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Old 10-13-2017, 09:10 AM
mattbn73 mattbn73 is offline
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There's a good reason there aren't common "default" fingerings which everyone uses. Harmonic minor is a beast. I'd imagine that most players use approaches which are geared more toward specific situations than on genetic fingerings which work in all circumstances. Jazz players are more likely to have default fingerings for harmonic minor, but they will incorporate a lot of stretches and are again, kind of beastly.

Honestly, outside of jazz, I would gear things around one-octave-or-less, smaller scale patterns. A seven-note scale, from 6th of harmonic minor descending to the 7th is actually pretty simple. It works well for that V7, and lays out very well in multiple positions on the instrument. For E7, in the key of C: that's F-E-D-C-B-A-G#, And you can basically do that by simply thinking key of C for everything except last note anyway. Old-timer's trick to avoid learning a whole new scale fingering, and works pretty well. Do the same by taking off the top two notes: D-C-B-A-G#. The awkward augmented second is the main problem with playing harmonic minor, and these smaller patterns of with that.

Honestly, many folks are probably just thinking "add a G-sharp to the natural minor".

Last edited by mattbn73; 10-13-2017 at 03:03 PM.
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