Minor Scales

Minor scales are the foundation of minor key harmony. They are derived from the major scale, with variations which allow using the leading tone in harmonies and melodies.

Natural minor

The natural minor scale is derived from the major scale by starting at the note a minor third below the major scale tonic, and continuing up the rest of the major scale notes. (New scales created by starting on a different note of a scale in this way are called modes. Another name for natural minor is the Aeolian mode.)

The major scale from which a natural minor is derived is called its relative major. The natural minor scale so derived is called the major scale's relative minor.

The natural minor scale has some minor intervals: ♭3, ♭6, and ♭7. This is different from a major scale, which has no minor intervals.

Harmonic minor

Western composers like to create harmonies that include the 7, or leading tone, because it leads to the tonic. It creates a sense of tension before resolving neatly to the 1. The natural minor scale doesn't have a leading tone, but composers of minor key songs often use one anyway in order to make nicely resolving chord progressions.

Raising the natural minor's ♭7 to a 7 in this way creates a new scale, called harmonic minor.

It's important to realize that harmonic minor is a conceptual scale, useful for understanding, but rarely actually played sequentially in real songs. It's generally not helpful to practice this scale directly.

Melodic minor

If you played the harmonic minor scale above, you probably noticed the striking sound of the interval between the ♭6 and the 7. It's a lovely sound, common in music around the world, but to Western ears it sounds "foreign" because it's very uncommon in Western music. Euroclassical composers preferred to avoid this sound in their music, so when creating minor key melodies they would often raise the ♭6 to a 6 (at least when playing ascending melodies). This adjustment creates another new scale, called the melodic minor scale.

Melodic minor is the same as a major scale with a ♭3. If you play that scale, you'll notice that the first half sounds like a minor scale, and the second half sounds like a major scale.

Practicing minor scales

As described in Playing Scales Musically, we want to practice minor scales with chord tones on downbeats, in order to train our ears and fingers to play them musically.

Minor triad arpeggio

The chord tones of minor triad chords are described by the minor triad arpeggio. When we practice minor scales, we know we are playing chord tones on downbeats when we can hear this arpeggio thumping out like a heartbeat underneath the scale.

Minor scale practice pattern

To practice minor scales with a chord tone on every other note, we have to account for the fact that there are two notes between the 5 and the 1, and also for the complexity of all these variations around the leading tone. In real minor key compositions, it is common for both the ♭7 and the 7 to be used in the same song. And use of the ♭6 or 6 in a melody depends entirely on what chord it's being played over. When improvising, we have to use our ears to know which would sound good, so it can be unhelpful to drill one or the other into muscle memory.

The best compromise I've found is to practice the following scale pattern, which leaves the sixths out altogether, and tags the end with the leading tone 7 sliding into 1 like the major scale practice pattern. But in play time, it's important to use our ears to determine which half steps are appropriate to play at a given moment.

See the E-shape Minor Scale lesson for an example of playing this pattern on the fretboard.