Minor scales
Moderators: Feg, Gill the Piano
Minor scales
I am adult beginner, now just starting on all the minor scales. I understand the relative (natural) minor scale and I sort of accept the harmonic minor scale with the raised 7th note. BUT, I simply CANNOT comprehend the so-called Melodic minor scale, with the 6th and 7th notes raised in the ascending scale, but not in the descending scale. Can anyone give me a satisfactory anwer or explanation as to why this scale behaves like this, or why we cannot just settle for the harmonic minor scale? Many, many thaks for any help! Frannie.
Hi,
This is an interesting question (well, to some strange people..)
A quick dash at Google gets this from a guitar site - I don't know how much truth there is in it but it will do for a start. I'm sure I have some info tucked away in a dusty tome somewhere..
'The Melodic Minor - The WHY?!:
Well by now you might wonder why on Earth this whole ascending and descending business is going on (the melodic minor scale changes depending on if it's ascending or descending). It's the only scale used commonly to do such a whack thing and the reason is because people can't sing in key.
Let me explain.
Background. Back in the day, that being the 9th century AD or so, monks used to sing Gregorian chant, Anglican chant, and Plainsong in the monestaries in Europe. These songs had some semblances of rhythms, including a few rhythmic modes, but no meter as we understand it today. They also didn't have chords or harmony. Eventually, these chants were worked modes, based from Greek modes: Aeolian, MixoLydian, Lydian, HypoLydian, HyperPhrygian and HyperLydian. But I digress.
You and I take the idea for granted, but chords weren't really used at all back then, and when monks started getting spunky and singing a fourth away from the melody line, thereby implying chords, the concept of "tonic" was born. Also, the first Church Modes were born through music theory.
Tonic, in a musical sense, is the "most important note" in a song or key. It's what a song is "in" when I say that Mozart wrote something "in" B-flat. 4,999 out of 5,000 songs you've heard end on a tonic chord.
The Reason. Well, since chords and this tonic thing being a new to those monks, they had a tendancy to go sharp when they approached tonic at the top of a scale. When they descended the scale, they'd sing in tune again (being drawn to the dominant, fifth note of the scale). Sharps and flats had not yet been "invented" (or at least acknowledged) yet, and so "accidentals" - that being sharps, flats, naturals, double-flats, and double-sharps - were added to account for their errors. Today we still use the scale.
Reasons that are less amusing. The melodic minor is able to have a leading tone in the melody by raising the 7th. This gives a nice 'push' up to the top note, tonic. Still, since you don't want an Augmented 2nd (1 1/2 steps) in the scale (which sounds Oriental), you raise the 6th as well. When descending the scale, it is not necessary and usually unwanted to have a half-step, because of it's strong tendency to go up.
So this is the scale used in the melody (hence the name) - it is modified depending on a scale. That is why you have the different forms of minor scales. Natural minor is the base form, and the harmonic tweaks with the 7th so that the V and vii chords are Major and diminished (instead of minor and minor, which would be unusual and strange to Western ears). Often, a voice (tenor, bass, soprano, alto, an instrument, whatever) will change minor modes depending on the situation. Still ... I can just picture those monks ... warbling .....
Reality check. Really, though, the reason we have these three minor scales (Melodic, Harmonic, and Natural) is because people decided that way they sounded good and used it in their music. When a pattern is used frequently in real music, it is useful to pin it down as 'theory' and practice it as an exercise.'
Rgds.
This is an interesting question (well, to some strange people..)
A quick dash at Google gets this from a guitar site - I don't know how much truth there is in it but it will do for a start. I'm sure I have some info tucked away in a dusty tome somewhere..
'The Melodic Minor - The WHY?!:
Well by now you might wonder why on Earth this whole ascending and descending business is going on (the melodic minor scale changes depending on if it's ascending or descending). It's the only scale used commonly to do such a whack thing and the reason is because people can't sing in key.
Let me explain.
