Minor scales: Natural, Melodic, and Harmonic

Welcome back to another music theory lesson, everyone! Today, we are going to be covering the three types of minor scales: natural minor, melodic minor, and harmonic minor.

Natural Minor:

We will start with the natural minor scale. In order to form a natural minor scale, you must first find the relative major of the minor key you are in. This is going to tell you what accidentals you need in your natural minor scale. If you need a refresher on relative minors and relative majors, I've done a whole lesson on that as well.

Let's go through an example together. We're going to form the C minor natural scale. As mentioned before, we first have to figure out the relative major of C minor, which is Eb major. What is the key signature of Eb major? Bb, Eb, and Ab. Our C minor natural scale will also have these accidentals, since C minor and Eb major share the same key signature. Therefore, our C minor natural scale will look like this:

C D Eb F G Ab Bb C Bb Ab G F Eb D C

Let's try another example together. How would we form the E minor natural scale? Just like in the previous example, we will first determine the relative major of E minor, which is G major. Since the key signature of G major is F#, the E minor natural scale will also have an F#:

E F# G A B C D E D C B A G F# E

To summarize, the natural minor scale has the exact same accidentals as the key signature of its relative major.

Melodic Minor:

Next, let's go over how to form the melodic minor scale. This one is a little more interesting, since the scale is not symmetrical on the way up vs. on the way down. For the ascending half of the scale, you are going to take the natural minor and raise the 6th and 7th tones by a semitone. For the descending half, you are just going to have the natural minor scale.

Let's illustrate this with a couple of examples so that you can better understand what I mean.

For the first example, we are going to form the C minor melodic scale. As we already saw in the previous section ("Natural Minor"), the C minor natural scale is as follows:

C D Eb F G Ab Bb C Bb Ab G F Eb D C

For the ascending half of the melodic minor scale, we have to raise the 6th and 7th tones, which are Ab and Bb, respectively. This means that these notes will become A natural and B natural. So, our ascending half of the C minor melodic scale will be:

C D Eb F G A♮ B♮ C

As mentioned earlier, the descending half will just be the natural minor scale. So, here is the entire C minor melodic scale:

C D Eb F G A♮ B♮ C Bb Ab G F Eb D C.

As you can see, the 6th and 7th tones are reverted back in the descending half.

Let's walk through another example. This time, we're going to form the E minor melodic scale. As we already saw in the previous section ("Natural Minor"), the E minor natural scale is as follows:

E F# G A B C D E D C B A G F# E

To form the ascending half of the E minor melodic scale, we must raise the 6th and 7th tones by a semitone. So, C will become C#, and D will become D#:

E F# G A B C# D# E

The descending half will just be the natural minor scale. So, here is the entire E minor melodic scale:

E F# G A B C# D# E D♮ C♮ B A G F# E

Harmonic Minor:

Finally, let's go through harmonic minor scales. Unlike melodic minor scales, harmonic minor scales are symmetrical ascending and descending! All you have to do is raise the 7th tone of the natural minor scale by a semitone for both halves of the scale.

Let's go through a couple of examples. If we want to form the C minor harmonic scale, we're going to take the natural minor scale and raise the 7th tone by a semitone. This means that the Bb will turn into a B natural:

C D Eb F G Ab B♮ C B♮ Ab G F Eb D C

Next, let's look at the E minor harmonic scale. We're going to do the same thing - take the natural minor scale and raise the 7th by a semitone. This means that the D will turn into a D#:

E F# G A B C D# E D# C B A G F# E

Need extra help with this concept?

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