![]() ![]() This whole idea came about so as to make the leading tone have a stronger pull back to the tonic. The scale formula for the melodic minor is therefore 1 2 b3 4 5 6 7. This led to a smoother sounding scale, making it easier to create natural flowing melodies. The answer to the above problem was to also raise the sixth scale degree to eliminate the large interval created by raising the seventh. Although this might not be a problem in modern music, years ago it was considered unnatural and non melodic. This raised seventh creates a three semitone interval from the sixth scale degree. It's now that things start to get a little bit complicated. This raised seventh gives us a new scale formula 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 7 and we call it the harmonic minor scale. Using A natural minor as an example, this would mean making the G become G# which in turn will make the E minor chord, or the V chord, become E major. The solution to improving this weaker sounding cadence in minor keys is to raise the leading tone of the natural minor by a half step which results in a stronger pull back to the tonic. The five chord (Emin) sounds Ok and resolves reasonably well back to the A minor but it's still fairly weak sounding. Play a i iv v progression in the key of A minor. The five chord in a minor key doesn't have the same effect as it does in a major key because the leading tone is not as close to the tonic. For composers this makes it a bit harder to really establish the key. The leading tone in the natural minor scale however is a whole tone below the root and it doesn't have such a strong pull. If we make the five chord dominant (G7) then this "pull" becomes even stronger. In the key of C, the G sounds like it wants to resolve back to C. The "five chord" in a major key contains this leading tone and has a strong pull back to the tonic. In the major scale, the last note is one semitone below the root and it's called the leading tone, as the name suggests, it leads nicely into the tonic (root note). Generally speaking, the cadence is what reinforces the home key and mostly refers to the V-I transition in a chord progression. More information can be found at wikipedia about the cadence. I'm not going to give a detailed explanation about cadences, we'll just brush over the main points. We need to divert our attention a little for a moment before we can understand the why the harmonic minor and melodic minor scales came about in the first place. You can see this by comparing the charts below. For instance, a I IV V progression in C major is C F G. So even though both keys share the same set of chords, the chord progressions will be different. In the minor key the order becomes min dim maj min min maj maj. As we've discussed already, In major keys the chord order is maj min min maj maj min dim. The only difference is the order they are presented. Chords belonging to the key of C major will be the same set of chords that belong to the key of A minor. This similarity between the relative scales also means they happen to share the same chords. The relative minor of C major is A and the relative major of A minor is therefore C. From this it's easy to see why they relate to each other. You can see that these are the same notes as we find in C major (C D E F G A B), the only difference is the starting note. To make this a natural minor we need to flatten the third, sixth and seventh scale degree which gives us the following. Let's take a look at the scale notes to get a clearer picture. ![]() We call this the relative major, or from the major scale's perspective, the relative minor. The natural minor scale just so happens to share the same notes as the major scale three semitones (half steps) above. The scale formula for the natural minor scale is 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7. ![]() To get our head around all of this we need to first understand the natural minor. Because of this, minor keys can be ambiguous in terms of strict theory. ![]() Secondly, in modern music they are often mixed together. Two reasons for this, firstly, there are three minor scale types, natural minor, melodic minor and harmonic minor. Minor keys aren't quite so straightforward as major keys. ![]()
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