Background. Back in the day, that being the 9th century AD or so, monks used to sing Gregorian chant, Anglican chant, and Plainsong in the monestaries in Europe. These songs had some semblances of rhythms, including a few rhythmic modes, but no meter as we understand it today. They also didn't have chords or harmony. Eventually, these chants were worked modes, based from Greek modes: Aeolian, MixoLydian, Lydian, HypoLydian, HyperPhrygian and HyperLydian. But I digress.
You and I take the idea for granted, but chords weren't really used at all back then, and when monks started getting spunky and singing a fourth away from the melody line, thereby implying chords, the concept of "tonic" was born. Also, the first Church Modes were born through music theory.
Tonic, in a musical sense, is the "most important note" in a song or key. It's what a song is "in" when I say that Mozart wrote something "in" B-flat. 4,999 out of 5,000 songs you've heard end on a tonic chord.
The Reason. Well, since chords and this tonic thing being a new to those monks, they had a tendancy to go sharp when they approached tonic at the top of a scale. When they descended the scale, they'd sing in tune again (being drawn to the dominant, fifth note of the scale). Sharps and flats had not yet been "invented" (or at least acknowledged) yet, and so "accidentals" - that being sharps, flats, naturals, double-flats, and double-sharps - were added to account for their errors. Today we still use the scale.
Reasons that are less amusing. The melodic minor is able to have a leading tone in the melody by raising the 7th. This gives a nice 'push' up to the top note, tonic. Still, since you don't want an Augmented 2nd (1 1/2 steps) in the scale (which sounds Oriental), you raise the 6th as well. When descending the scale, it is not necessary and usually unwanted to have a half-step, because of it's strong tendency to go up.
So this is the scale used in the melody (hence the name) - it is modified depending on a scale. That is why you have the different forms of minor scales. Natural minor is the base form, and the harmonic tweaks with the 7th so that the V and vii chords are Major and diminished (instead of minor and minor, which would be unusual and strange to Western ears). Often, a voice (tenor, bass, soprano, alto, an instrument, whatever) will change minor modes depending on the situation. Still ... I can just picture those monks ... warbling .....
Reality check. Really, though, the reason we have these three minor scales (Melodic, Harmonic, and Natural) is because people decided that way they sounded good and used it in their music. When a pattern is used frequently in real music, it is useful to pin it down as 'theory' and practice it as an exercise.'
Rgds.
Minor scales
What a comprehensive explanation! Thank you - the reference to the chords really made sense, as did the singing sequence - the mist has lifted! 
Just a minute - you didn't think you could get away so easily, did you?
The above is simply copied from an alien website. It's a good story, not that I quite understand it, but there is another rather more logical explanation which I find more appealing.
Although there are many minor scales the three most commonly used, and featuring heavily in that essential bed-time reading The Grade V Scale Book, are the Natural Minor, the Harmonic Minor, and the Melodic Minor. (We are here, of course, talking about scales in western European music, and just as important western European ears.)
I've never heard the Natural Minor scale called the natural minor, just the minor scale. It is actually the sixth (Aeolian) mode of the major scale. The sixth note of C major is A, and if A to A is played the result is an A natural minor scale. Thus C major has a natural minor of A, and Eb major has a natural minor of C. Music in minor keys is (usually) written in the key of its relative major. C minor is written in Eb, the three flats are the same in both keys. Natural minor scales have the third, sixth and seventh note flattened, and are very natural and minor sounding. Anyone who plays a major scale implicitly plays a natural minor scale.
The natural minor is a perfectly formed minor scale but it does present a problem. Although a great deal of quite exquisite music can be and has been written in the natural minor scale, it has neither a leading note nor a dominant chord, and western music relies on both for resolution to the tonic. Beethoven would have been lost without them. The leading note is the semi-tone below, and leading to, the tonic. So in C major, B is the leading note and inevitably leads to a resolution on the tonic C. The natural minor scale has a Bb, which resolves to, well, not to C. And if a chord on the dominant of C natural minor is formed to resolve to the tonic, it turns out to be Gm7, a minor chord, and falls back into dissoloution..
