The Harmonious Blacksmith: A Music Theory Exploration

Ep. 7: All About Minor

• Kevin Patrick Fleming • Season 1 • Episode 7

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All About Minor Scales – A Complete Guide to Minor Scales in Music Theory

Welcome to this deep dive into minor scales! In this episode, we explore everything you need to know about minor scales in music theory. Whether you're a musician, music educator, or guitar player, understanding the minor scale is essential for mastering music theory and improving your musical creativity.

We start by covering the basics, including the structure and formula of the natural minor scale, as well as the differences between harmonic minor and melodic minor scales. You'll learn how to build and recognize minor scale patterns on various instruments, especially the guitar, and how to use these scales in your compositions, solos, and improvisation.

This episode is perfect for anyone interested in music education, music theory breakdowns, and gaining a deeper understanding of how minor scales shape musical expression. We also provide practical examples to help you incorporate minor scales into your playing and expand your musical vocabulary.


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UNKNOWN:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

Hello Theory Nerds and welcome back to the Harmonious Blacksmith. This is episode 7 of my series and I'm your host Kevin Patrick Fleming and yes I do play my own guitar tracks on my podcast. Oh that's nice. Yeah don't worry I've got five or six pens for autographs. No no no take it easy. Get in line. Don't for everybody. Thanks again for tuning in, everybody. I do appreciate you being here, and I'm excited about today's episode. If this is your first time stumbling upon my podcast, first of all, welcome, and we are happy you're here. Second of all, this is a linear and cumulative podcast, which means every idea that I'm laying out in each episode is building on previous ideas. So if this is the first episode you've stumbled upon, my record is to go back all the way to the beginning and go through the sequence of episodes and catch up with us when you can. You will understand a lot more if you do. So just to catch you up on things, our previous episode, number six, was dispelling the mystery between major and minors. which led us down the rabbit hole and took us all the way to terms like parallel keys and relative keys. We learned the conspiracy theory that minor is only different by scale degrees 3, 6, and 7. Turns out it's true. Turns out it's true. I also introduced you to the underground secret society of Greek modes. They were Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Locrian people, you heard it here first. So if you feel like you're running into a lot of fake music theory news on the internet, you know where to turn to. Right here on the Harmonious Blacksmith. Today's episode is all about minor. So minor scales, minor keys, and the chord progressions that naturally come out within the minor key. I realized I had been talking mostly about major up till this point, and that's relevant because major is the predominant tonality that is used in Western harmony, but I had also promised y'all things like minor progressions and things like that I remember in my previous episodes and just ran out of time because there was so much to talk about, so let's talk about minor today. So what do we know and recall about minor so far as opposed to major. Well, in a broad stroke or general view, we know that minor sounds a little darker, a little more mysterious, possibly more emotional. Some of my students describe it as sounding lower or droopier, but really this overall overarching thing of sadness I think works really well. So where does that sad, dark kind of sound come from? Well, it comes from, of course, a scale formula. And if you recall, the formula for a minor scale is whole, half, whole, whole, half, whole, whole. And an A minor scale would sound like this. And do any of y'all remember which of the seven Greek modes that a minor scale is? It's called Aeolian, and it's the sixth Greek mode. And again, I'm going to have an entire episode dedicated to Greek modes coming up, and I'm very excited about that. But just know that minor is Aeolian, and Aeolian has another common term that we call it, which is natural minor. And natural minor is just the Aeolian mode, but the reason we give it a name like natural minor and not just minor is because it's what comes out quote unquote naturally based on the formula I gave you already. The whole, half, whole, whole, half, whole, whole. That creates what we call a natural minor scale. And so that must also imply that there's such thing as an unnatural minor scale. Turns out that's true. There are multiple of them and they are quote unquote altered minor scales. And this This is why I waited a while to get to minor because it gets a little complicated in minor really quickly. So you might be asking why? Okay, there's this natural minor called Aeolian and yet there's these multiple altered minor scales, but why? Because it turns out within natural minor keys or Aeolian keys, the musical tension in the chord progressions is very weak as far as having a tension and resolution. Now, we already talked about musical tension in previous episodes, but I'm going to up the ante here on that with a new term that we call a cadence. A cadence is a series of two or more chords that comes at the end of a musical sentence or even a musical piece that gives a feeling of tension and full or partial resolution of that tension within the chord progression. The most common cadence type in our Western system is a five chord to a one chord. So recall your Roman numerals and how we could build a triad off of each scale degree. Therefore, there's seven triads from which we can build more chords, right? So in order to explain why minor chord progressions can be weak in natural minor, I'm going to double back to May and let you hear a 5-1 cadence in major. So let's start with good old G major. So if we take the I chord in the key, which is just a G major chord, and the V chord in the key, which will be a D major chord, We can set up our cadence or our musical tension and release from there. So let's establish the key in our ear first so you can understand that. That, of course, is a 1-4-5-1. But now, if you hear 1 as the home base... Notice if I stop on that five chord, you can hear some tension. I can turn it into a dominant seven by adding another third on top of the triad. Listen to that tension. It needs to go somewhere. It needs to be resolved back to... The I chord. Ah, feel the refreshment of the release of musical tension. And for example's sake, let's do one other key. So I'm going to now do A major, which sounds like this. Your I, IV, V would be A, D, and E. E. And therefore, your 5-1 cadence would just be E-2-A. So you hear the tension and release. I'll turn the V chord into a dominant 7 by adding another note on top of the triad again. Screaming for release. Ah, there it is. So the cadence gives us the tension, which is therefore partially or fully resolved. And now that you know what it sounds like in major, let's compare that to natural minor, which again, I'm going to remind you, is weaker sounding in its cadences. So therefore, the musical tension and release just is not as effective within the chord progression. So let's establish a minor, again, sounds like this.

