Minor Scales Explained (for Improvisation)

major scales absolute piece of cake everybody understands major scales but what about those gnarly minor skills what's the difference between a natural minor melodic minor harmonic minor but you can use a Dorian minor what's aeolian all this stuff can really fright your mind on this week's free online saxophone lesson I'm going to unpack everything you need to know about Minor scales I'm gonna clear it all up even why classical musicians play them up and down differently which is always throwing me off and you are going to learn more importantly which context to use which scale when you're improvising so without further Ado we're gonna get behind the camera and I'm going to clear all this stuff up but there's a great resource I want you to grab which is a free PDF and use the link that you can see there I've written out a minor at skills cheat sheet for you which is going to be a real great resource and it clears up all the four main minor scale types and the main five main contexts in which you're going to use those minor scales and which scale to choose it's a really valuable resource so go down click the link it's got to fill in your email and you'll get the free pdf print it off and follow along as we clear up these minor scales once and for all okay let's talk about Minor scales first of all I'm going to show you the four main minor scales then we're going to talk about the context in which you would use those scales because that is the all-important thing and it can be a little bit tricky a little bit confusing so let's try and clear this all up for you starting with the very Basics so what is a minor scale well it is most basic form a minor scale is a major scale with a flattened third it's the flattened third scale degree that makes a major scale a minor scale so for example here is a simple C major scale if you flatten the Third [Music] that is what gives you the minor sound and we're going to talk about the top half of the scale just shortly but here is the big Revelation when you're trying to work out all these four different minor scales the first five notes of every minor scale are the same now there are lots of different minor scales minor flat to phrygian but for the four main skill types that we're addressing today the first five scale degrees are all the same there's only seven notes in the scale so the almost all the notes are the same apart from two okay all those notes are the same for all of them C D E flat F and G one two flat three four five now whenever we say flat this or natural that or flat the next thing what we really mean is flat three and the bit that's missing that everybody doesn't say is compared to the major scale starting on the same note so we've got one two flat three and it's flat compared to the same note in a major scale starting on the same note so in C major you get an e natural in c minor you've got an E flat that's a flat and third so hopefully you're already thinking oh great there's only two notes to sort out and that's the sixth note and the seventh note so let's look at the different scale types the melodic minor scale has a natural six and a natural seven exactly the same as C major nothing is flattened so with the melodic minor scale we've got our base five and then a natural six natural seven and then obviously you're back into your root to start again that makes the melodic minor the most sort of um uplifting minor scale if there is such a thing and you know quite often you get that minor six sound like that so that's the melodic minor used a lot in jazz and don't worry we're going to get to that later right let's now move on to the harmonic minor now the harmonic minor is the same but you flatten the six so you've got your usual five and this time the sixth note is flattened but you've still got the natural seven okay that's the harmonic minor flat six natural seven now that gives it because there's a big leap between the flat six and the natural seven that gives it a kind of um you know like more of a kind of Spanish um almost Arabic type sound so there's quite a different sound from the uh melodic minor the harmonic minor sounds like this okay quite a spooky sound that the harmonic might have so so far melodic minor natural sex natural seven harmonic minor flat six natural seven let's move on to the next one and you're seeing gonna see we'll get the full set the next one is uh Dorian minor so we've got the first five notes but this time we've got a natural six and a flattened seventh and the Dorian minor scale is actually a mode of the major scale it's the second mode of the major scale I'll put a link in the description for my video on modes which means that if you were playing what I'm playing which is C minor I'm actually using a B flat major scale starting on C okay there we go now Dorian Miner when we use durian Miner you're going to find out later but that's got the natural six flat seven now to complete the whole set we've got the natural minor scale which is also called the aeolian minor scale so we've got our usual five but but this time you guessed it you got flat six and flat seven now this is another mode of the major scale is the sixth mode of the major scale so while I'm playing C minor aeolian or C natural minor I'm actually playing the notes of E flat major starting