BassInMyFace Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 ok, im fairly good with theory. play alot of bass and teach mates on an informal basis. unfortunately in a recent lesson, my logic was undermined and i ended up getting confused!! i admit i use patterns and theory kind of in conjunction and this is obviously the route of my confusion. we kno that a minor scale involves flattening the third and seventh. fine. unfortunately my "go to" minor fingering pattern also involves flattening the sixth. i had never seen it in this way before. after doing a bit of research i find that sixths and sevenths can be variably flattened or natural in minor scales, whats the deal with this?? are there different rules for different keys or what? i was under the impression that the minor scale had a fixed set of intervals that made it minor in the same way the major scale has its fixed intervals that makes it major. im disappointed that my long held beliefs have been shaken!!! anyone shed any light?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul_C Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 (edited) the Natural minor scale (Aeolian scale or mode) is the one with a flattened 3rd 6th and 7th, as opposed to the Harmonic minor which has flat 3rd and 6th but a major 7th, and the Melodic minor which has a flat 3rd only on the way up and flat 6th and 7th (as well as the flat 3rd) on the way down Edited December 3, 2009 by Paul_C Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul_C Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 the scale (or mode) with a flat 3rd and 7th and no flat 6th is the Dorian scale Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leftybassman392 Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 ... and if you flatten the 2nd, 3rd, 6th AND 7th you get a Phrygian scale. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul_C Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 [quote name='leftybassman392' post='673452' date='Dec 3 2009, 05:38 PM']... and if you flatten the 2nd, 3rd, 6th AND 7th you get a Phrygian scale. [/quote] a fair point, however if you also flatten the 5th you've got the Locrian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chardbass Posted December 4, 2009 Share Posted December 4, 2009 That's cleared things up then Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chardbass Posted December 4, 2009 Share Posted December 4, 2009 Before we get involved in modes it is worth considering the basic minor scales and its variations. There will be someone better informed than me here but when I have taught I use the natural minor scale as a start point Root, 2nd, min 3rd, 4th, 5th, min 6th, min 7th octave A natural minor would play A B C D E F G A. When I played a classical instrument I was taught the harmonic minor and melodic minor A harmonic minor has a raised 7th- A B C D E F Gsharp A but the gap between the F and Gsharp is considered large and un-melodic (whilst not a complete cardinal sin) As a result when ascending from 6th to 7th the 6th is raised by a semitone and when descending from 7th to 6th the 7th is lowered by a semitone with the 6th unaltered. The resulting scale means a different series of notes going up to the one coming down. A melodic minor ascending and descending is A B C D E Fsharp G sharp A G F E D C B A [url="http://www.tonalcentre.org/Harmonicmi.html"]http://www.tonalcentre.org/Harmonicmi.html[/url] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Major-Minor Posted December 5, 2009 Share Posted December 5, 2009 [quote name='chardbass' post='673868' date='Dec 4 2009, 03:25 AM']Before we get involved in modes it is worth considering the basic minor scales and its variations. There will be someone better informed than me here but when I have taught I use the natural minor scale as a start point Root, 2nd, min 3rd, 4th, 5th, min 6th, min 7th octave A natural minor would play A B C D E F G A. When I played a classical instrument I was taught the harmonic minor and melodic minor A harmonic minor has a raised 7th- A B C D E F Gsharp A but the gap between the F and Gsharp is considered large and un-melodic (whilst not a complete cardinal sin) As a result when ascending from 6th to 7th the 6th is raised by a semitone and when descending from 7th to 6th the 7th is lowered by a semitone with the 6th unaltered. The resulting scale means a different series of notes going up to the one coming down. A melodic minor ascending and descending is A B C D E Fsharp G sharp A G F E D C B A [url="http://www.tonalcentre.org/Harmonicmi.html"]http://www.tonalcentre.org/Harmonicmi.html[/url][/quote] I posted recently on this subject on another thread (the one about being confused about modes, i think). So let me just clarify a couple of points: The usual "classical" teaching gives just 2 minor scales: Harmonic and Melodic, but in fact the latter is an amalgam of 2 scales: Melodic and Natural. If you are asked in an Associated Board exam to play a melodic scale, they will expect the ascending to different to the descending, as has already been pointed out. What they don't teach in this domain, however, is that