UNKNOWN:

So

SPEAKER_01:

Now 1-4-5 in A minor would be A minor is 1, D minor is 4, E minor is 5, and then back to A minor again. So 1-4-5 in minor would sound like this. Now listen to the five, one cadence, just like the major key. And just notice that it doesn't have nearly as much tension. Then I'll compare them back to back with major. Listen to this. This is five. One. Again, five. One.

UNKNOWN:

Two.

SPEAKER_01:

doesn't really have the same tension. Now listen to five, one in major again. Here's the five in major. One. Five. Tension, tension, one. Minor. Five. One. The minor is clearly weaker and you can hear it. And there's a reason for that that we're going to go into. And it involves having to learn one more new term called a leading tone. A leading tone is a note which resolves or leads the ear to another note, which is exactly one half step higher or lower. Typically in our system, we are referring to the seventh scale degree of a major scale, which is a half step away from the octave or the root of that scale again. So let's demonstrate. So back to G major to demonstrate a leading tone, which is the seventh scale degree of the scale. G major again sounds like this.

UNKNOWN:

So

SPEAKER_01:

And the seventh scale degree in G major is F sharp. First of all, just listen. If I play the scale all the way up and stop on the leading tone, the leading tone will lead your ear to where it's supposed to go to next. You will actually even hear the note in your head screaming because it wants to go to it so bad. Listen up.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

can't stop there, right? You can hear where it wants to go. One more time. And then we finally get the note. And they are a half step away from each other, as you remember from the major formula. And that creates a very powerful tension and release between the seventh scale degree of a major scale and its octave. And that is the power of the leading tone. And it turns out this magical leading tone that creates tension and resolution and a cadence is built into to the V chord in a major key. So what I mean by built-in is it's naturally the middle note of the triad. Remember, triads have three notes, and in a V chord, it's going to be scale degrees V, VII, and II. So remember, the seventh scale degree in major is the leading tone. So it's built-in in major to have this amazing leading tone tension within the V chord, and consequently, it is not built in in minor, which is why it sounds weaker. The minor scale degree seven is a whole step away from the octave or the root note. So let's go to some audio comparisons. So again, I'm going to back up to G major right quick, which sounds like this.

