This course will introduce students to the theory of music, providing them with the skills needed to read and write Western music notation, as well as to understand, analyse, and listen informedly. It will cover material such as pitches and scales, intervals, clefs, rhythm, form, meter, phrases and cadences, and basic harmony. This course covers the fundamentals of Western music theory, from the absolute basics to some more advanced concepts and, as such, is the perfect course for beginners and more experienced musicians alike. Follow us on twitter @musictheorymooc #edmusictheory
Minor Keys
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From the course by The University of Edinburgh
Fundamentals of Music Theory
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Meet the Instructors
Dr Michael Edwards
Reid School of Music, ECA
Dr Zack MoirTeaching Fellow
Reid School of Music, Edinburgh College of Art
Richard Worth
Edinburgh College of Art
Dr Nikki Moran
Reid School of Music, ECA
Dr John Philip Kitchen, MA BMus PhD FRCO LRAM
Reid School of Music
[BLANK_AUDIO]
In the last section we were talking about key signatures,
and whenever we did that, we were talking about major keys.
>> We were saying things like, the two Sharps, F-sharp, and C -sharp,
so we must me in D-major, or there's three flats, B E, A flats.
So we must be in E-Flat major.
>> Now a lot of you watching this video might have
already realized, but we've only really given half the picture here
because we're only talking about major keys, and the thing that
we've neglected to talk about up until now is minor keys.
Now, when we're looking at the circle of fifths, we noticed that
there were 12 distinct tonics that we could build our major scales from.
And actually for minor keys, there's 12 distinct
tonics that we can build these from as well.
>> But, it's the same key signature system that we're using.
So we don't have to learn an entirely new system of building these key signatures.
The key signatures that we already learnt, and the way
they're constructed from collections of sharps and collections of flats.
This applies equally to the, to minor scale
systems as it does to major scale systems.
Every key signature actually represents not one, but two keys.
It represents the major key and it
represents the related, the relative minor key.
>> So this music we need to have a think about what we actually mean by minor keys.
And how we work out what major keys they're related to.
One of the easiest ways to do that is
to start thinking about minor scales, although this is
slightly problematic, because when we talk about minor scales,
we're talking about something less concrete, the major scales.
And this is because there's more than one version of a minor scale.
But we'll start with the simplest.
Now, every minor scale is related to a major
scale and if we look at that major scale,
it just so happens that the sixth degree, is
the degree that the minor scale is built from.
>> So if we take D major example with it's
F-sharp and its C-sharp, we're going to start building up from D.
D is number one.
[MUSIC]
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
6 takes us to B.
B is the relative minor for D.
>> So, from this degree that we're going to build our relative minor scale.
So if we take the sharps that belong to D major, F-sharp and C-sharp.
We keep them, but we're just going to start the whole sequence on B.
We get B, C-sharp, D [SOUND]
E, F-sharp, G, A, B.
>> What we got to produce that B minor, was all the
notes of D major, but just rearranged with B as our new tonic.
[MUSIC]
We call this the Natural Minor.
It's the most closely related to D.
Now we mentioned that there's a couple of
different types of minor scale that are in use.
The reasons that we've got a few different variations on that, is partly because of
the transition we made from D to the
relative Minor B, there in the natural form.
Where, where we're only using exactly the notes
of D Major but rearranged from B to B.
And the results of that, is that although we can
start and end on B if we want to, we
could easily, just as easily, end on D and we'd
be back feeling as though D was still our tonic.
[MUSIC]
>> So D really feels the point of which the music has come to rest that
we feel comfortable with this as being the center of the key and the whole note.
And this goes back to what we talked about in
the previous section, whereby it's actually not just the notes that
are available to us, but it's the special relationship that
they have, and the environment, the sonic environment that they create.
And that's inevitably going to pull us back to D.
Listen to this though.
[MUSIC]
>> Now that minor scale had a really different
feeling to the natural minor that we started with.
