This can be tricky at first, so watch out for it. Notice the interval between the 6 and 7 is a step and a half, (hence the wh). It uses the natural minor's flat 3 and 6 but uses the melodic minor's raised 7. The harmonic minor is in between the other two. The more you practice this scale ascending (forwards) and descending (backwards) the more it will make sense to you. It sounds more like music and less like a boring exercise. This is called a melodic minor because it is the most common in the traditional 'melodies' that we are used to. On the way up the first half is minor with the flatted 3, but the second half is major with the same as the natural minor.
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The melodic minor seems confusing at first but you just have to remember one thing: It's the only minor scale that is different going up than it is coming down. Natural Minor: C D Eb F G Ab Bb C Melodic Minor: C D Eb F G A B C + C Bb Ab G F Eb D C Harmonic Minor: C D Eb F G Ab B CMinor Pentatonic: C Eb F G Bb Melodic Minor Now let's check out the other types of minors. So there are 3 different ways of looking at natural minor scales: comparing them to relative majors, comparing them to parallel majors, and counting whole steps and half steps. Notice the italicized notes are the ones that change.Ĭ Minor: C w D h Eb w F w G h Ab w Bb w C (This is slightly more time consuming but makes more sense to some people.) In this example the lower case (w) and (h) indicate Whole and Half steps between the notes. It is the way that we'll use for other articles in this site.ģ. Another way is to count whole steps and half steps. So we see that one way of looking at this is to say that the natural minor scale has a flat 3, 6, and 7. (In music, parallel means same letter name.)
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Natural Minorġ. A natural minor is essentially its relative major that has been inverted or moved around.Ĭ Major -> A Minor: C D E F G A B C -> A B C D E F G AĮb Major -> C Minor: Eb F G Ab Bb C D Eb -> C D Eb F G Ab Bb CĢ. Now lets compare the natural minor to its parallel major.
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Also there are several types of minors which sometimes get confused and run together.īut just because they are different, doesn't mean they are harder, we just might have to spend more time with them because we aren't used to them yet. A lot of people find minor scales to be confusing because when most people start learning music, they start with mainly major scales and end up getting a stronger foundation with those and not minors.