Mode Lesson 2: Harmonic Minor - I smell bach-rock!

[Devine]

A clarification: the P4 is only dissonant when it occurs above the lowest voice. *I actually don't understand what that means, since there is no interval below the bass note to dictate an interval, unless movement to a note is considered, in which case that might make some sense. *Well-tempered Klavier by Philipp Emmanuel Bach. *Take a look at counter point rules. *Inverting a note to a consonance does not make the original note consonant:

m3 (dissonant) <-> M6 (consonant)
m2 (dissonant) <-> M7 (consonant)
M2 (dissonant) <-> m7 (really dissonant)

Plagal cadences are not nearly as significant in tonal as perfect authentic cadences, V7-I or V-I in root position; "Amen" is a plagal cadence, but it is only a tag to the perfect authentic cadence. They sound "final", but were not employed as such by strict interpreters of counterpoint.

-Devin

[Courjan]

I think the harmonic minor must be taken as an individual scale because some of it's modes are practically used in music. It's 5. mode, Mixolydian (b9,b13) for example is widely used in jazz.
Same goes for melodic(jazz) minor.