UNKNOWN:

So

SPEAKER_01:

And remember, triads are built on the skipping method. One, three, five. The second chord is two, four, six. Third chord is three, five, seven, and so on. Until I get to the five chord, which is going to be five, seven, and two. Right? And so that chord... has the leading tone built into it that gives us the tension in the key. It's right there buried in the middle of the chord. So when I'm in G, that chord screams to go back up to G because of that leading tone. But in minor, we don't have the same thing. So let's say I'm in G minor now. Just to give a parallelism. Remember parallel keys. So G minor would sound like this. Let's go ahead and take a second to fill out the triads in minor two. I promised I would do that, and I don't want to forget. So let's go ahead and fill them out. So remember, we're in G minor now. So, my I chord, basically, here's what you need to know about the Roman numerals. Remember the Roman numerals that we studied previously? In major, I, IV, and V are major chords, II, III, and VI are minor chords, and the VII chord is diminished. In minor, one, four, and five are minor chords. Three, six, and seven are major chords. And two is diminished. So between major and minor, they both have three major chords, three minor chords, and one diminished chord. They're very balanced. It's just the chords are in a different place. They're in a different order. So let's go through them in G minor. Here's the one chord, which is G minor. The two chord is going to be diminished. The three chord is going to be a major chord, which in this case is going to be B flat. The four chord is going to be a C minor. The five chord is a D minor. The six chord is going to be E flat major. The seven chord is going to be F major. And then I'm back to G minor again, which is the one chord. So now for the sequence of minor chords in Aeolian or natural minor in a row. The one chord is G minor. Two is A diminished. Three is B flat major. Four is C minor. Five is D minor. Six is E flat major. Seven is F major. And then we're back to one. So again, remember, 1-4-5 is the main predominant force in chord progressions. So if I play a 1-4-5 in minor, it'll be the G minor. C minor. D minor. D minor. back to G minor there's just not a ton of tension there's a little bit of tension there but just not a ton like in major and songwriters and composers caught wind of this early on and realized you know what I don't have the same weight or tension just like in the major key and remember a lot of that's just because the major key has a leading tone so what ended up happening is that people who write music composers alike ended up altering the five chord in minor to create a leading tone. One way to think of it for us songwriters is that we're borrowing the leading tone from the major key or even borrowing the five chord. Because what really has to happen in order for us to create a leading tone with a five chord in minor, we have to raise the minor seventh a half step up to where it would be in the major key and this creates a whole new scale that is called harmonic minor harmonic minor is a scale that is slightly altered from the natural minor scale where we are raising the seventh scale degree a half step to create a leading tone sound in minor therefore giving us more tension within melodies and within the chord progression So let's double back to the key of A minor to demonstrate this. So if you recall, in the key of A minor, A minor is the I chord, D minor is the IV chord, E minor is the V chord, and A minor is I. So our I, IV, V is A minor, D minor, E minor, A minor. But based on this harmonic minor principle that I just taught you, we're going to raise the 7th scale degree in A minor to create a little extra tension in the chord progression. So first of all, how does that make the scale sound? Well, here's your natural minor scale. Now let's raise the seventh and create the harmonic minor sound.

UNKNOWN:

So

SPEAKER_01:

So interesting. It yields an interesting sound, and my students describe it as all kinds of different things. I'm going to leave that creativity to your mind based on the way it sounds. But more importantly, why are we raising that seventh to create that leading tone?

UNKNOWN:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

You can tell it creates that tension pull that pulls that last note up. And again, that's gonna affect what our five chord is because it's gonna raise the middle note of the five triad, which in this case is E minor. Before it had a G natural, now it's going to have a G sharp, so it's going to be an E major now. And then we're going to resolve to A minor. So listen to a 1-4-5 using harmonic minor. It's going to start with A minor as 1, D minor as 4, E major as 5, and then A minor as 1 again. So again, you just get more tension. There's the leading tone within the chord, which screams to go up to one. So again, leading tone, back to one. And when we're in regular natural minor, that leading tone's not there. The five chord would have a G natural instead of a G sharp. tell it's just a more benign chord progression that way to be clear harmonic minor is not one of the greek modes right we already laid out the seven greek modes last episode and harmonic minor is not one of them it is literally just an alteration of the aeolian mode by raising that one scale degree seven to make it a leading tone now why is it called harmonic minor it's because we are altering that seventh scale degree to give a harmonic change in the chord progressions. Remember, harmony being two or more notes being played together simultaneously. But in the bigger picture of harmony, we're talking about triads. We're talking about chords, chords that harmonize with our melodies and things like that. So we call it harmonic minor because we're literally altering that seventh scale degree to change the strength of the chord progressions. or the harmony within the scale. It's much, much less to do with the melodic output. So in summary, think about harmonic minor as taking the natural minor or aeolian, if you're thinking of Greek modes, and raising the seventh scale degree only a half step to create a leading tone, which makes our five chord a major chord or a stronger sound for tension and resolution in the chord progressions. So if harmonic minor is altered based on making chord progressions stronger, what about melodies? Composers and songwriters alike along the way realized that minor melodies also don't have a lot of tension in them based on the scale. And because of that, they created yet another alteration of the minor scale, which is called melodic minor. Melodic minor is another alteration of the natural minor scale, but in this time we're going to raise scale degrees 6 and 7 on the way up and lower them back down on the way down.

