Course Sample for Our Advanced Music Theory Homeschool Course
Lesson 3
Minor Scales
Now that you have a solid understanding of major scales, we will explore minor scales. If you are unfamiliar with minor scales because you thought they were difficult, you will find that they also are just patterns. They are different but not difficult once you learn the patterns.
Major scales are pretty straightforward. They have just one pattern to learn. There are several different kinds of minor scales. You can tell them apart by the patterns.
Natural minor scales (note that the names of major scales are capitalized and minor are not.)
1. A natural minor is basically a relative of its major that is inverted.
2. Now compare the major to its natural parallel minor (parallel meaning the same letter name).
3. Another way of looking at this is to count whole and half steps. It is a bit more time consuming, but some people understand it better this way.
Examples:
Let’s recap. There are three different ways to look at natural minor scales.
- Comparing them to Relative Majors
- Comparing them to Parallel Majors
- Counting steps
- Write out your natural minor scales and practice playing them.
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