Ok, I am, like, brand new here, and I have some questions about scales. Just to keep it concise I will post them all here.
First is about the minor scale. Yes, I did read the lesson, but for some reason I did not understand it.
My question is just is. Do you just take the flats and sharps of the scale of the fifth of the original scale? If this is not correct could someone please explain.
What's the original scale? You mean the major scale?
I think you might be asking, "how do you get the natural minor scale that has the same flats or sharps as the major scale?" i.e., the RELATIVE minor
You start from the SIXTH note of the major scale (not the fifth).
So if the scale of A major is A B C# D E F# G# A then the minor scale with the same sharps will start on the 6th note, which is F#. So the F#minor scale will be:
F# G# A B C# D E F#
Wow, that clears up a lot. I understand now, thank you.
No problem - Next!! :lol:
-and welcome to the forum too.
Thanks, and, luckily, I do have another question(s).
What are the minor and major pentatonic scales(Say for the key of D, but I really don't care).
D minor pentatonic is D F G A C D
D major pentatonic is D E F# A B D
They are the same as the major and minor scales except for two notes that the pentatonic scales lack.
In the pentatonic minor that's notes 2 & 6 of the minor scale and in the pentatonic major, it's notes 4 & 7 of the major scale.
One point to remember. As has been said, the relative (natural) minor scale uses the same notes as it's major scale - Cmajor=C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C and Aminor= A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A. If you look at the 4 and 7 of the major scale (D & G, in this case) and relate them to the relative minor positions 2 & 6, you see that they are exactly the same notes (G & D). The Aminor pentatonic, therefore, remains the same as the Cmajor pentatonic.
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So(warning n00b theory question ahead) what is the point of having relative natural minor scales if they have the exact same notes as the major scale that it corresponds to.
So(warning n00b theory question ahead) what is the point of having relative natural minor scales if they have the exact same notes as the major scale that it corresponds to.
Good question. They do have the same notes but they have a different tonal centre.
Music in the key of C major is written in such a way that the note C and the chords built upon that root note will be heard as the main note (and chord) that all the others relate to. That note is the tonal centre or key note.
Music in the key of A minor will have A as its key note (tonal centre) and all the other notes will be made to gravitate around that.
Because of the different note spacings in both keys to their respective key centres, The feel or 'mood' of the music will be very different. One will have the characteristic 'major' sound, and the other will have the characteristic 'minor' sound that we hear in music.
Okay, I get it. My next question has to do with soloing and improvising. I can write notes that sound good together using notes already in chords or parts of chords, but whenever i take a scale and try to make something that sounds good, it doesn't. I may get lucky once in a while. Is there any real trick to this or does it just take a lot of practice and study.
It takes practice, and the more important thing isn't just what notes you play but the rhythm you use to play them, a lot of things won't sound good until you play them at the right tempo, the more techniques you learn the more you can spice up the things you play, you could play a single note at different octaves or muting the note sometimes etc and come up with something that sounds interesting despite possibly being straight quarter notes of A notes (though it certainly helps to throw in more variety than that most the time). Brushing up on your scales and music theory will help you to figure out the notes that are generally going to sound good, from there the challenge is sometimes to not recreate a well known song, I keep finding a lot of classical songs lately (when the saints go marching in... and dueling banjo's... though I admit after hitting the first few notes on accident I had to figure out the remaining notes).
You should also try learning a bunch of solos. You'll pick up licks and runs along the way that you'll be able to throw into your own improv. You'll learn a lot by doing this. What kind of music are you into?
I am into rock. More specifically, metal(oldies), post hardcore(like my chemical romance), and softer rock too. I pretty much like all rock.
Can someone tell me some blues scales.
The scale most commonly known as the blues scale is the minor pentatonic plus one extra note, the flatted fifth, which comes between the 3rd and 4th notes of the scale, e.g in A = A C D Eb E G
