Music Theory Archives - Page 2 of 5

Minor Scales

OK, music theory friends, time to start learning about minor scales! What? More scales, you say? Oh, yes! More scales!

Here is what I want you to learn today:

Review of Major Scales
There is such a thing as a Minor Scale
Form of a Natural Minor Scale
Relationships between Major and Minor Scales

Major Scale Review –

Remember what we learned about major scales.

A major scale (in one octave) begins and ends on notes with the same note name. (C – C, F – F, A – A, etc.)

A major scale must go in order alphabetically (within the musical alphabet).

A major scale cannot have two notes with the same note name except for the first and last notes.

Every major scale must follow the same pattern of half steps and whole steps. That pattern is: W-W-H-W-W-W-H

If you need some more review on this, look back at these posts:

Major Scales

Intro to Minor Scales –

First of all, know that there is such a thing as a minor scale, and at some point in your musical training you will have to know minor scales in addition to major scales. Some of the same rules apply to minor scales as well as major scales. Here is a list of things major and minor scales have in common:

A minor scale (in one octave) begins and ends on notes with the same note name, just like a major scale.
Minor scales must go in order alphabetically (within the musical alphabet) – just like major scales.
Minor scales cannot have two notes with the same note name except for the first and last notes.
Every minor scale must follow a specific pattern of whole steps and half steps.

Also, there are three different kinds of minor scales. We are only going to look at one of those kinds this week, the Natural Minor Scale

The Natural Minor Scale Pattern –

Here is where things get different. A natural minor scale follows a specific pattern of whole steps and half steps. Here is the pattern that you need to learn:

W-H-W-W-H-W-W

Notice that there are, again, two places where there are half steps, just like a major scale, but that the half steps come in different places.

Difference between Major and Minor Scales

If you want to hear the difference between the two kinds of scales, do this. Go to a keyboard, or whatever instrument you have available, and play these two sets of notes:

C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C – Major Scale

A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A – Minor Scale

Can you hear a difference between the two? (Not just that they start on different notes!) Here is another example:

G-A-B-C-D-E-F#-G – Major Scale

E-F#-G-A-B-C-D-E – Minor Scale

Another thing you need to notice about these examples of major and minor scales is that they use the exact same notes, just starting on different notes. The notes are in the same order, they use the same accidentals, the scales just start on different notes. In the first example the major scale begins on C and the minor scale begins on A. All the notes of the two scales are the same. In the second example the major scale begins on G and the minor scale starts on E. Again, all the notes in the two scales are the same. The pattern of half steps and whole steps is changed. That is what makes the scales different.

The minor scales in these examples are both Natural Minor Scales. No extra accidentals are added, no accidentals are removed. The notes in both the major and minor forms are exactly the same. (There are two other forms of minor scales, but we will get to them next week.)

Connections –

Just so you know – these are not random pairings of major and minor scales. There are connections between them. Actually, there are two ways in which major and minor scales can be connected.

Relative Minor

The first of these ways is called Relative. Relative Major and Minor Scales share notes and key signatures. They are “related.” The examples I gave earlier are examples of relative major and minor scales.

So how do we figure out what minor scale is related to what major scale? Let’s look at the earlier examples again.

C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C – Major Scale

A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A – Minor Scale

The sixth step of the major scale becomes the first step of its related minor scale. The third step of the minor scale is the first step of its related major scale. Here is another example:

G-A-B-C-D-E-F#-G – Major Scale

E-F#-G-A-B-C-D-E – Minor Scale

Again, the sixth step of the major scale becomes the first step of its related minor scale. And the third step of the minor scale becomes the first step of its related major scale.

Parallel Minor

The second way major and minor scales are connected is called Parallel. Parallel major and minor scales have different sets of notes, different key signatures, but start on the same note. An example of that would be C Major and C minor.

C Major – C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C

C Minor – C-D-E♭-F-G-A♭-B♭-C

Here is another example:

F Major – F-G-A-B♭-C-D-E-F

F Minor – F-G-A♭-B♭-C-D♭-E♭-F

Notice how the two scales in each set begin with the same note and follow the same sequence of alphabetical note names. When we go from the parallel major to the parallel minor, we add the necessary accidentals to make the notes fit the pattern for a natural minor scale. When we go from the minor to the major, we adjust the accidentals to make the notes fit the pattern for a major scale. The accidentals used in the scale determine the key signature of the scale.

Did you get all this?

Now, let’s see if you have figure this all out. Here’s a little test.

Tell me the names of the related MINOR scales for each of the following major scales.

C Major
G Major
F Major

2. Tell me the key signatures for each PARALLEL MINOR scale

C minor
G minor
F minor

3. Tell me the key signatures for each PARALLEL MINOR scale

C Major
G Major
F Major

Email me your answers (carol@carolr3.sg-host.com) and I will let you know how you did.

Come back next Friday for more info about minor scales!

Chromatic and Enharmonic – What Do these Mean?

Two new terms for you today – chromatic and enharmonic. What are those, you ask? Well, keep reading and you will find out!