on C and that has a particularly kind of melancholic uh it's got a very particular [Music] side sign to it the natural minor so there are your four main scales let's go over them one more time melodic minor first of all you've got your base five notes one two flat three four five they're the same for all the skills then melodic minor has natural six natural seven harmonic minor has flattened sixth natural seven Dorian minor has natural sorry natural sex flat and seventh almost bit my tongue off there natural six flat and seven and finally the natural minor has flat six and flat seven so between those four scales we've got all the variations of natural flat and thick and natural and flattened seventh [Music] let's now talk very briefly about the history of these minor scales and address some of the elephant in the room questions that most people have let's start with the natural minor scale this is the scale that you get if you just went to the relative minor of your major key like let's say we're in E Flat Major we go to the relative minor which is C minor and we just do the same scale that's the scale you get now the problem with this scale as most people will tell you online is that your four chord in this case would be F minor your five chord G minor you've got no strong dominant to take you home to take you to create that tension that you only get when you've got the leading note which goes back to the root so the problem with writing songs in the aeolian mode or AKA The Natural Minor is you know there's not there's not really a very strong pull from five to one that's five to one but it's nothing like five to one with a natural seven so that's why you know the harmonic minor was I say invented it was like invented just like somebody invented a Hoover but the harmonic minor appeared to give us that leading note to go back that gives us a chord five in our minor key but the big problem with the harmonic minor scale is this minor third leap between the sixth the flat and sixth scale degree and the natural seventh that is a big jump in the scale so although we've given ourselves the nice um dominant tonic relationship we're stuck with this weird thing when we're writing Melodies and when we're playing scales so in order to combat that what composers started doing was using the natural Sixth and the natural seventh to give you a nice smooth ramp up the scale now you'll hear this in music by Bach and and so on and In classical music what happens is when you practice your scales you actually go up the melodic minor scale because these these natural sick and the natural symptoms give you a nice smooth route up to your tonic and then you use the uh the natural minor to come down now that's got the flat and six and the flattened sevens and what the flat and sixth and the flat and seventh does is it gives you a smooth path down to your dominant note so that gives you a nice smooth path down there and on the way up you use the melodic minor so that's what happens in classical music but for the purposes of our you know typical Jazz Theory we're not interested in the descending version of the melodic minor because it's the same as a major scale so that's my attempt at explaining why classical musicians go up the melodic minor and die in the natural minor although the truth of the matter is I'm not sure anybody really knows I've seen a million explanations of it now that leaves one thing left which is the Dorian minor scale which is a mode of the major scale of the Dorian Miner um again doesn't have that dominant it doesn't have the dominant but what it does have is the nice natural synth so you you can quite happily noodle away on the Dorian without feeling like you have to resolve somewhere and that's generally what happens in modal music but we're going to come to that later so there's a bit of history about the scales why we don't always use the natural minor why are we added the harmonic minor with its leading note and while we've got the melodic minor so that Melodies can flow up without that jerky minor third interval and then you've got the Dorian minor which we're going to come to just shortly okay so far so good now you know what the four main minor scale types are and a little bit of history about why they evolved from a melodic and harmonic point of view now what scale do you play when you see a minor chord that is the million dollar question isn't it what scale do I use I can see the chord symbol let's say it's C minor what do I play context is everything I shall repeat that very important Point context is everything let's look at a few different contexts if it's everything let's deal it let's deal with it okay first context we're going to look at is tonic minor chords that is where your minor chord is the home key now in a jazz we're going to look through a couple of different contexts within the context but let's say we're in a jazz context our home key is C minor a typical Cadence which might get you there is something like this you've got a flat 13 sharp 11. G7 altered and then back to C minor now the different chord symbols you could have for that tonic key might be just C minor it might say C minor major seven very commonly it'll say C minor six or it might even be C minor six nine with the ninth and the sixth all those chord symbols you will typically use the melodic