row below is that stack, and the letters in it say what each scale note becomes in that chord — so the Db of the scale is the 3rd of one chord, the 5th of another and the root of a third. Choose a row to see it on the neck.
| Degree | Chord | Bb 1 | C 2 | Db ♭3 | Eb 4 | F 5 | Gb ♭6 | A 7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| i | BbmMaj7 | R | · | 3 | · | 5 | · | 7 |
| ii° | Cm7b5 | 7 | R | · | 3 | · | 5 | · |
| ♭III+ | Dbmaj7#5 | · | 7 | R | · | 3 | · | 5 |
| iv | Ebm7 | 5 | · | 7 | R | · | 3 | · |
| V | F7 | · | 5 | · | 7 | R | · | 3 |
| ♭VI | Gbmaj7 | 3 | · | 5 | · | 7 | R | · |
| vii° | Adim7 | · | 3 | · | 5 | · | 7 | R |
Every note of the scale appears in four of these chords, and every chord shares three of its four notes with the chord a third away from it. That overlap is why one can be substituted for another.
The chords on Bb whose every note this scale contains, biggest first. The largest of them is the one that pins the scale down: over BbmMaj11 there is nothing in Bb harmonic minor that can sound wrong.
Every scale on every root is on the scale index, and every chord on the chord index. Where the shapes and the theory come from is on the about page.
Shows each chord the way this style would voice it, and marks which of its alternatives belong to the idiom.