OK, kids, get out your guitars and let's take a whack at a cool chord - the MinorMajor 7, and its evil associated scale - the harmonic minor (which is the darkest of all scales). I know what you're thinking - how can a chord be both minor and major at the same time? Even if you weren't thinking that, the point is the Major in MinorMajor7 refers to the 7. It's a minor chord but it has a major7 in it. Confused? Good. Now, here are the notes in a G MinMaj7:
G MinMaj7: G · Bb · D · F#
The Bb makes it minor, and the F# is the major7. Now for the G harmonic minor scale, it's main characteristic is the 3 fret difference between the 6th and 7th notes in the scale. It's notes are:
G · A · Bb · C · D · Eb · F#
Yes, there's a big leap between that Eb and the F#. That's what makes it special (and a bit evil). The astute student will also note that if you construct the G harmonic minor's characteristic chord by taking the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th scale degrees, you get (gasp) G MinMaj7. The not-so-astute student has probably skipped over this part and is already on page 2.... Play the example below and listen how they sound together.