But ingenuity knows few bounds, and both birds can be stoned with one er, stone, by simply changing the Bb back to B. There is now a leading note and all the dominant sevenths one could want. At last the music can be completed with a thunderous G7 - Cm. This scale has solved a harmonic problem, so it's called the harmonic minor.
The harmonic minor scale, which differs from the natural minor by just one note, solved one problem but, like many of life's vicissitudes, introduced another. Between the sixth and seventh notes of this scale (the Ab and B in C minor) is an augmented second, three semitones, a minor third. Western music is written primarily in steps, i.e. variations of the scale, and this is a very large step indeed. In fact it isn't a step any more, and melodies can't be written with this scale. Well, they can of course, but not many that would be acceptable to western ears. Ingenious as ever, this can be resolved if the flattened sixth is simply unflattened. The new scale solves a melodic problem, so it's called the melodic minor.
With all this attenuation there's hardly any difference between the melodic minor and the major scale, just one note, the flattened third. This raises another of those annoying vicissitudes.
The melodic minor allows both resolution and flowing melody but is similar to the major scale, and the natural minor sounds really minorish but doesn't give resolution. As the two qualities are generally used in different circumstances, a compromise is made. The natural sixth and seventh from the melodic minor is used when the leading tone is required, but only when ascending the scale. When descending the scale the heavy minor feel of the natural minor scale can be utilised, as there's no need to resolve to the tonic. This is the current melodic minor scale used in western classicial music, and is, I think, a far more plausible explanation for the ascending/descending differences of this heroic scale.
Rgds.
The above is simply copied from an alien website. It's a good story, not that I quite understand it, but there is another rather more logical explanation which I find more appealing.
Although there are many minor scales the three most commonly used, and featuring heavily in that essential bed-time reading The Grade V Scale Book, are the Natural Minor, the Harmonic Minor, and the Melodic Minor. (We are here, of course, talking about scales in western European music, and just as important western European ears.)
I've never heard the Natural Minor scale called the natural minor, just the minor scale. It is actually the sixth (Aeolian) mode of the major scale. The sixth note of C major is A, and if A to A is played the result is an A natural minor scale. Thus C major has a natural minor of A, and Eb major has a natural minor of C. Music in minor keys is (usually) written in the key of its relative major. C minor is written in Eb, the three flats are the same in both keys. Natural minor scales have the third, sixth and seventh note flattened, and are very natural and minor sounding. Anyone who plays a major scale implicitly plays a natural minor scale.
The natural minor is a perfectly formed minor scale but it does present a problem. Although a great deal of quite exquisite music can be and has been written in the natural minor scale, it has neither a leading note nor a dominant chord, and western music relies on both for resolution to the tonic. Beethoven would have been lost without them. The leading note is the semi-tone below, and leading to, the tonic. So in C major, B is the leading note and inevitably leads to a resolution on the tonic C. The natural minor scale has a Bb, which resolves to, well, not to C. And if a chord on the dominant of C natural minor is formed to resolve to the tonic, it turns out to be Gm7, a minor chord, and falls back into dissoloution..
But ingenuity knows few bounds, and both birds can be stoned with one er, stone, by simply changing the Bb back to B. There is now a leading note and all the dominant sevenths one could want. At last the music can be completed with a thunderous G7 - Cm. This scale has solved a harmonic problem, so it's called the harmonic minor.
The harmonic minor scale, which differs from the natural minor by just one note, solved one problem but, like many of life's vicissitudes, introduced another. Between the sixth and seventh notes of this scale (the Ab and B in C minor) is an augmented second, three semitones, a minor third. Western music is written primarily in steps, i.e. variations of the scale, and this is a very large step indeed. In fact it isn't a step any more, and melodies can't be written with this scale. Well, they can of course, but not many that would be acceptable to western ears. Ingenious as ever, this can be resolved if the flattened sixth is simply unflattened. The new scale solves a melodic problem, so it's called the melodic minor.
