While we understand that there are many different types of scales and chords, we generally identify tonality in the context of what I call the major/minor duality. These days we tend to think of songs as being in either a major key or a minor key. To understand how we came to do things this way, we need to know a little bit of history. I don’t really know why I was taught the scales in this order – thinking about it now, it seems more logical to start with the natural minor – but I know that, like me, a lot of people learned the scales in this order. Later I learnt the melodic minor, and later still, the natural minor. The first minor scale I learnt was a harmonic minor. Then, a little later, you were taught minor scales. Depending on the instrument, it might have been the C major, G major or F major scale. If you’re like me, the first scale you were taught when you began learning an instrument was a major scale. In this post I’ll attempt to answer to both of those questions. My students sometimes ask me, “Why are there three different types of minor scales, when there’s only one type of major scale?”Īnother question I often hear is, “Why does the melodic minor scale have different notes going up and going down?”.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |