Well I, firstly learned the Blues and the Harmonic minor scales and I can tell that I can orientate much better in the Harmonic scale than in the Diatonic. Both visually and with my ear (thou my ear is bad) I guess thats because the harmonic consists kinda like of two parts (kinda divided), for I see it like one part is like the diatonic and the other has the sharpened note. When I lose the visual look of the scale I can orientate back to it by ear, allot easier than I can on the diatonic.
The question. Is it because I just know the Harmonic scale allot batter and learned it first or is it because the harmonic, sharpened note is more noticeable, at least for me.