With all this attenuation there's hardly any difference between the melodic minor and the major scale, just one note, the flattened third. This raises another of those annoying vicissitudes.
The melodic minor allows both resolution and flowing melody but is similar to the major scale, and the natural minor sounds really minorish but doesn't give resolution. As the two qualities are generally used in different circumstances, a compromise is made. The natural sixth and seventh from the melodic minor is used when the leading tone is required, but only when ascending the scale. When descending the scale the heavy minor feel of the natural minor scale can be utilised, as there's no need to resolve to the tonic. This is the current melodic minor scale used in western classicial music, and is, I think, a far more plausible explanation for the ascending/descending differences of this heroic scale.
Rgds.
Minor Scales
To ‘frannie’
I read your initial posting regarding the harmonic and melodic minor scale query. Since you admit to being an adult beginner may I offer a very simple explanation on the basis of my own long experience. Firstly I'm a real old timer and have played the piano since childhood - but never the melodic minors (mainly because I never went in for exams, where they are deemed necessary). However a year or so ago I thought I would look at melodics and lo and behold found them of all scales the easiest to play. I've never looked at a scale ‘tutor’ - it's as though their playing just came naturally. My main point is this: I've always been under the impression that the minor melodic exists for the ease of SINGERS! Whether or not this is true I don't know - but at my very late stage in life I now find them a delight to play and quite honestly they never cause problems. I think it's rather nice to go up the scale in one way and come down in another - provided you don't have to stop and work out the reasons why or what changes are needed to come down.
I know this is a very different viewpoint to that so comprehensively given by 'fumbler' - but well, that's my experience for what it's worth.
Fred
I read your initial posting regarding the harmonic and melodic minor scale query. Since you admit to being an adult beginner may I offer a very simple explanation on the basis of my own long experience. Firstly I'm a real old timer and have played the piano since childhood - but never the melodic minors (mainly because I never went in for exams, where they are deemed necessary). However a year or so ago I thought I would look at melodics and lo and behold found them of all scales the easiest to play. I've never looked at a scale ‘tutor’ - it's as though their playing just came naturally. My main point is this: I've always been under the impression that the minor melodic exists for the ease of SINGERS! Whether or not this is true I don't know - but at my very late stage in life I now find them a delight to play and quite honestly they never cause problems. I think it's rather nice to go up the scale in one way and come down in another - provided you don't have to stop and work out the reasons why or what changes are needed to come down.
I know this is a very different viewpoint to that so comprehensively given by 'fumbler' - but well, that's my experience for what it's worth.
Fred
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Nyiregyhazi
- Regular Poster
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"of C. Music in minor keys is (usually) written in the key of its relative major. C minor is written in Eb, the three flats are the same in both keys."
Well, it's not written in Eb really. It's written in C minor. They have the same key signature. That doesn't mean it's in Eb. They share it equally. There's no call for a major over minor heirarchy, is there?
"Natural minor scales have the third, sixth and seventh note flattened, and are very natural and minor sounding. Anyone who plays a major scale implicitly plays a natural minor scale."
You could say the same of any mode. They may each be there 'implicitly', but I can't see that much point in such an association. Equally, a natural minor scale is an 'implicit' major.
"The melodic minor allows both resolution and flowing melody but is similar to the major scale, and the natural minor sounds really minorish but doesn't give resolution. As the two qualities are generally used in different circumstances, a compromise is made. The natural sixth and seventh from the melodic minor is used when the leading tone is required, but only when ascending the scale. When descending the scale the heavy minor feel of the natural minor scale can be utilised, as there's no need to resolve to the tonic. This is the current melodic minor scale used in western classicial music, and is, I think, a far more plausible explanation for the ascending/descending differences of this heroic scale."
