Livestream | Minor Jazz Songs and the Harmonic Minor Scale

Hi, I’m Dallas Vietty—accordion performer and educator based in Pennsylvania, USA. I’ve been teaching jazz and creative music-making on accordion online for over ten years. In this livestream, we’re diving into a topic that confuses a lot of players, but is absolutely essential for sounding great on minor jazz tunes: the harmonic minor scale and its role in chord construction and improvisation.

The session is titled “Minor Jazz Songs and the Harmonic Minor Scale”, and we’ll explore what makes this scale—and other minor modes—so harmonically powerful and tricky. I’ll be breaking down how the 6th and 7th degrees of the scale shape tension and gravity in the music, and how different choices in those notes create totally different feelings and harmonic possibilities. Whether the sound pulls upward toward resolution or downward into mystery, these subtleties matter deeply in jazz.

We’ll also clear up the confusion around chord progressions in minor keys—especially those “weird” chords that don’t show up clearly in most beginner theory resources. I’ll explain how these chords are built, why they sound the way they do, and how to recognize and use them in your own playing. Finally, we’ll bring it all into improvisation—how to solo with confidence over these harmonies using the right version of the minor scale in the right moment.

This session is especially valuable if you’ve ever felt unsure when a minor tune doesn’t follow the major key rules, or if you’re working on jazz standards and feeling stuck in your scale choices. Come get untangled, hear examples, and level up your playing with a deeper understanding of what’s really happening in minor jazz harmony.