Minor Theory
As you learned in the previous section, everything in theory revolves around the major scale. That being the case, one of the easiest ways to construct the minor scale is to think of it as an altered version of major. It's very simple to turn the major scale into minor—just lower the third, sixth, and seventh notes by one half step.
As an example I'll turn a C-Major scale into a C-minor scale. First, I'll identify the notes of C Major and boldface the third, sixth, and seventh notes:
C, D, E, F, G,
Now I'll lower those boldface notes one half step.
C, D, E, F, G,
By lowering the third, sixth, and seventh notes in a major scale by one half step, you can easily make a minor scale from any major scale.
Major and minor scales that share the same root, such as the C-Major scale and C-minor scale, are called “parallel major and minor.”
While this method of finding a minor scale is easy, it does require you find the major scale first, and that may not be so easy or efficient.
Let's look at a formula for playing minor based on half steps and whole steps. (See FIGURE 7-4.)
Just as you can play the major scale across a single string, you can turn the half steps and whole steps into fret moves and play the minor scale across a single string, too; you can really see the separation of the intervals. For a minor scale you have: up two, up one, up two, up two, up one, up two, up two. Apply this across the second string, starting on the first fret C, and you'll come up with FIGURE 7-5.
Any theoretical rule that you use for the major scale can be applied to every scale.
Minor Intervals
You already know that the minor scale offers some new intervals—minor third and sixth and seventh. And you also know that the notes that don't change between the two scales are called perfect intervals. There's one catch—look at the intervals of the minor scale:
C–D (major second)
C–E (minor third)
C–F (perfect fourth)
C–G (perfect fifth)
C–A (minor sixth)
C–B (minor seventh)
Notice how the major intervals in our earlier example have changed to minor (the third, sixth, and seventh)? The fourth and fifth are perfect because they stay the same. But notice that the second is still called a major second, rather than a perfect second, even though it did not change between the scales. This is an exception that you just have to memorize. There is a minor second interval, but it's a half step. The major second is a whole step.
Why is the second interval called “major” instead of “perfect”?
The interval didn't change between the major and minor scales, so it seems that it should be called a perfect second. But music theorists have been at this for a long time, and they've settled on “major second” as the name for this interval. Remember, every rule has an exception!
Other Intervals
The other intervals are the diminished interval and augmented interval, neither of which are used extensively in popular music. They're used more for chords and chord theory, which is discussed in the next chapter. But simply, major is usually the larger of the intervals (there is more distance between the notes), and minor is smaller. If you have to get bigger than major, you augment it to make it larger. If you need to get smaller than a minor interval, diminished intervals take care of that. For the actual fingering of these intervals, check out Chapter 16.
