The Three Types of Minor
1. What’s the Issue 😬
When learning music, minor scales and minor keys can be a confusing topic. Although many musicians begin with learning major scales and keys, when it comes time to venture into the realm of minor…it ain’t so simple! So hopefully in this post I’m going to explain and demystify the difference between major and minor and what the different types of minor scales mean!
In music, when a piece of music is in a major key and therefore using a major scale, there is only one set of notes to worry about. Let’s say we have a piece of music that is in the key of C major, this piece of music will be using notes from a C major scale - which are C D E F G A B. All of the melodies and chords will be made up from these notes that make up the C major scale.
However, this isn’t quite the same when a song or a piece of music is in a minor key and therefore using a minor scale. There are actually three different types of minor scales that are used for three different reasons when we are playing a song or a piece of music in a minor key.
2. Natural Minor 🌺
The first of these types of minor scale is the natural minor scale. In music each major scale is actually related to a minor scale. You can work this out by going down three half steps (semitones) on the piano. The scale of C major is related to the scale of A minor for example (C - B Bb A).
The natural minor scale uses the exact same notes that are in its relative major scale.
So the scale of C major has the notes C D E F G A B and so does the scale of A natural minor. So the A natural minor scale is the notes A B C D E F G.
This is the scale that is shown in a key signature of a piece of music. If you look at the key signature in a piece of music and it contains no sharps or flats, then this is showing us that we are using either the scale of C major OR the scale of A minor. However, to really know whether we are in C major or A minor…we will need to investigate further!
3. Harmonic Minor 🎹
It is inevitable when improvising that you are going to play something that doesn’t sound how you wanted or expected it to. You may be using a G major scale (G A B C D E F#) but you may hit a note that isn’t in that scale for example. However, it’s also important to realise that there is no such thing as a mistake in improvisation. What makes it a mistake or not is simply your reaction to it.
There have been many times when I have played a note that I wasn’t expecting while improvising and instead of stopping or immediately correcting the note…I instead play it again with confidence! Make it sound like it was all part of the plan and adapt to it…maybe play a chord that includes that note so that it doesn’t clash against the chord, or maybe play some more unusual notes to make the improvisation sound like its entering a more “turbulent” landscape. Whatever you chose to do with it, it is an opportunity to do something interesting!
4. Melodic Minor 🎵
The melodic minor scale is the type of minor scale that is used for writing melodies in a minor key.
While the natural minor scale is used in a key signature and a harmonic minor scale is used for writing chords when using a minor key, the melodic minor scale is the scale that is used when the idea that is being written is fundamentally a melodic idea.
To form a melodic minor scale we can take the natural minor scale and sharpen both the 6th and 7th notes in the scale. An interesting quark to this scale is that we only sharpen these notes when the scale is ascending in pitch, so if a melody is descending in a piece of music then you wouldn’t sharpen the 6th and 7th notes.
Once again let’s look at A minor! An A natural minor scale contains the notes A B C D E F G. The 6th and 7th notes in this scale are F and G, so if we want to form the melodic minor scale (only when ascending) then we would sharpen the 6th and 7th notes. This would give us the scale A B C D E F# G#.
Sometimes in a piece of music some notes may be considered to be both a part of the chord idea and the melodic idea at the same time and it is for this reason that we can be a little more flexible with melodic ideas as to when you sharpen both the 6th and 7th notes in the scale. If a melody is ascending but sharpening the 6th note would mean that you accidentally change the chord, then you might see just the sharpened 7th note.
5. Is It Major or Is It Minor 📝
Earlier in this post I said that we can’t immediately tell if a piece of music is using a major key or a minor key just from looking at the key signature. If we see a piece of music that has no sharps and no flats this could be showing us a C major scale or it could be showing us an A natural minor scale.
One of the best ways to be able to identify if it is using the minor key is to glance through the piece of music to see if there are any sharpened 7th notes (G# - in the case of A minor). This will show us that there are parts of the piece that are using either the harmonic or melodic minor scale and therefore the key is A minor rather than C major.
Matthew Cawood
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