We only changed one note, but the result of that one change was
to give us a scale that showed us how B really is our new tonic.
[MUSIC]
>> So the note that we changed was the 7th degree.
So instead of an A natural, as we had when we derived the scale
from D-Major, we have an A-Sharp and actually, what we heard was that this.
[MUSIC]
Really led our ears to B, being the new tonic.
And actually the 7th degree of a scale is called the Leading Note.
And we really had this,
[MUSIC]
Raised 7th.
Raised by a semitone, from an A to an A-sharp.
Led our ears to B as our new tonic.
>> So, just to recap from previous lectures, we now know
that the 1st degree of this scale is called the Tonic.
The 5th degree of this scale is called the Dominant and
the 7th degree of this scale is called the Leading Note.
>> And this is one leads our ears to the Tonic.
But don't worry we're going to cover all these note names and the others in week 4.
[MUSIC]
This leads our ears back to the Tonic.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
>> So the scale that we just produced by raising that 7th degree, we
call the Harmonic Minor Scale and it's the one that has a really distinctive sound.
In lecture 4, we're going to talk about Harmony.
We're going to talk about the relationship of chords within a
key and the way that the chords move and progress.
And at that point, it'll hopefully be a little clearer
as to why we call this the Harmonic Minor Scale.
>> So, up until now we've talked about
the Natural Minor Scale, the Harmonic Minor Scale, and
we're going to go on to talk about the
third main type, which is the Melodic Minor Scale.
Now remember we were talking about the Harmonic Minor Scale.
We noted how distinctive the sound was, and the
reason for this distinctive sound is the big gap between
the 6th degree and the 7th degree, created by raising
our 6th degree, before leading back to our 7th degree.
>> It's a whole tone and a half.
It's three semi tones in one leap.
[MUSIC]
So, it takes us up, if we want to sing it, we have to sing.
[MUSIC]
B, C-Sharp, D, E, F-Sharp, G, A-Sharp, B.
It's a long way to travel.
>> And it's particularly awkward for people to sing.
It's a big, big interval to sing.
So, although that distinctive sound, or the Harmonic Minor Scale is really
useful in composition and it can create some really nice, interesting sounds.
Actually in practice to get around the difficulty of that interval.
The melodic shape of the scale is smoothed out.
And actually when it's smoothed out, the result is the Melodic Minor.
So the Melodic Minor scale's different.
Actually to all the scales we've encountered so far, in that the ascending
form when it's going up, differs from the descending form, when it comes back down.
[MUSIC]
>> So you can hear that we wanted to do something that would smooth out that
great big tone and a half gap that, that was difficult to sing, a great big leap.
So on the way up [music] - that one.
So on the way up, the way that the
melodic minor is shaped, is it smooths out that gap.
[MUSIC]
It keeps that sharp in 7th, the one that leads our ears up from the Leading note
to the tonic, but to fill in that big old gap it raises the 6th degree as well.
[MUSIC]
It's easier to sing.
B, C-sharp, D, E, F-sharp, G-sharp, A-sharp, B.
Now when we come down our ears care less about that leading tone to tonic Interval.
That when we're going the other way, the
leading note isn't leading up to the tonic anymore.
It's kind of just the 7th.
So, when we come down in the Melodic Minor Shape, both the
sharpened 7th goes back, and the sharpened 6th reverts back.
So we just come down in the Natural Minor Form.
[MUSIC]
So, to make a nice smooth melodic musical shape coming down, we
just take away that sharpened 7th and we take away
that sharpened 6th and we just come back down in
the same pattern as the Natural Minor, and that's easy to sing to.
B-A-G-F sharp-E-D-C sharp-B.
>> So what we can see, is that the ascendant
form of the Harmonic Minor Scale, is just the Natural
Minor with a raised 6th and 7th, whereas when we
come back down, it's exactly the same as a Natural Minor.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
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