Files
kennethreitz ce93f429a2 Add Knowledge: the vault's reference shelf, crosslinked across the site
Publish the Obsidian vault's Knowledge folder as /knowledge (881 notes,
67 folders), with a Knowledge item in the nav and footer.

- scripts/import_knowledge.py regenerates data/knowledge from the vault:
  slugged paths, folder notes as index pages, wikilinks resolved to site
  links (or plain text), callouts, highlights, and Dataview tables
  rendered statically. Personal notes are withheld via an exclusion
  list plus a privacy guard.
- tuftecms/core/knowledge.py builds a concept index from note titles and
  aliases. First mentions on ordinary pages link to their Knowledge note
  (capped, never in headings, code, links, or sidenotes); Knowledge pages
  list related notes and where they're mentioned across the site; other
  pages get a Related Knowledge block.
- Knowledge URLs join sitemap.xml (so the sweep test covers them), never
  displace existing legacy slugs, list alphabetically, and mermaid
  diagrams render client-side only on pages that have them.
2026-10-18 20:08:46 -04:00

2.3 KiB

description, source
description source
A major scale that never got over its lowered third. obsidian-knowledge

Melodic Minor

A major scale that never got over its lowered third.


The Scale

The melodic minor is the classical solution to a problem the harmonic minor created. Raising the seventh degree of natural minor gave harmony its leading tone but left an awkward augmented-second leap in the melody. So composers raised the sixth degree too, smoothing the ascent into a graceful line of whole and half steps. The result, going up, is a scale that is a major scale with a single alteration — a flattened third. Traditionally the melodic minor descends as pure natural minor, restoring both the flat sixth and flat seventh, which is why it is sometimes called the scale with two faces. Modern jazz theory ignores the descent entirely and treats the ascending form as a scale in its own right.

Structure

Attribute Value
Notes (from C) C D E♭ F G A B (ascending)
Interval formula W H W W W W H
Number of notes 7
Defining feature Minor with raised 6th and 7th ascending; a major scale with a flat 3rd

Character

Because only one note separates it from the major scale, the melodic minor sounds bright, poised, almost optimistic for something called minor. The flat third supplies just enough shadow to keep it from tipping into cheerfulness, while the raised sixth and seventh give the ascending line a forward lean, an eagerness to arrive. It is a subtle, sophisticated colour — less overtly dramatic than harmonic minor, more ambiguous, harder to pin to a single mood.

In Practice

Its classical home is the ascending melodic line in minor-key writing from the Baroque onward. In jazz it is a workhorse: the ascending melodic minor generates a whole family of useful modes, most famously the altered scale played over dominant seventh chords, making it indispensable to bebop and modern improvisers reaching for tension over a turnaround.