The Minor Scale
The Minor Scale
The Minor Scale
Are you ready for some more easy guitar lessons? Our focus for today will be on the minor scale, and it is one of my personal favorites. With just a little modification of the major scale a totally new sound will emerge. One that is somewhat ominous, or as others would say, it sounds "sad".
Again, if you take things slow and resist the urge to try and do as much as possible in the least amount of time, you will be so much better off in the long run.
Now, let's get on with our easy guitar lesson for today. In the last lesson you learned the formula for the major scale, so now we will try and break down the minor scale and how it fits into the scheme of things.
Certain minor chords appear in the major scale when constructing chords. Don't worry about constructing chords for now, it doesn't apply in this lesson. A great example would be the A minor chord in the key of C major.
If you remember the C major scale, it has no sharps or flats. Neither does the A minor scale. It is what is known as the relative minor of the C major scale, and contains the exact same amount of sharps and flats.
Each major scale has a relative minor scale that shares every single sharp and flat, but is constructed a little different and therefore has its own unique sound, but the the circle of fifths is beyond the scope of this particular easy guitar lesson, and something that I will have to save for later. Here is a little hint, all the relative minor means is that you start on a different note, but play the exact same notes as you would for that major scale.
For simplicities sake, we will start with the key of A minor. The easiest minor scale to learn, I would say.
Not a single note in the key of A minor will need to be altered by the use of any flats or sharps when the minor scale is applied to it. Meaning if you were to locate an A note anywhere on the neck of the guitar, either going up in pitch or going down in pitch, then apply the minor scale formula to it, you will play only these notes: A B C D E F G A (ascending) or A G F E D C B A (descending)
W = Whole step (the distance between two frets)
H = Half step (the distance of only one fret)
The minor scale formula is as follows: W H W W H W W
As stated in the last lesson, and I am sure you have this figured out now, there are naturally occurring half-steps between the notes of B-C and E-F.
Memorizing the fretboard is going to be a chore in itself, but it can be done. The longer you play, the easier time you are going to have when it comes to visualizing the notes on the fretboard. And remember, there are a great variety of ways to play a scale, so after you learn some of the patterns, many of them can be moved all over the fretboard and played the exact same way.
In case you are a tad rusty from the previous lesson, I will state this again. The sharp (#) is an accidental that raises a note by a half-step, while a flat (b) lowers a note by a half step.
Remember that when you are going up in pitch you will do better to use sharps, and if you are going down in pitch you might want to use flats in the naming of the notes, unless you are simply repeating the notes in a scale that you are trying to memorize.
All scales contain either sharps or flats, but never both. If you come across a scale that looks something like this: A B C# D Eb F# G A, please don't pay any attention to it, because it isn't a scale at all, and chances are someone is just messing around or being stupid.
The minor scale formula is as follows: W H W W H W W
A minor: A B C D E F G A
Here are another two scales for you to practice with:
C minor: C D Eb F G Ab Bb C
E minor: E F# G A B C D E
I hope those few scales will get you started in the right direction with the minor scale, but I don't want to overload anyone that is brand new to all of this music theory stuff. I completely understand what it is like to feel overwhelmed and have too many questions and hardly enough answers.
My best advice is to take it slow and reread everything until parts start to make sense. Trust me, you will eventually have one of those AH-HAH moments where things begin to click for you.
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