Interesting explanation, but what music uses it this way? Are there compositions that tend to use one mode going up and one going down? If not the scale exists in a vacuum, in a sense, so what does it matter in reality? You don't have music in a melodic or harmonic minor key. I don't really see any musical context that might fully justify your explanation. The change in the scale is purely within an external unit (taken out of all musical context), not something that really has a function of determining how 'minor' real music sounds (at least none that I know of) so is it worth analysing the unit outside of music? Is there medieval music that IS written like this? It's not done so in any more modern music that might justify reference to a key of C melodic minor, say.
Any ideas on why a minor 2nd is called that? Surely it's a major 2nd is actually a perfect 2nd and a minor 2nd should be a diminished 2nd? I've never understood that one.
Andrew
Well, it's not written in Eb really. It's written in C minor. They have the same key signature. That doesn't mean it's in Eb. They share it equally. There's no call for a major over minor heirarchy, is there?
"Natural minor scales have the third, sixth and seventh note flattened, and are very natural and minor sounding. Anyone who plays a major scale implicitly plays a natural minor scale."
You could say the same of any mode. They may each be there 'implicitly', but I can't see that much point in such an association. Equally, a natural minor scale is an 'implicit' major.
"The melodic minor allows both resolution and flowing melody but is similar to the major scale, and the natural minor sounds really minorish but doesn't give resolution. As the two qualities are generally used in different circumstances, a compromise is made. The natural sixth and seventh from the melodic minor is used when the leading tone is required, but only when ascending the scale. When descending the scale the heavy minor feel of the natural minor scale can be utilised, as there's no need to resolve to the tonic. This is the current melodic minor scale used in western classicial music, and is, I think, a far more plausible explanation for the ascending/descending differences of this heroic scale."
Interesting explanation, but what music uses it this way? Are there compositions that tend to use one mode going up and one going down? If not the scale exists in a vacuum, in a sense, so what does it matter in reality? You don't have music in a melodic or harmonic minor key. I don't really see any musical context that might fully justify your explanation. The change in the scale is purely within an external unit (taken out of all musical context), not something that really has a function of determining how 'minor' real music sounds (at least none that I know of) so is it worth analysing the unit outside of music? Is there medieval music that IS written like this? It's not done so in any more modern music that might justify reference to a key of C melodic minor, say.
Any ideas on why a minor 2nd is called that? Surely it's a major 2nd is actually a perfect 2nd and a minor 2nd should be a diminished 2nd? I've never understood that one.
Andrew
I was watching the rugby this afternoon, and was pained yet again when 'Flower of Scotland' was played, and as ever the descent to the 7th of the lower octave at the end was sung simultaneously as both a semitone and a tone below the tonic. (The younger ones opted for the semitone, whilst the old stagers went for the tone).
Scales are funny things and just reflect usage really.
I find it interesting that Pythagoras worked out the modern 12 notes of the scale (7 white, 5 black) 2,560 years ago (or thereabouts) and even realised that tuning in the 'circle of fifths' resulted in failing to get back exactly to the tonic again. He even left a mathematical constant to describe the problem (Pythagoras' comma).
Fortunately, we only had to wait 2270 years for JS and his mates to sort out the problem with the well tempered scale.
Scales are funny things and just reflect usage really.
I find it interesting that Pythagoras worked out the modern 12 notes of the scale (7 white, 5 black) 2,560 years ago (or thereabouts) and even realised that tuning in the 'circle of fifths' resulted in failing to get back exactly to the tonic again. He even left a mathematical constant to describe the problem (Pythagoras' comma).
Fortunately, we only had to wait 2270 years for JS and his mates to sort out the problem with the well tempered scale.
Otto
The vagaries of the minor scales explained...
I would just like to say a big THANK YOU to all those contirubiting to the mysteries of the different minor scales which I was having so much trouble understanding. I cannot say I am now completely au fait with all of this theory - at some stage i think I am just going to have to 'accept' some things, without absolutely finding a rock solid explanation. Many thanks to Fumbler, and also to Fred for his experienced thoughts and help, to Andrew and also to Otto - you are all SO well informed, I am quite in awe. This is a fantastic forum which I shall continue to enjoy in my struggle to master the rudiments of piano playing!. Frannie.