 The Fingering Forum
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Author: Deshaun
Date: 2002-10-05 21:33
Ok im having problems of figering out the Pure, Harmonic, and Melodic Minors of the following scales
Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb C Db
Gb Ab Bb Cb Db Eb F Gb
Now my Band teacher told us that to play the Pure minor, u flat the 3,6 and 7 note, for the harmonic,just flat 3, 6, for the melodic, flat the 3rd going up, and the 7,6, and 3rd going down.
now i rewrote scales using the alternate not name. Like the Db scale can be written C# D# E# F# G# A# B# C#
Now can some 1 clarify for me if did this right:
Pure:C# D# E F# G# A B C#
Harmonic: C# D# E F# G# A B# C#
Melodic: C# D# E F# G# A# B# C# B A etc.
And for the Gb: F# G# A# B C# D# E# F#
And can u clarify:
Pure: F# G# A B C# D E F#
Harmonic: F# G# A C# D E# F#
Melodic: F# G# A C# D# E# F# E D etc.
I thought i had figured this out before on paper, but then i got all confused, so can some1 please help me!?!
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Author: Dee
Date: 2002-10-05 23:59
Do not switch to sharps. Use double flats (bb) where necessary.
Also you are not doing the minors that are related to these scales but the minors that start on the same note as these scales. For example the pure (actually called natural minor) of the key of Db is Bb minor.
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Author: Torus Tubarius
Date: 2002-10-08 18:17
Yeah the sequence of notes you have written down will make those scales, but I would strongly advise you to get out of the habit of thinking of Db as C# and Gb as F#, etc.
The Gb natural minor scale is:
Gb Ab Bbb Cb Db Ebb Fb Gb
What you have written down is the F# minor scale, not the Gb minor scale.
This is very important for when you're having to watch accidentals in the music or transposing parts, and it is vital for understanding the chord structure and overall tonality of pieces in those keys. If you band teacher is worth his salt, he'll advise you to do the same.
A much easier way of understanding minor scales is relating them to their relative major scales. Just take any major scale, start at the beginning note, and move down three half steps. Then, go up and down the scale from that note using the same key signature. That will give you the natural minor scale. For example, for C Major you get A minor (the easiest one):
Major scale: C D E F G A B C
Minor scale: A B C D E F G A <--- A natural minor scale
This works because A is the relative minor of C Major, and A is three half steps down from C. In the same way G# is the relative minor of B, G is the relative minor of Bb and so on.
Once you get the natural minor this way, you get the harmonic minor by raising seventh tone of the natural minor by one half step.
To get the melodic minor, you raise the sixth and seventh tones on the way up a half step and play the natural minor on the way down.
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Author: Benny B
Date: 2002-10-10 00:40
I just count 6 whle steps up from a major scale and take the key signature for a pure minor like
C D E F G A(6th)B C is the C major so its pure minor= A and has the key signature of the scale it came from. another ex. whats G maj pure minor? Well count 6 up
G A B C D E(6th) F G <--- G maj scale, 6th note is an E SO E is the pure minor of a G maj scale
now construct a scale from E to E and take the key signature of G maj e.
E F# G A B C D E. O_O ITS SO EZZZZZZ
now harmonic minor! OMG HERE IT COMES!
just take any minor scale and raise the 7th note! THATS RITE! THATS IT
NOW MELODIC!!!!!!
RAISE 6th and 7th NOTE OF ANY PURE MINO SCALE!!!!!!!!
THATS ALL!!!!!!
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Author: Torus Tubarius
Date: 2002-10-10 06:09
Yeah what Benny said. Going up to the sixth tone or down three half steps, either way will give you the natural minor for that key signature (the relative minor).
Just FYI for anyone interested in doing more than just memorizing sequences of notes and calling them scales, and for those who don't already know, look at what Benny said:
Starting on the sixth of the scale instead of the tonic note (the first note) will give you the relative minor for that key, sure. But why not start on the fifth note, or the fourth note, or any of the other notes and make a scale from them?
Well the answer is you can just as easily, and in fact when you're doing that you're playing not in different keys, but in what are called different modes. Before our current system of 12 tones was standardized, the concept of key didn't exist, and people wrote music in modes instead.
What we call the minor mode now is actually what the old church music people called "Aeolian" mode. What we call a major scale is a scale played in "Ionian" mode. And you get a different mode every time you start a scale on a different tone in the same key signature, just as you do to find the relative minor of a major key.
And what's more, the other old modes aren't extinct. Just listen to the theme from the Jetsons, or the Simpsons. Hear that raised tone that doesn't sound like it fits in the key? Dee dah DAH dah (Meet George JETson...) It doesn't fit in the key because the song isn't written in Ionian mode, it's written in Lydian mode which you get by starting on the fourth degree of the major scale instead of the first for the major or the sixth for the minor. Thus in Lydian mode, the fourth degree of the scale is raised a half step compared to Ionian mode.
Think of the Jetsons again. Because of that raised tone that results from the Lydian mode, the music has a slightly different "feel" or "sound" compared to songs written in "standard" major keys. When you think about it, this difference in sound isn't all that different from the difference between songs in "major" and "minor" keys. As a matter of fact it's the exact same concept, it's just that our modern-day 12-tone-system ears aren't as accustomed to picking out differences in two different modes except when it comes to the difference between "minor" keys and "major" keys (a.k.a. Aeolian vs. Ionian modes). To us, a song written in any of the other modes like the Jetsons theme just sounds "a little off key."
This difference in perception is actually quite profound, more so than most people realize... which is why I love to wax all didactic about it. I think in a way when we finally adopted the 12-key system in the 17th century or so, sure it advanced the scope of music a great deal, but what have we lost in turn? You don't have to have perfect pitch to distinguish between modes like you have to to be able to distinguisk between keys, yet most people today cannot. It's fascinating how much our preconceived notions of how music is constructed affects what we hear. Interesting to think about, no?
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Author: Torus Tubarius
Date: 2002-10-10 06:15
Add just to add because I forgot, that means that what we call harmonic minor and melodic minor are actually two additional modes in themselves, distinct from the natural minor.
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Author: Benny B
Date: 2002-10-10 21:49
OMG TORUS!!!! U UNDERSTAND THIS!!!!!!!!
but he wont:[
u gave the best professional explination i heard in a while.
but he'll be going Aeolian? Locrian? Phrygian? for ever
he just needs to buy a GOOD chord and scales encyclopedia. all the different modes of a major scale can get very hectic:
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Author: Deshuan
Date: 2002-10-14 17:59
Thanks yall, big help, and Torus i think i will understand that when i get to High school(only in the 8th grade).
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