Questions about Minors (Natural vs Harmonic vs Melodic)

[mrkpower]

Can someone tell me why there are three different minors in Western music?
Is it common to start learning Harmonic Minor FIRST?
Which one is the most common and which one is the least use in modern music?

Thanks!!

[stanron]

Music has been going on for a long time. The natural minor, based on the sixth note of the major scale, lacks the semitone upward movement to note one found in the perfect cadence. So vocal harmony started the variation called the harmonic minor scale to incorporate this. This left the sixth interval as an augmented second which was found uncomfortable for some and was therefore developed into the melodic minor which sharpened the sixth when ascending. This all happened centuries ago and these days it's main function is more to irritate students than to guide the production of music.

You can switch between them as you like. Try starting with the natural minor and modify any notes you wish to get sounds that please you.

[jetcode]

The biggest difference between major and minor is the 3rd. The rest can be treated as you wish depending on the piece.

[Earwitness]

Google gave me this:

What is the difference between the harmonic a minor scale and the melodic a minor scale?
Question: What is the difference between the harmonic a minor scale and the melodic a minor scale? I know one is the same going up and coming down and one is all flats coming down. - D.L.

Answer: It's not really all flats coming down.

Start with the natural minor - that's the pattern of the white keys if you play from from A to A on the piano. And of course thay same pattern of steps can be played starting on any note - like D natural minor, which is D, E, F, G, A, Bb, C, D.

When a minor melody is upward-bound, the 7th degree is often raised a half step so that it will make a "leading tone" to the tonic. So in the scale on A that would be G# instead of G. That's "harmonic minor," because this change to G was made for harmonic purposes.

But if the A minor melody had an F before the G it might be good to raise the F, too, if the composer wants to avoid the exotic-sounding augmented second of F to G#. So then the F gets raised as well, and you end up with a minor scale from A that reads: A, B, C, D, E, F#, G#, A. We call that "melodic minor," presumably because the change was made for melodic reasons.

On the way down, a melody isn't going to need that raised 7th degree because it's not leading to the tonic - so the G can be used without alteration. And if the G isn't changed there's no reason to change the F, either. So really the A minor scale coming downward is going to be the plain natural minor: A, G, F, E, D, C, B, A.

By long custom in music school, we say that the "melodic minor" has two forms, ascending and descending. But really the minor scale is a variable one whose 6th and 7th degrees are often altered, particularly when ascending. A descending "melodic minor" is just the natural minor scale again.

[Archtop Guy]

Melodic minor is all over jazz from Charlie Parker to Scofield. It's very useful if that's what you play.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by mrkpower

Can someone tell me why there are three different minors in Western music?
Is it common to start learning Harmonic Minor FIRST?
Which one is the most common and which one is the least use in modern music?

Thanks!!

Just to echo what stanron and jetcode said, in different form:

There are not three minor scales. There is one - it just has variable 6th and 7th degrees. As stanron says, composers use whichever 6th and 7th degrees they want at the time.

I also agree natural minor is the one to start with. Quite a lot of tunes use natural minor only (b6, b7). Some others use dorian mode (maj6, b7). I don't know any tunes written purely in either harmonic or melodic minor - they only occur as occasional alterations in most minor key tunes.

[DupleMeter]

Originally Posted by mrkpower

Can someone tell me why there are three different minors in Western music?
Is it common to start learning Harmonic Minor FIRST?
Which one is the most common and which one is the least use in modern music?

Thanks!!

Actually there are 4:
Natural Minor (C D Eb F G Ab Bb C)
Harmonic Minor (C D Eb F G Ab B C)
Real Melodic Minor (C D Eb F G A B C - then Bb Ab G F Eb D C (Natural Minor) descending)
Jazz Melodic Minor (C D Eb F G A B C - both directions)

The 2 versions of the melodic minor come over the disagreement of how to treat the descending scale. Traditionally you played a natural minor when descending from a melodic minor ascent, but somewhere along the way (in the 1930s/1940s era of rethought music theory (e.g. Schillinger)) someone decided to play it the same both ways. Hence the Jazz Melodic Minor.

If you know a major scale you know natural minor...they natural minor is a mode of the major scale (Aeolean mode).

Learn them all. I think it makes sense to start with natural minor because the others are simply alterations of a natural minor scale.

[mrkpower]

Thanks for all the inputs, very helpful!!

[TheElipse]

Many have replied, but I want to share what I have been taught as well.

There is basically this idea of the minor mode. The basic idea is that you take the major scale degree and flatten the third the sixth and the seventh scale degrees (1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7). When you play this scale up and down exactly like this, and when it is present in music, it is called the natural minor scale, (because?) it requires no alterations from the key signature. In other words if you are playing in a minor and you see in the score a scalar passage with the notes a b c d e f g a and the a g f e d c b a, there will be no alterations to the key signature making it the "natural" minor.

