Climbing Those Scales, Part 3: Minor Scales - Music Tutorial #7

In my previous “Climbing Those Scales” tutorials, I have touched on the subjects of Chromatic scales and Major scales. Today, I will turn your attention to my favorite scales - the Minor scales.

Minor scales are my favorites because I feel that unlike their “happier” counterpart - the Major scales - minor scales add some real depth to music. Minor scales tend to be used in more serious and contemplative music when the composer wishes to draw you into the song more emotionally.

When we approach minor scales, it should be noted that there are three types of minor scales - the natural minor scales, the harmonic minor scales, and the melodic minor scales. The primary difference between all of those minor types of scales (from each other, and the Major scale) is simply in the pattern of intervals, or spaces (steps) between notes.

As I mentioned in Part 2 of “Climbing Those Scales” when I discussed the Major scale, the intervals between notes in the Major scale is as follows:

Whole step, Whole step, Half step, Whole step, Whole step, Whole step, Half step, or

W,W,H,W,W,W,H

For a refresher on the steps, intervals, definition and examples of Major scales, please refer to Part 2 of “Climbing Those Scales” at this link…

http://musical1.bustablog.com/climbing-those-scales-part-2-major-scales-music-tutorial-6/

In examining minor scales, we will begin with the natural minor scale. The intervals of a natural minor scale are as follows: W,H,W,W,H,W,W, or Whole step, Half step, Whole step, Whole step, Half step, Whole step, Whole step.

Let us take the C Major scale that we learned in our last lesson. As you remember, you begin on one note (in this case, a “C”) and you will end up on the same note one octave higher. The notes of the C Major scale are: C,D,E,F,G,A,B,C

One of the great things about natural minor scales is that you can easily figure out its “construction” based on its relative Major scale. (”Relative” meaning that both scales will include the same notes but begin on a different note). If the C Major scale begins on the “C”, the way we determine this Major scale’s relative minor scale is by finding the sixth step of the C Major scale (it is an “A”) and this is the name of C Major’s relative minor scale - the scale of A minor.

We begin the A minor scale on “A” and follow the interval pattern for a natural minor to determine what notes will be in the scale of A minor.

The A minor scale is: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A

Here is a wonderful visual resource to help you construct natural minor scales with the use of their necessary intervals.

http://www.musictheory.net/lessons/html/id22_en.html

The natural A minor scale looks like this:

Let’s look at another minor scale.

In Part 2, we examined the D Major scale (D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#, D). In order to determine D Major’s relative minor (its minor scale that uses the same notes as the Major scale but begins on a different note than “D”) we go to the sixth note of the Major scale - which is B. Now we can construct the Natural B minor scale using the intervals that I mentioned above for Natural minor scales.

The natural B minor scale would look like this: B, C#, D, E, F#, G, A, B

You can use the interval pattern mentioned above (W,H,W,W,H,W,W) to determine the notes that you would play in any natural minor scale.

The other two minor scales, harmonic and melodic, differ in that the intervals used to create them are different than their natural counterpart, and also, you can only use the relative minor “trick” for natural minor scales.

To create a harmonic minor scale, you would use the interval pattern as follows:

W, H, W, W, H, W+H (or 3 half steps), H

You can find examples of how to convert natural minor scales to harmonic minor scales at www.musictheory.net

Melodic minor scales have a construction interval pattern that looks like this:

W, H, W, W, W, W, H

Examples of conversion to a melodic minor can also be found at www.musictheory.net

And now you have a basic knowledge of those mood inducing minor scales.

Here is a little “ditty” in D minor that you might recognize…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipzR9bhei_o

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