minor scale okay this is in a jazz context for a tonic minor you'll typically use the melodic minor scale so let me demonstrate this on saxophone I'm going to play the Cadence um which is going to be a flat 13 sharp 11 G7 altered then I'm going to hit the C minor and I'm going to play the melodic minor scale now I'll play a C minor six chord this time because that's the one that you most commonly get okay so it's going to be something like this foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right so that's your first option now on some tunes and this is where it gets tricky because the context is something that you just have to work out for yourself on some chains it might sound better to use the harmonic minor on that tonic minor chord so let's say your chord sequence is something like d half diminished and then G7 flat 9 and then C minor if there's a lot of a Flats in The Melody of the song already you might think oh actually I like that flat and sixth of the harmonic minor that sounds better so for example there's do you have to be finished and we've got G7 flat nine and then we go to C minor but it might sound better like that and it all depends on what song you're playing that's it that's all I can tell and then experience will guide you if the natural six sounds better or the flattened sake now it could still be one of the same two chord symbols you can see here that both could be C minor and both could be C minor major seven however if your chord symbol specifically has the sixth in it then you can't use the harmonic minor scale so if you've got an open-ended chord symbol that doesn't specify the six you can choose and really like I say that just boils down to experience and what you think the song sounds like so again let me demonstrate that on sax and you can hear the difference between them so this is the second line now this is going to be this progression and we're going to be using the harmonic minor scale here we go foreign [Music] thank you foreign to work out if you prefer the flat in sixth of the harmonic minor or you prefer the natural six of the melodic minor so that's a tonic minor chord in jazz really it's all about the sixth if the chord symbol specifies that it's a six chord melodic minor if it doesn't you can choose between the one that you prefer right let's now move on to Tonic minor chords in pop now when I say pop this is all very broad you know you could be using minor major chords in in pop just as easily as you could in jazz but just broadly speaking for the purposes of this lesson let's say that in the pop genre in a minor pop song very often you have the natural minor scale which is used the aeolian mode and that kind of sound would be something like this sometimes it says C minor and sometimes it says C minor seven but typically the scale will have that a flat in it and typically the chord sequence might be something like this because if you start playing this note a jars you know it it doesn't really sound very good compared to [Music] so let me just play that on saxophone for you and you can hear the sound for yourself here we go [Music] foreign [Music] and that's the sort of sound you hear on songs like Englishmen in New York that features Brantford Marsalis so pop songs that I've got especially chords that feature the flat six like the flat six major seven a flat in this case they will almost always use the aeodium scale and again it's just a question of keeping your ears open and using what sounds good to you so finally tonic minor chord which is in a modal context now what I'm talking here is songs like so what little sunflower if they have a minor seven chord um or a minor nine or a minor 11 chord symbol and that chord just is you know it's a long drone that doesn't doesn't change there's no functional Harmony then you're going to be using the Dorian Miner so songs like so what I've got this kind of sound this kind of modal sound and they'll have that natural sixth and of course John Coltrane made a made a career of blowing on a Dorian scale for hours at a time so that's this kind of sound here we go see if I can work this out [Music] laughs [Music] that's the sign of the Dorian Miner and you often get Doria minor in Funk songs as well so there are the four basic types of tonic minor choices that you would use when you're looking at these scales let's recap them one more time if you're playing a jazz song and you have functional Harmony that resolves to a minor chord for example like this if the sixth is specified you use melodic minor if it isn't then you can choose which one you choose melodic or harmonic so harmonic or melodic number two if you have a pop context and especially where there are songs with um the flat and sixth chord and the flattened seventh chord then you would use your natural minor scale AKA aeolian and finally if you're in a modal context and it says a minor seven you'll be using Dorian now let's move on contexts where you have to decide which scale to use on miners I've got two more contexts to cover regarding your minor scale choices and the first of these which is number four the fourth context we're going to cover today is uh two chord in a two five one Cadence so in this case we've got C Minor 7 F7 B flat that is a two five one in the key of B flat two five one okay C minor seven F seven B flat major