Why Do We Have 3 Minor Scales? - Music Theory

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- Hi. In this video, I'm going to answer a specific question that has been posed to us by a number of people. So, I'm Gareth from Music Matters, and the question is this. Why do we have three minor scales? Well, most people have probably heard of a harmonic scale and a melodic minor scale. But there's also this thing called the natural minor scale. And the natural minor scale, in my experience, causes more confusion than the other two, actually. So I'm going to talk about the natural minor first. Now, every minor scale has a relative major scale. And if you're not quite sure about that, have a look at our Music Matters video on the circle of fifths, which explains exactly how this whole system works. But the idea is that you have a major scale and a minor scale that are related to each other. So, to give you an example, C major has no sharps and no flats. It's related to A minor. And the reason it's related to A minor is that, in its key signature, A minor also has no flats, no sharps. So that's why we say that A minor is the relative minor of C major. And we can also say that C major is the relative major of A minor. In other words, they share the same key signature. And when we write a natural minor scale, we are literally going to write all the notes of the scale and just use the key signature. So if I'm going to use A-natural minor, C major has no sharps, no flats, so I'm just going to go A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, G, F, E, D, C, B, A. Okay? what I'm going to write to you on the board now is the scale of E-natural minor, and there's a reason why I've chosen the key other than A. So if I write E-natural minor, I'm going to have one of each letter name, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E. But E minor is related on the circle of fifths to G major. Why are they related? Because they both have a key signature of F-sharp. Now, some people think, when you play E-natural minor, you just start on E and you use the white notes. So you play, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, and come back down the same way, but that is not E-natural minor. That is a mode that begins on E. So we're talking about natural minor scales, not modes. We're going to use F-sharp in E-natural minor, because F-sharp is in the key signature for both G major and its relative minor, E minor. So when we play E-natural minor, we play E, F-sharp, G, A, B, C, D, E, D, C, B, A, G, F-sharp, E. And the reason I've gone up the scale and come down the scale, is just to emphasise that it's the same whether you're going up or coming down, which is not true of the harmonic. Well, not true of the melodic minor scale, anyway. So when you're writing a natural minor scale, you need to know the key signature. You're going to start and finish on E if it's E-natural minor, and the only accidentals you're going to use are those that belong to the key signature. Okay, so I hope that clears up the difference between what's a natural minor and what's a mode. You can start on any note and just go up an octave in white notes and come down in white notes, and then you're playing in a mode. So C to C, is the Ionian mode. D to D, is the Dorian mode. E to E is the Phrygian mode. And so on, but this is not the Phrygian mode. This is the scale of E-natural minor. So I hope that clarifies the natural minor. If you want to turn it into a harmonic minor scale, well, you're going to use the key signature. So there's the F-sharp still with us, and in the harmonic minor scale, you raise the seventh degree of the scale. Okay, so that's this one here, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, it's D. If I raise it by a semitone, D becomes D-sharp. You notice, I don't say sharpen it, I say raise it by a semitone, for this reason. If it's a natural, and you raise it by a semitone, it becomes a sharp, If it's a flat in the first instance, and you raise it by a semitone, it will become a natural. So by using the term sharpen, it implies that we're going to stick sharps everywhere. Well, if it starts as a flat and you raise it by a semitone, it becomes a natural, if it starts as a sharp and you raise it by a semitone, it becomes a double-sharp, so be careful about the terminology you use. I just talk about it that way. Raise the seventh degree of the scale by a semitone, which is what we've done. So that is the harmonic minor scale, it's E harmonic minor. It's the same going up as it is coming down. So E, F-sharp, G, A, B, C, D-sharp, E, D-sharp, C, B, A, G, F-sharp, E. And if I want to write the melodic minor, then what I do is I raise six and seven, so, one, two, three, four, five, six. C-natural raised a semitone becomes C-sharp. So that's how I would go up the scale. It's probably a good idea that I also show you how to come back down the scale, because in the case of the melodic minor, we raise the sixth and seventh degrees going up, but we follow the key signature coming down. So when I come down, I'm simply going to use the key signature. So, when I'm going up, I'm going E, F-sharp, from the key signature, G, A, B, raise the sixth, so C-sharp, raise the seventh, so D-sharp, E, when I come down, I just follow the key signature. So, E, D-natural this time, C-natural, B, A, G, F-sharp from the key signature, and E to finish. So there we have it, the three minor scales, the natural minor, where we just adopt the key signature, not to be confused with the mode, then the harmonic minor scale, where we raise the seventh degree by a semitone going up and coming down, and the melodic minor scale, where we, again, use the key signature, but we raise the sixth and seventh degrees going up, but simply follow the key signature when we come down. So you'll notice the descending melodic minor scale is the same as the natural minor scale. So I hope that brings clarity to the three different kinds of minor scales. As to why we have these three different minor scales, well, that's a bigger question, but essentially, when we got into establishing major and minor tonality, in the years just following 1600, we ended up having to sort of go in more than one direction. The major scale was quite easy to find, that was easily located, it's always the same. When you come to the minors, when you write harmony, the harmonic minor works best. When you write melody, the melodic minor works best. The reason being that at the top, you get this funny interval in the harmonic minor scale. So that's a sort of slightly odd sound, isn't it? So it's better to use the melodic minor at the top, because it irons out that funny interval, called the augmented second. So when you're writing chords, when you're writing harmony, harmonic minor is great, when you're writing melody, the melodic minor is great. Sometimes, of course, you've got to sort of just do a little bit of negotiating, because there's conflict of interest between writing a melody in the melodic minor, writing chords in the harmonic minor, and sometimes you have to compromise a little bit to make sure you don't get clashes of sound. But there's also plenty of music that's written using the natural minor. And increasingly, in instrumental exams, people are being given a choice of using the harmonic or the melodic minor, or using the natural minor. So I hope that brings a little clarity to this particular question, why do we have three minor scales?
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Channel: Music Matters
Views: 48,995
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Keywords: 3 minor scales, 3 minor scales piano, 3 types of minor scales, why are there 3 minor scales, why do we have 3 minor scales, three minor scales, different types of minor scale, minor scales, natural minor scale, harmonic minor scale, melodic minor scale, music theory, music theory for dummies, music theory for beginners, minor scales piano, minor keys explained, minor keys piano, all minor scales piano, why is there 3 minor scales, minor scale variations, music theory 101
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Length: 10min 20sec (620 seconds)
Published: Thu Aug 20 2020
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