The problem with the natural minor is that it is missing a very important note in the western tradition of music, the leading tone. The leading tone is scale degree 7 in major keys and must be 1 half step away from the tonic note (the note of the key). In a minor the note g is a whole step away from a, so it does not sound like a leading tone. It doesn't have that feeling of wanting to resolve to the tonic, in order to do this one needs to raise the seventh scale degree of the natural minor scale. However the problem with this scale is the augmented scale degree between the sixth and raised seventh degrees. It is an exotic sound that composers like Bach and Mozart did not use very often at all, to compensate for this the sixth scale degree had to also be raised. This gives us the scale a b c d e f# g# in the key of a minor. However, the presence of this scale was pretty uncommon in earlier classical works. Most composers liked the sound of the natural minor scale upon the descent, and thus the melodic minor scale was born. The other problem that this scaled fixed is that the dominant chord (the Major V chord) must be spelt with a raised 7th scale degree to sound like a Dominant chord that wants to go to tonic (otherwise it is a minor v chord and does not play the same role harmonically)

People wanted a term for when a composer uses a b c d e f# g# on the way up to create a leading tone for the tonic note a, as well has get rid of the augmented second present in the harmonic minor scale, but changes the scale on the way down back to the natural minor. They called it the melodic minor scale.


RECAP:
So far we have the natural minor (>1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 1>[ascending] <1 b7 b6 5 4 b3 2 1<[descending]) which requires no key signature modification but lacks an extremely important note (the leading tone)
*fun fact* the other name for the natural minor scale is the aeolian mode, as it is a major scale starting on the sixth scale degree

The harmonic minor scale (>1 2 b3 4 5 b6 7> [ascending] < 1 7 b6 5 4 b3 2 1 <[descending]) which has an undesired exotic sound in the descent.

Then the melodic minor scale (>1 2 b3 4 5 6 7> [ascending] < 1 b7 b6 5 4 3 2 1< [descending] which is much smoother and classical sounding, as well as able to compensate for the leading tone which must be present in the Dominant chord.



Finally we have the Jazz minor scale which uses (1 2 b3 4 5 6 7) to give it a sound that is both major and minor sounding at the same time. With the b3 it sounds characteristically minor, but the natural 6th and 7th scale degrees give it a major sound, the whole step from scale degrees 5 and 6 is just very major sounding as well as containing the leading tone. I am however the least familiar with Jazz music and how it is used and whether or not there is a modified descending scale creating melodic and harmonic versions as well. Upon reflection if it did, it would be the exact same thing as the melodic minor scale.




What you need to know from all this:
The basic minor scale is 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7, but this lacks an extremely important note, the leading tone, which is tonally recognized to tell us what key we are in. This is why songs written in minor keys almost always have sharps or natural signs in them, they are almost always the seventh scale degree in the key. This is one method to find out whether or not the song is written in major or minor.

[TJE]

Whoa! Lots of good info! IMO

Thanks!

[jetcode]

Note that there are several modes which are minor based:

These scales (built on a major scale) are all minor because the 3rd is flat

1 2 b3 4 5 6 7 melodic minor
1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7 dorian minor
1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 natural minor
1 b2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 phrygian minor
1 b2 b3 4 b5 b6 b7 locrian minor

You can build rather exotic chords from these scales and as long as the 3rd is flat it is in fact a minor chord.

[Hotspur]

I'm in the "don't think of these as separate scales" camp.

In my opinion, that leads to shape-based thinking. Instead, you want to develop an interval-based approach.

That is to say, when you are playing in Am, you should know where your 7ths are. You should be able to hit them consciously and dynamically, without thinking about it. So if somebody says "sharpen your 7ths" you don't have to stop and think to do it.

Because this is, in fact, how you will usually play in a minor key song. Let's say you've got a repeating progression that is Am Dm C E.

You're clearly in Am because of the E-A cadence.

You can't play the A harmonic minor over all of this because the C chord contains a G natural note. But you can't play A natural minor over this because the E contains a G sharp note.

And switching scales mid-progression can be tricky, particularly over faster changes. It's a tough mental shift.

BUT! There's only one note difference between A natural minor and A harmonic minor! It's that 7th! So if you know where your 7ths are, and can dynamically adjust them, then you're playing along in A natural minor and then, over that E chord, you effortlessly sharpen your 7ths, and viola, you're continue apace, no clashing tones, no major mental readjustments. Just shifting one note.

Playing this way requires that you move beyond just thinking of scales as a shape on a fretboard, but that effort pays off in spades.

[paulp1960]

Jockey full of bourbon by Tom Waits makes good use of the harmonic minor scale in the intro and solo played by Marc Ribot.

I enjoyed learning this:

http://guitar4free.com/main/general_..._tom_waits.php

If you don't know the song you can hear it on Youtube.