SPEAKER_00:

What in the world are you talking about, Kevin? My God, I followed you so well until now. You better explain this one good, boy.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, okay, I understand It seems a little squirrely. I promise I'm going to explain. So here we go. So this one's called melodic minor as opposed to the previous one, which was called harmonic minor. Why is this one called melodic minor? Because we are altering the pitches in order to get a better melody result in minor. Again, this is something that just evolved over time with songwriters and composers where they started altering the minor scale to get different melodic results that they felt were better. I mean, it really comes down to subjectivity in the end. So it must sound really strange at this point, since this is the first time we've altered a scale where I said raise scale degrees sixth and seventh on the way up and lower them back down on the way down. Let's listen to it and then we'll talk about explanation. So I'm going to actually do a based on natural minor first. So, let's establish A minor in your ear again. Now, let's raise the 6th and 7th on the way up and lower them back down on the way down to yield the melodic minor sound.

UNKNOWN:

Now,

SPEAKER_01:

I'm going to do that one more time because I know it's strange. And you might be asking, why in the world would we want to do that and how do we use it? An explanation in my own words is this. When you raise the sixth and seventh scale degree on the way up, it has this way of creating this tension pull that really pulls you up to the root. And then we alter them again on the way down. They get lowered because they droop. Droop is the word I use. They droop back down towards the root. that they're working towards. So this is an interesting scale because it has a different tendency as you rise up to the octave and a different tendency when you go back down to the lowered root. So again, when we go up in A minor, six, seven, one. So you can hear how it really pulls up to that octave. And then when I lower them on the way down, they droop. back down towards the root. Did you hear that? Can't you hear that droop? That's the word I use, but you might be able to think of something a little more creative, but that's really what's going on. So again, one, two, three, four, five, raise six, raise seven, one, two, Tension pulling up, and then now we lower them back down. Lowered 7. Lowered 6.

UNKNOWN:

Lowered 7.

SPEAKER_01:

drooping and pulling you back down to the natural minor. To further demonstrate how this is used, I'm going to go full circle on my episode. Remember that piece I opened with today that was unique? That is a beret in E minor by Johann Sebastian Bach from a lute suite in A minor, which I actually played in its entirety as an undergraduate in school, but it is a perfect demonstration of melodic minor and how Listen to a little piece of it again real quick. So I'm just going to break down the melody to show you that this is a beautiful illustration of melodic minor. So it's in E minor and it starts on tonic, which is E. I'm just going to play the melody. It goes one, two, three. 2, 1, raised 7th. It's almost like harmonic minor there, actually. But then it goes 1, 2, 5, raised 6th, raised 7, 1. And then the very next thing does the droopy lowered 6 and 7 on the way down. Lowered 7, lowered 6, back to 5. So again, it goes one, two, three. I actually urge you to Google melodic minor tunes like on YouTube or just a Google search in general and see what you can find so that you can attach the sound to your ear. It's a little elusive. It takes a while to really get used to what it sounds like but you just have to do a little research and get it in your ear to solidify it and now it's time for breakdown so We had a great episode on minor today. I started with the full explanation of natural minor and how it's the same as Aeolian. We even broke down the Roman numerals for the chords that happen from the triads. We learned things like what a cadence is at the end of a chord progression, a tension and release. We learned what a leading tone is, a seventh scale degree that's a half step away that pulls you back up to the octave. Then, of course, we learned that that leading tone helps us create what's called harmonic minor, which is really just a natural minor scale with an altered seventh at the top to create stronger chord progressions. And finally, we learned melodic minor, which has a raised 6th and 7th scale degree on the way up, and they droop back down to flat 6 and 7 on the way down. Thanks again for tuning in to The Harmonious Blacksmith. Until next time, I will look forward to... Continuing this music theory exploration with all of you.