Chromatics

Definition:

Chromatics refer to a series of notes moving up or down by a series of half steps. A chromatic scale goes from any given note through all twelve half-steps up one full octave. If you start with a C and play a chromatic one-octave scale you will play these notes:

C-C#-D-D#-E-F-F#-G-G#-A-A#-B-C

When we go higher with a chromatic scale, we use sharps. As we go lower, we use flat signs, like this:

C-B-B♭-A-A♭-G-G♭-F-E-E♭-D-D♭-C

Here is what this looks like on a keyboard:

Need a review of half-steps and major scales? Check these out: Half-Steps and Whole-Steps and Major Scales

Derivation:

Way back in the 1700’s great minds decided that the scale should be divided into 12 equal steps per octave. Frequency of a pitch doubles from one octave to the next. So, they were looking for a way to have the exact same frequency interval between each half step within an octave. Using physics and math, including logarithms, they took the twelfth root of 2 to get an interval frequency of 1.0595. If you look at the standard frequency for any pitch (like A = 440), multiply that by 1.0595 and do that 12 times, you will end up with double the frequency, or the pitch of the note an octave higher than your starting note. Fascinating, I know.

So Why Should You Care?

Well, you probably don’t need to care much about all the math involved, unless that really interests you. But playing chromatics is important! You should practice playing multi-octave chromatic scales starting on every note. Pianists, you should learn to play chromatic scales with both hands in several ways; both hands moving together, both hands moving in opposite directions, and starting each hand on different notes! You might be able to really annoy people if you start with one hand on C and the other hand on D! Or C#!

Besides annoying people, you will frequently find chromatic passages in more advanced music. If you have practiced playing chromatic scales, it will be easy for you to play those passages in your music. Also, if you look at a passage, see that it is totally chromatic, then you only need to read the first note, the last note, and the rhythm. Your fingers (and your brain) will automatically know what to play in between.

Enharmonics

Definition:

Have you ever looked up a word in a dictionary and seen an alternate spelling given for that word? Like “shop” and “shoppe.” Or “theater” and “theatre.” Enharmonics are like alternate spellings for notes. Look at a keyboard at the notes F and G. You see that there is a black key between the two notes. If we go up a half-step from F, we hit that black key and call it F#. Going down a half-step from G we hit that same note and call it G♭. That is what we are talking about when we talk about enharmonics. A different name for the same note. By using sharps and flats, and double sharps and flats, one note can have two or three different names. Here is an example of what I mean:

Enharmonics - Different names for the same note — Enharmonics – Different names for the same note

Reasons for Enharmonics

Why do we need to have different names for the same notes? Why do we have to complicate things? If you remember when we talked about major scales, we said that you can only use the same letter name once in each octave of a scale (exception – first and last note). And we have to use the letters in alphabetical order, not skipping any. So, we can’t write a scale using D-E-G♭-G-A-B-D♭-D. We must write it like this: D-E-F#-G-A-B-C#-D. If we played those two examples on a keyboard, they would sound the same, but we can’t write them like that.

Another reason for using enharmonics is that usually, when notes are going higher, we write accidentals with sharps signs, and when they are going lower, we usually use flat signs. This helps our brains better visualize what the sound is doing.

Understanding chromatic and enharmonic notes will help you be a better musician!

Chromatic and Enharmonic - Do You Know What These Mean? — Chromatic and Enharmonic – Do You Know What These Mean?

More Music Theory Review

More music theory review? Yep! We need to do a bit more review before we move on to more theory concepts. Let’s review things related to scales and keys and key signatures.

Whole Steps and Half Steps

First of all, you need to remember what we learned about whole steps and half steps. Half steps move, either up or down, from one note to the very next closest note. That is usually from a black key on a keyboard to a white key, but not always. Sometimes moving from a white key to another white key makes a half step. Whole steps are made up of two half steps. In the example below half steps are marked in purple and whole steps are marked in green.

Sharp, Flat, and Natural Signs

Sharp signs, flat signs, and natural signs move notes either a half step higher or lower than they are written. Flats signs lower a note by a half step. Sharp signs cause a note to be raised a half step. Natural signs eliminate what a sharp or flat sign previously did.

Major Scale Patterns

Then we talked about the pattern of a major scale. Remember, a major scale can start on any note, and goes in alphabetical order to the next note with the same name as the starting note (from an A to an A, or from a D to the next D). A major scale must always follow the same pattern of whole steps and half steps. We use sharp and flat signs to adjust the notes to fit the pattern of whole and half steps. And every note of a major scale must have a different letter name (until you get to the top note of the scale, which is the same as the first note of the scale). The pattern is always:

W-W-H-W-W-W-H

Pattern of whole steps and half steps for C Major scale

Examples of Major Scales with Half Steps Marked

Key Signatures

The sharps and flats used to adjust the scale to the proper whole steps and half steps are used to create the key signature for that scale. Key signatures allow us to write music without including the sharp or flat signs for all the notes that need one. We write them once at the beginning, (in a specific pattern and order), and repeat them at the start of each new line of music. The sharps or flats in the key signature apply to all the notes of that name in the piece until something is written to change that.

Finding the Name of a Key from the Key Signature

We also looked at the order of the sharps and flats and how they are written into a key signature. We can look find the name of the scale used to write the music just by looking at the key signature. Then we say that we know the key the piece is written in. I showed you how we do that. Remember, we always read key signatures in order from left to right. Here is a link to the information we looked over earlier: Read Here