First thing I clicked on was C minor... which showed me "C minor scale". Problem is.. Is that a thing? I've not heard of "the C minor scale". I don't think it's a thing. (Jazz pianist here) In classical piano as a kid I was taught 2 minor scales - melodic (different going up to coming down) and harmonic. Your "minor scale" corresponds to the melodic minor descending, aka Aeolian mode. (i.e. white piano notes from A up to A)
[googles it] On the "minor scale" wiki page they mention those three scales - "In music theory, the term minor scale refers to three scale patterns". There is no one "minor scale", that I'm aware of. Well, maybe you were taught that way, I don't know. Dorian mode (i.e. white piano notes from D up to D) is another commonly used minor scale; there are others.
This is a topic that I think is covered poorly sometimes. It's one of those things that is actually a much longer discussion. Think of it, in increasing complexity,
1. There is a major scale and a minor scale.
2. Actually, there are three minor scales: natural, melodic, and harmonic.
3. Actually, forget about those scales. Think instead more freely about tonality, modal mixtures, secondary dominants, and voice leading.
I think that anyone studying music is better off stopping at #1 or going all the way to #3. The problem with stopping at viewpoint #2 is that it's complex enough to make you really think, but not grounded enough in actual musical practice to make that thinking fruitful[1].
There are a lot of reasons why you might want a particular note to be sharp or flat. Sometimes you want a stronger resolution, like V -> i, rather than v -> i, which sounds weak. For that reason, to make better harmony, you may choose to make the 7th scale degree (B) a major 7th (B natural) instead of a minor 7th (B flat). You may also want to resolve a melodic line by half-step, which often sounds stronger, like B->C. But when you are stepping downwards, C->B, that's likely not any kind of resolution, so C->Bb is fine (it's likely not a resolution if you're in the key of C). These melodic concerns drive the "melodic" minor scale (and we drag in the 6th scale degree to avoid an augmented second interval).
The catch is... all we're really saying here is,
1. You are free to borrow notes from outside the key, for lots of reasons, and
2. There are lots of reasons in particular why you might want to borrow for the sixth and seventh scale degrees.
These deeper concepts get shoehorned into the notions of "melodic minor" and "harmonic minor". So much is lost by shoehorning these ideas into scales that I wonder why we even bother. I think it's really that people like categorizing scales and learning new names for things, which also drives people's fascination with modes, which is totally out of proportion to how much you'd actually want to use them in music. Modes and scales seem to have a particular fascination for hackers in the music scene.
I have a lot more to say on this subject, but I'm working on a blog post.
[1]: Please note that you definitely can choose to write music using one of these scales as a device, and many people do, and it's good stuff. It's just that most music that most people listen to doesn't make any sense to analyze as using particular minor scales.
Yes, the "harmonic" and "melodic" so-called scales are more like common musical patterns that arise by "borrowing" chromatic alterations from the parallel major scale for the sake of better resolution. This also explains why the "melodic minor" is different when going upwards vs. downwards; since it's not really a "scale" in any structural sense, and the idiomatic alterations are different when one is "resolving" in one direction or the other.
>I think it's really that people like categorizing scales and learning new names for things, which also drives people's fascination with modes, which is totally out of proportion to how much you'd actually want to use them in music
I don't get this. Modes show up all the time in popular music of the last 50 years. Am I missing something?
Would love to see an attempt to quantify how they show up "all the time".
When these discussions pop up, you see a lot of examples of songs that have borrowed chords or modal mixtures... "Oh, this song uses a mode in the bridge, or that song uses a mode except for the intro, or this other song switches between two modes." When songs have a lot of borrowed chords or borrowed notes, it more or less subsumes the idea of modes.
The problem is that modes are somewhat fragile things. As you mix more borrowed notes and borrowed chords into a song, the notes that make a mode sound like a mode get drowned out, and you're left with just a key center and a tonality (or not even that). That leaves precious few popular songs that actually sound like they're using a mode.
There are some specific genres where you see certain scales over and over, like the mixolydian scale in blues music, but blues typically relies so heavily on mixed tonalities.
"The natural minor scale is the most common minor scale, and the default when a musician refers to “a minor scale” or “minor.” The natural minor scale pattern features the same exact notes as the Aeolian mode in modal music."
Well, I've already written too much on this page! But every part of that seems wrong or very strange. And just before what you quoted:
> 3 Types of Minor Scales
> There are three types of minor scales in music theory.
What type of "music theory"? Dorian mode doesn't count? Maybe 3 in classical music theory, not in jazz or..rock/pop/contemporary music etc. And calling them "types" of minor scale sounds very odd to me.
> The natural minor scale is the most common minor scale.
Is that true? Arguably not. What sort of music are they talking? Does it mean "out of all music ever written" or "nowadays in music" or..something else? They might mean, "in classical music before the mid 19th C" if they say there are 3 minor scales. Or, most likely, "This is true by definition ..because it's called natural minor." - they probably never thought about if it's true or not. The scale of a piece/song (usually) depends on the melody, and I think Aeolian (i.e. "natural") and Dorian are both common. Possibly Dorian is much more common - that "minor 6" sound very common in pop songs since..forever, the 60s if not way before, is Dorian not Aeolian. It's extremely common in R&B etc. Or like..uh..the second chord of Here, There and Everywhere, Gmajor then Amin, the scale is evidently not Aeolian but Dorian.
> the default when a musician refers to “a minor scale” or “minor.”
Well, this is questionable too. Depends what kind of music. "Minor" mostly refers to a chord, not a scale. I'm not sure people ever say "a minor scale", when would you (need to) say that? It might mean a minor blues scale in some genres.
> The natural minor scale pattern features the same exact notes as the Aeolian mode in modal music.
I find that super-bizarre and sounds like they don't know what they're talking about. Features the same exact notes?! - it's the same thing. A little like saying "news.ycombinator.com features the same exact articles as Hacker News". You would think "What the hell are they talking about?!", and that's what I think when I read that sentence.
Well my experience is that the natural minor is treated as the "default" minor key. For instance, I always understood that A minor was all on white keys. Here is what the Wikipedia page for "A minor" starts with:
"A minor is a minor scale based on A, with the pitches A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Its key signature has no flats and no sharps. Its relative major is C major and is parallel major is A major."
Then it goes on to discuss the melodic and harmonic versions. Notably, those need accidentals since the key signature itself describes A natural minor. That in itself suggests "default" for the natural version. As does the name "natural."
Well, you are confusing scales and keys, two different things - as is that wikipedia quote - but the point that the key of C major's "relative minor" key, in classical lingo, A minor, with the same key signature, uses the Aeolian, since A to A using the C major notes is Aeolian, is a good one, thanks.
[looks at the page] Wow, the scale of "A minor" has a wikipedia page?!..uh no, it seems it's about the key of A minor, and the whole thing confuses the key and the associated scale. That's very weird!
To explain slightly - in my understanding, saying a classical piece is "In C minor" as they do, usually means it starts and ends (at least) in the key of C minor. "C" means the root or I of the home/tonic chord is C, "minor" means the third is Eb ("major" would mean it's E). The fifth is always G, so not specified. This key specifies the (most important/initial) root triad. It says nothing about the other notes of the scale. The most important chord besides the I chord, the V7, has a B natural, which will usually occur often in the melody, and is not in the "natural minor" scale. Etc. Key =/= scale.
There are differences between scale and key, yes, but they often are interchangeable and overlap. For instance that wikipedia page for A minor doesn't say "A minor scale" nor "A minor key"... you can see they treat it (there and elsewhere) as if they are essentially the same thing in most usages. When necessary they make the distinction.
Another example from Wikipedia, from the "key" page: "In music theory, the key of a piece is the group of pitches, or scale, that forms the basis of a music composition in classical, Western art, and Western pop music."
I don't think Wikipedia is alone in this.
I'll admit I sometimes use the words "scale" (as well as the word "note") when I might have used "key" because it can get ambiguous and confusing given the overlapping meanings (such as a "piano key").
Jazz vibraphonist here: pretty sure there isn't a definitive "minor scale," as you say. 4 (3?) of the modes are considered minor, 2 major, and the weird one (dominant 7). So I completely agree it's a bit misleading to just call things "the minor scale."
Although I do think I was initially taught the "minor scale" was the natural minor, so that may be where the OPs decision comes from.
Edit: Just saw info on the site. It is using natural.
Hi. I don't remember ever hearing the term "natural minor" either hehe. I've never thought about it too much, but I think improvising on a tune with a C- or C-7 etc chord symbol, like a C minor blues, I (mostly) wouldn't use Ab in the scale but A. Dorian is the modern jazz go-to minor scale, I think. Maybe all the versions of So What/Impressions I've been listening to lately have distorted my ear :-) I'd be more likely to use a scale with a B natural than one with an Ab. Well, come to think of it, one of my complaints about the institutionalization of jazz has been that everyone learns to play the same scale over a minor chord! And it's better if everyone has their own ideas...
I'm not sure why you quote that at me, how you think that will help. Yes, I had a look after my initial click, and saw that. I don't agree that it's the default, that there even is a "default" minor scale, or that that's the most common name for that mode, but I understand I may be in a minority/wrong.
> First thing I clicked on was C minor... which showed me "C minor scale". Problem is.. Is that a thing? I've not heard of "the C minor scale". I don't think it's a thing. (Jazz pianist here)
Of course it's a thing. C major, C natural minor, C melodic minor, C harmonic minor, the whole shebang: all the scales are there for every note, A through G and the sharps/flats. Heck. You could start somewhere in between recognized notes and make a major/minor scale based off that, if you had the right instrument. It's a ratio of frequencies, that's all.
That's what all Western music music is based on. Divide the frequency space between N Hz and 2N Hz into 12 segments, pick seven tones out of the 12, then figure out where you're actually going to put the two notes that are right next to each other, half-steps. Extend that for your entire frequency space. (Also, if you devise two neighbor-patterns that are the same when you rotate them around, you're doing modes.)
Now, whether anyone plays them in general practice is another thing. Is the harpsichord a real instrument? Obviously on paper, but is it actually a thing?
I think GP was just making a Monk joke, which I appreciated a lot - it made me smile and made up in a moment for all these downvotes! My "shallow dismissal" made some interesting discussion appear, at least. ..But, it seems maybe you meant to reply to me, not the GP.
Sorry to hear about the down-votes. Monk always cheers me up, too!
I've always found the three forms of the minor scale to be pointless pedantry:
Bach was happy enough to write a C-minor piece with two flats on the staff, lowering 6 and raising 7 as needed by voice-leading and harmony, but that doesn't lend itself easily to a silly fingering chart.
My misspent youth earned me a degree in theory and composition, but I've found myself in your situation every time I've cracked open a scale book to freshen up and pass a hairy eye-ball over natural, melodic, and harmonic forms. You're right: they are not "real things", they are just a silly pedagogical contraption.
I’ve read through parts of the Wikipedia page several times in the past. It’s not ideal. I haven’t studied music theory systematically but I believe all the modes that contain a minor third above the root are technically considered minor scales (so Dorian, Aeolian, Phrygian, and Locrian), but in addition to that there are of course other constructed scales like melodic minor and harmonic minor as you mention, as well as multiple different scales called the Blues minor scale (the only one I’m familiar with is the one constructed from the minor pentatonic plus a diminished fifth).
I don't remember ever hearing that term before, but you say it like there's no doubt I'll know what it means. I'm curious - in what tradition did you learn to call it that? (Probably I'm very out of touch)
I don't know much about Jazz music, but I think "natural minor" is a well-understood term among classical musicians.
I think in classical music theory, you really "start" from the natural minor and then the harmonic and melodic scales can be explained in terms of leading tones etc.
Of course, the way classical music (at least anything between Baroque and Romanticism) works is rather different from the way Jazz works.
Ah ok thanks. I learnt of it in classical training, and have since read of it in classical books (e.g. classical music theory, or philosophy of music books concerned mainly with classical music), as the melodic minor descending. But seems I never understood "natural minor" so maybe unconsiously ignored that term or something.
Not the person you asked, but I learned the same terms as on wikipedia (natural, melodic, and harmonic minor) in music theory class. I took the class at a public high school in the US. I think my teacher was also the orchestra teacher.
We generally used minor (with no modifiers) to typically mean natural minor, but the teacher also essentially said that minor can mean a lot of things and gets complicated.
[googles it] On the "minor scale" wiki page they mention those three scales - "In music theory, the term minor scale refers to three scale patterns". There is no one "minor scale", that I'm aware of. Well, maybe you were taught that way, I don't know. Dorian mode (i.e. white piano notes from D up to D) is another commonly used minor scale; there are others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_scale