the descending scale is a in fact called a Natural Minor. The reason for the Melodic minor scale's introduction actually goes back to (I believe) Medieval times, when all serious music development happened in the Church. It was believed that the harmonic minor's jump of a minor 3rd between the flattened 6th and major 7th was too ungainly for the singers (it was predominantly vocal music at this time) and so the major 6th was introduced to smooth out the scale. The Harmonic minor scale, however, fits nicely into the style of harmony that became common as music developed through the Early Music and Baroque periods, ie the idea of the key system that we are all so familiar with these days. So, staying in A minor, we would have the chord built on the 4th note of the scale ie D with an F natural in it (rather than the F# of the melodic minor scale) and a G# to fit into the dominant chord of E7. The Major Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chardbass Posted December 5, 2009 Share Posted December 5, 2009 When I mentioned that there would be someone better informed it was you I was thinking of you Major Damned if I can remember how to use symbols in text too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Major-Minor Posted December 5, 2009 Share Posted December 5, 2009 [quote name='chardbass' post='675208' date='Dec 5 2009, 07:30 PM']When I mentioned that there would be someone better informed it was you I was thinking of you Major Damned if I can remember how to use symbols in text too![/quote] I assume you are referring to ###s ? On my Mac, it's the alt key and the 3 key ######. took me some experimenting to find it but there it is ######. The Major Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chardbass Posted December 5, 2009 Share Posted December 5, 2009 # Yeharrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!! You are the master Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirky Posted December 6, 2009 Share Posted December 6, 2009 What about a flat symbol? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chardbass Posted December 6, 2009 Share Posted December 6, 2009 I think we have to get by with a good old b- it doesn't look too bad- Bb Eb etc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveO Posted December 6, 2009 Share Posted December 6, 2009 Heres some more if you want. These can be found in the character pallette / special characters menu item on your mac (once open, change the view "all characters" then you can find musical symbols in the menu) Dunno if you can find em in the PC character map though although anyone can use them by typing in the &# numbers followed by a semicolon: 𝄪 Double sharp 𝄪 ♯ Sharp ♯ ♮ Natural ♮ ♭ Flat ♭ 𝄫 Doubleflat 𝄫 𝄞 Trebble clef 𝄞 𝄢 Bass clef 𝄢 𝄡 Tennor clef 𝄡 𝄆 𝄇 Repeats 𝄆 𝄇 e.g. to get ♭ type [code]& # 9 8 3 7;[/code] without the spaces Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chardbass Posted December 6, 2009 Share Posted December 6, 2009 Of course. ♭ Doh! I've learnt so much these past few days. Gotta love BC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Major-Minor Posted December 6, 2009 Share Posted December 6, 2009 [quote name='SteveO' post='675543' date='Dec 6 2009, 11:34 AM']Heres some more if you want. These can be found in the character pallette / special characters menu item on your mac (once open, change the view "all characters" then you can find musical symbols in the menu) Dunno if you can find em in the PC character map though although anyone can use them by typing in the &# numbers followed by a semicolon: 𝄪 Double sharp 𝄪 ♯ Sharp ♯ ♮ Natural ♮ ♭ Flat ♭ 𝄫 Doubleflat 𝄫 𝄞 Trebble clef 𝄞 𝄢 Bass clef 𝄢 𝄡 Tennor clef 𝄡 𝄆 𝄇 Repeats 𝄆 𝄇 e.g. to get ♭ type [code]& # 9 8 3 7;[/code] without the spaces[/quote] That's brilliant ! Thanks so much for that SteveO. ♮𝄞♭𝄐𝄫𝄡𝄇♯ɰɣβ I had no idea these things were so readily available on my Mac. The Major☟☛➲➤⬆⇪⇲↷↷♬♪௹ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul_C Posted December 6, 2009 Share Posted December 6, 2009 [quote name='Major-Minor' post='675715' date='Dec 6 2009, 02:22 PM']That's brilliant ! Thanks so much for that SteveO. ♮𝄞♭𝄐𝄫𝄡𝄇♯ɰɣβ I had no idea these things were so readily available on my Mac. The Major☟☛➲➤⬆⇪⇲↷↷♬♪௹[/quote] bear in mind that not all of those show up on a PC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveO Posted December 7, 2009 Share Posted December 7, 2009 (edited) [quote name='Paul_C' post='675752' date='Dec 6 2009, 04:12 PM']bear in mind that not all of those show up on a PC[/quote] good point. will do a test. ♭ ♮ ♯ EDIT: Aha! thought it was too good to be true. Only the flat, natural and sharp symbols are showing on my pc. bit of a shame. wait a mo, can we not have custom emoticons on this forum? can we not set up some musical symbols? this is a musicians forum after all (if you exclude the occasional posts about drumming ). Edited December 7, 2009 by SteveO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul_C Posted December 7, 2009 Share Posted December 7, 2009 ♩♫ ♭♮♯ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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