seven is a two five one in B flat now in this context you would use the Dorian minor because Dorian minor is the second mode of B flat major and the key that we're in the one chord is B flat this minor chord is functioning within the key of B flat so we would use Dorian minor which is a B flat major scale starting on C so let's have a quick demo of that we've got C minor seven foreign [Music] to the home key but I'm just demonstrating what you're playing on the miners now this is why you have classic Bebop licks that use this scale something like foreign [Music] that uses the Dorian Miner okay and the final context which I'm going to teach you today is when your minor chord is a minor four chord in a major song all right so now we're going to change key now we're in the key of G major because we're using a C minor chord for all this this is constant pitch by the way so G major chord and then you have this C minor in the song which is of course a beautiful beautiful sound it's a the sound of Yearning as every songwriter knows if you're using the main chords of a song let's say you're on g c d g d c then this C minor six [Music] it's an absolutely gorgeous sound but what skill do you choose well you choose the melodic minor scale for this and it's because I'll explain why it's because you have all the notes of G major except for that one flattened note of the C minor that's what really makes it work because you're emphasizing the the G majorness of the melodic minus scale now your chord symbols will either just be a minor or sometimes you get a minor six chord symbol for this context so here's our G and then we have a C minor six as you can see it resolves nicely back to the tonic so let me demonstrate that on sax as well this is just a gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous sound foreign foreign [Music] and there are countless songs that use that four minor sound and the skill you want to use is melodic minor and believe me it's gonna sound really gorgeous so let's have a final recap of the contexts that we've covered today bearing in mind that I've covered five contacts there are many more but at least these main five will get you started let's have a quick recap of the contexts and what skills you're going to use first of all if you have a tonic minor chord in other words a one chord and you're in a jazz context you can choose between the melodic minor and the harmonic minor if the chord symbol specifies a six then you're gonna have to use the melodic minor if it doesn't you can choose if you have a tonic minor chord which is a one chord but you're in a poppy sort of sound and you've got the flat six and flat seven chords going on then you will use the natural or aeolian minor scale with a flat six and flat seven if you are in a modal context where the minor seven chord doesn't move anywhere then you will use Dorian minor with the natural six and five seventh if you are playing a two chord a minor seven two chord within the context of a two five one you're gonna use the Dorian minor scale which is natural six flat seven and finally if you are in a major key but you're playing the four minor chord then you will use the melodic minor scale to emphasize the majorness of the key that you are in so I hope that is helpful I hope I've unraveled about the four main types of minor scale how is only the six and tenths seventh change and highlighted a few of the most common contexts and what skill you would use when you're improvising that's all we've got time for for this week I really hope you've enjoyed this explanation of minor scales what they are and when to use the right one don't forget go and grab your free pdf which is the minor skills cheat sheet which has got the four skill types and it's got the five contexts and which scale you use in those context really cool resource there's a lot more stuff like this inside my inner circle membership which I'm proudly brandishing my t-shirt off you can use the link there to join the Inner Circle if you have bought me a coffee I appreciate it loads and if you think these videos are good value then you can use the link you can see there again all these links are in the description as usual and until next week where I'll be clearing up more awesome questions and challenges you've always had playing saxophone make sure you practice hard practice smart and enjoy your music take it easy see you later a major scale is just a major scale right simple major scale is just a major scale right simple we all get it major scales everybody knows it major scales it's a no-brainer right everybody understands a major scale major scales everybody gets it piece of cake may just [Music]

Channel: Get Your Sax Together

Views: 10,208

Keywords: get your sax together, jamie anderson, saxophone, sax, saxaphone, learn, lesson, lessons, music, tutorial, improvise, notes, how do I, instruction, demo, simple, how do I play, Minor scale, minor scales, music theory, harmony, improvising, melodic minor, harmonic minor, aeolian, dorian, ascending and descending minor scales, why do melodic minor scales go up and down differently, minor scale contexts, which minor scale do I use, types of minor scale, improvising using minor scales, jazz harmony

Id: 40CT_yREMF8

Length: 30min 44sec (1844 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 30 2022