1 00:00:02,179 --> 00:00:10,213 ... 2 00:00:10,213 --> 00:00:12,259 Hi, how are you doing? Justin here, filling in for the 3 00:00:12,259 --> 00:00:14,898 theory godfather today. 4 00:00:14,898 --> 00:00:18,045 and in this lesson I want to discuss 5 00:00:18,045 --> 00:00:19,817 minor scales. 6 00:00:19,817 --> 00:00:21,497 There's been a lot of confusion on the forums 7 00:00:21,497 --> 00:00:24,658 and I've seen lots of comments of different videos that I've done 8 00:00:24,658 --> 00:00:28,129 with people getting a bit confused about the different types of minor scale. 9 00:00:28,129 --> 00:00:32,578 The major scale is pretty obvious. There's the major scale and that's it. 10 00:00:32,578 --> 00:00:38,817 When we start talking about minor scales, we discover that there's the Natual minor scale, the Pure minor scale, the Aeolian mode... 11 00:00:38,817 --> 00:00:44,739 ...the Harmonic minor, Melodic minor, the Phrygian mode, the Dorian mode... 12 00:00:44,739 --> 00:00:50,418 So how come there's al these different minor scales? Where do they come from and when do you use them? 13 00:00:50,418 --> 00:00:53,365 That's what this video is about. 14 00:00:54,212 --> 00:00:59,712 I'm gonna tell you a little story and it's not really the truth, but I'm hoping that it will help you understand 15 00:00:59,712 --> 00:01:02,962 the makeup of these different minor scales and when you might use them. 16 00:01:02,962 --> 00:01:11,044 The first thing that you need to understand is the pure minor scale, which is the same as the natural minor scale and the Aeolian mode. 17 00:01:11,044 --> 00:01:16,376 This is the first minor scale that was used way back in ... time 18 00:01:16,376 --> 00:01:21,876 And it sounds like this. I'm gonna do one of these examples in the key of A. 19 00:01:21,876 --> 00:01:28,577 I'm gonna play an A minor chord and then I'm gonna play the A pure minor scale, which is the same as C major scale. 20 00:01:28,577 --> 00:01:33,338 It has the same notes as C major. So here's the chord... 21 00:01:35,293 --> 00:01:38,677 ...and here's the scale... 22 00:01:47,816 --> 00:01:53,897 That's the first type of minor scale that existed and that's the one that was used for a long time. 23 00:01:53,897 --> 00:01:59,784 Before we get on to the next stage, you need to understand another thing called a 'cadence', 24 00:01:59,784 --> 00:02:05,618 or more specifically a 'perfect cadence'. A perfect cadence is a V chord going to the I chord in any given key. 25 00:02:05,618 --> 00:02:12,953 In a major key, if we translate this back to A major, it would be the chord E7 going to A. 26 00:02:12,953 --> 00:02:17,435 In most classical music this was how a song finished, or a section finished. 27 00:02:17,435 --> 00:02:23,018 And you can hear when I play it in a sec. it really sounds like it's resolved, it finishes. 28 00:02:23,018 --> 00:02:29,017 So here we go, E7 to an A. 29 00:02:29,017 --> 00:02:32,183 You hear it all the time. 30 00:02:34,137 --> 00:02:40,703 Really common, it's this sound... 31 00:02:40,703 --> 00:02:43,035 You can hear it sound kind of final, finished. 32 00:02:43,035 --> 00:02:45,206 A perfect cadence. 33 00:02:45,206 --> 00:02:59,058 The reason that that works is, particularly this note G#, which is part of the E7 chord going... 34 00:02:59,058 --> 00:03:10,203 G# is called the leading note. And that's a really important part to understand. 35 00:03:10,203 --> 00:03:20,283 I already mentioned that the A minor scale has the same notes as the C major scale. 36 00:03:20,283 --> 00:03:35,702 If we look at the chords in the key of C, but we start on the chord A, we end up with this diatonic sequence, which would be A minor... 37 00:03:35,702 --> 00:03:47,369 B half-diminished... C ... D minor ... E minor (and this is important!), the fifth chord. 38 00:03:47,369 --> 00:03:53,703 F major... G major... and back to A minor. 39 00:03:53,703 --> 00:04:03,285 That's the diatonic sequence in A Pure minor. A natural minor, pure minor, aeolian mode, there all the same thing. 40 00:04:03,285 --> 00:04:08,204 They all have the same notes as the C major scale. They're called relative major and relative minor. 41 00:04:08,204 --> 00:04:15,611 The relative major of A minor is C major, and the relative minor of C major is A minor. 42 00:04:15,611 --> 00:04:25,424 You might want to check out the web site page for this. All of the stuff I'm talking about is typed up already, 43 00:04:25,424 --> 00:04:32,611 the page is called 'Demystify the minors', it would be a really good idea to take a look at that page. 44 00:04:32,611 --> 00:04:38,498 This video is embedded in that page on the website, so you can scroll down and see all the notes. 45 00:04:38,498 --> 00:04:43,279 You'll probably find that helpful to be able to see these things, the construction of each of these chords. 46 00:04:43,279 --> 00:04:50,217 The idea of this video is to give you the aural content, to make sure your ears understand what I'm talking about. 47 00:04:50,217 --> 00:04:53,443 So that's a cadence. 48 00:04:53,443 --> 00:05:01,222 The fifth chord in that diatonic sequence of A pure minor was E minor. 49 00:05:01,222 --> 00:05:12,696 If we go E minor to A minor, it doesn't really sound finished. It could keep going somewhere. 50 00:05:14,311 --> 00:05:18,197 It could go all sorts of different places, it doesn't have any sort of finality. 51 00:05:18,197 --> 00:05:27,859 What happened back in the day (it's not exactly true but bear with me), that Bach really wanted to get his perfect cadence. 52 00:05:27,859 --> 00:05:33,657 He wanted the sound of E7 going to A minor. 53 00:05:33,657 --> 00:05:35,136 So he could finish his song. 54 00:05:35,136 --> 00:05:46,444 What he decided to do, was to change the note G, which is the note that makes the E minor, and change it to a G sharp. 55 00:05:46,444 --> 00:05:51,299 Which meant that that chord, the fifth chord in the key of A minor, could be E7. 56 00:05:51,299 --> 00:05:55,945 So he could have the E7 going to A minor. 57 00:05:55,945 --> 00:06:06,339 That new scale is called the A Harmonic minor, because it gave him the harmony he required to make the music he wanted to play. 58 00:06:06,339 --> 00:06:13,194 This scale sounds like this. This is the A harmonic minor scale. Here's the chord... 59 00:06:13,194 --> 00:06:27,444 ...Here's the scale... 60 00:06:27,444 --> 00:06:33,527 All well and good! He's got his E7, he's changed the scale, and now he had the harmonies going that he wanted to use. 61 00:06:33,527 --> 00:06:37,611 Everything is happy. Almost...