Multiple Scales — Scale Clarity
In contrast to the major scale, which comes in only one variety, the minor scale comes in a few different forms. What you have begun to explore is the natural minor scale. When people talk about minor scales, they are typically talking about the natural minor scale, which has the formula of WHWWHWW. However, there are two other minor scales that you need to know about, which have different interval patterns than the natural minor scale: harmonic and melodic minor.
Point to Consider
The natural minor scale is called natural because it's a naturally occurring extension of the major scale, also called a related or relative minor. Relative minors will be discussed in Chapter 5. The other minor scales are derivatives of the natural minor scales and are made by modifying the original natural minor scale.
Harmonic and melodic minor scales have a slightly controversial stance in traditional music theory. Some theorists argue that they are not “true” scales because they are not naturally occurring patterns. But music theory is about identifying what you see and hear in music and whether or not you believe that the scales should have their own names, they are found in music often enough that you need to know about them. In any case, harmonic and melodic minor scales are part of the basic level of theory knowledge, and you simply have to know what they are.
Harmonic minor is the first variation of the minor scale you should know. It's a simple change of the natural minor scale. To form the harmonic minor scale, simply take a minor scale and raise the seventh note up one half step. What you are doing is creating what is called a leading tone to the scale. It simply gives a very strong pull from the last note of the scale back to the tonic. All major scales already have the leading tone built in, but natural minor scales do not; they have a whole step between the sixth and seventh tones. Interestingly, this is not why composers use the harmonic minor scale. If you look at the name of the scale, you gain some insight into why the scale exists. Simply, the raising of the seventh tone gives composers a slightly better harmonic palette to work with — it gives us better chords. The harmonic minor scale provides a major chord on the dominant degree and a diminished chord on the leading tone degree. Both of these chords are extremely important to composers and musicians and are used so frequently that the harmonic minor scale actually became a “scale.”
Here is the D harmonic minor scale.
The formula of the scale is interesting in that you no longer strictly keep to whole and half steps. In fact, between the sixth and seventh tone, you have a step and a half (an augmented second to be more exact). That large leap between the sixth and seventh tone is awkward melodically.
If you play the scale by itself, you may conjure up images of the Middle East and the traditional melodies of the Jewish religion, which uses the harmonic minor scale as material for melodies. It's hard to use the scale by itself and not have it sound “ethnic.”
Melodically, you are left with an awkward scale to work with. To work around this, composers created yet another scale to solve this dilemma: the melodic minor scale.
To fix the strange sound that the harmonic minor scale makes, the melodic minor scale was born. The melodic minor scale is made by raising the sixth and seventh tones of a natural minor scale one half step each.
The whole point of the melodic minor scale is to smooth out the skip between the sixth and the seventh tones in the harmonic minor scale. The raised seventh tone in harmonic minor is crucial to minor scale harmony, but the scale when played alone sounds strange. By raising the sixth as well, the melodic minor scale works better for melodies and harmonies. You lose that augmented second interval between the sixth and seventh tone and you get back to using whole and half steps.
Because the change in the scale makes it melodically smoother, it's called the melodic minor scale. Both the harmonic and melodic minor scales fall under the umbrella of basic music theory, which is important to understand to make sense of reading music.
Here is the melodic minor scale in the key of D minor.
Here is a bit of very specific information for you. The melodic minor scale when used and practiced in a classical setting has some odd usage rules. The rule is that when you play the scale and ascend with it, you sharp the sixth and seventh tones, just like in the construction of the melodic minor scale. The odd part is, when you go to descend with the same scale, you return the sixth and seventh tones back to their natural minor spellings. This is something that is taught in classical music traditions, and if you study an instrument with a classical teacher, you may practice your scales that way: ascending one way and descending another way. FIGURE 4.11 is what that scale would look like:
Nowadays, and especially in jazz circles, the melodic minor scale is not altered depending on its direction; it is the exact same scale no matter which direction it's played in (the sixth and seventh remain raised the whole time).
Point to Consider
Rather than do all your practice in this book, consider keeping a separate notebook of staff paper in which to practice spelling scales and other concepts and to jot down notes. Do as much as you can to reinforce the material presented here, to accelerate your learning and mastery of music theory.
