Sridhar Seetharaman's

 

Chord Tutorial

 

 

Lesson 3 : Not-so-minor Minor Scales

 

At the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

 

OK! Now that we are masters of the major scales in diatonic scheme, let us look at the minor scales.

 

Unlike major scales, there are three type of minor scales for a given key. They are

 

Natural Minor Scale

Let us look the simplest of the three, i.e, natural minor scale.

To get into the series of steps that form a minor scale, we will take a short route. Let us exploit the fact that minor scales could be derived from the major scales.

    • Each major scale has a relative minor scale.
    • The relative minor scale is formed with the same notes as the major scale, except that the key (or root, or reference) note is different.
    • The keynote is 1 1/2 step down the major scale.

 

Example: The A minor scale is a relative minor of the C major scale. "A" is 1 1/2 steps below "C".

The scale would be:

A B C D E F G A

Here is how A Minor Scale sounds.

Now let us find the intervals.

A - > B = 1 step [A to A# and A# to B]

B - > C = 1/2 step [B to C]

C - > D = 1 step [C to C# and C# to D]

D - > E = 1 step [D to D# and D# to E]

E - > F = 1/2 step [E to F]

F - > G = 1 step [F to F# and F# to G]

G - > A = 1 step [G to G# and G# to A] (A of next octave)

 

 

This scale which is directly formed from the major scale is known as Natural Minor Scale. Please notice that seventh note "G" is one step away from the key note "A". In all the major scales, we are used to have seventh note half step away from the key note. Well, try playing it and let me know how you feel. Do you see a difference from the A Major scale?

The relative major scale of A minor scale is C major scale. It is not unusual for composers to move from a major scale to relative minor scale.

 

Application Example 1:

As an example, please listen to "Vellai pura ondru" from the movie "Pudhu Kavithai".

The song is in "F" major scale. Well, not quite so. It is in Ragam Kalyani. This means that the scale is F G A B C D E F. The F major scale has Bb. As I have told you before, Indian popular music based on Indian ragams can never be matched completely with diatonic scales. All that we do is to tailor western music to suit our needs.

The whole song is in the key of F. But the second interlude, starts with the key of F, then shifts to the relative minor of "F". That would be "D minor".

The interlude has melancholic feel due to this. Before the saranam, it gets back to "F" key. When we understand the chords, we will revisit this song.

Most of the western classical compositions apply this idea. For instance, if a symphony is written in the key of "C", the slow movement might use the "A minor" scale. Of course, there are quite a lot of other kinds of harmonic changes which is beyond our current knowledge!

 

Exercise 2.1

Let me stop here for now. I think that we have enough information to jump into chords in next tutorial. Besides the natural minor scales, the melodic and harmonic minor scales are very much related to chords. We will get to them when we have to!

Happy reading,

- Sridhar.