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thats weird question..i dont even understand it.it took me along time to get it but keep studying books on scales and youll learn..basicall major and minor scales have different orders of steps or tones semitones to get that major and minor sound..its just the way it is lol

For some reason, this line made me laugh out loud.

This whole thread is rather absurd. In all seriousness, though, it does show the importance (and difficulty) of asking the right question, carefully. Sometimes the very act of formulating a meaningful question clears up the misunderstanding. I don't know if that's what's going to happen here, though.

-Jason

.....yes, and to take it further (although maybe to get more "philosophical" than we want) ......many other discussions and arguments are only over what we mean by a word or a phrase, but without the arguers realizing it. Just define what y'all really mean, and that'll solve it immediately.

Sometimes anyway.

Back to this thread: Will anything get clarified here? Definitely not until Linda realizes that it's completely unclear what she's asking. It's like, she herself knows exactly what she means (I guess), but she doesn't realize that she's not finding the words to let us know.

In the most basic theory we learn, the minor key has the same key signature as its relative major. B minor and D major both have two sharps. We commonly think of those two sharps as signaling D major, and we get the feeling that B minor is derived from it, rather than getting the feeling the two sharps starts with B minor, and D major is derived from it. After all, for the harmonic and melodic minor, we have to tweak it with accidentals to make it fit. The major key needs no tweaking. So the question sort of makes sense.

The reason we have ended up with this is historical. Music went through various permutations and for a while there were church modes. If you take the white keys of a piano as a model, from C to C gives you a certain arrangement of tones and semitones. If you go from D to D, you get a new arrangement. E to E ditto. Each of these are modes. We thought melodically before we thought harmonically. Each of the modes has a different kind of flavour to it. We can feel that in the difference between the "sad" minor scale and the "happy" major scale (generally speaking). We kept two of those modes: the Ionian (major) and the Aeolean (minor).

If we begin a major scale in a particular key, then we have to raise or lower some of the "white notes" by a semitone - always the same ones. Since it repeats, the key signature was invented. The one that is 3 notes down from the other (minor to major) will have the same sequence of notes, just starting down three (or up six), like the old modes - which they are. That is why they share a key signature.

If we stay with the natural minor scale (the old Aeolean) we don't need accidentals. However, with the natural minor scale, the 7th note is a whole tone away from the tonic. Melodically, when you play a major scale,the 7th note pulls you to the tonic because it is a semitone away. That pull is weak in a natural minor scale. Therefore the 7th note is raised, which gives you the harmonic minor. Another reason for the harmonic minor is the type of chords you get. The dominant chord is crucial: it is a major chord, and it contains the 7th note, which will pull strongly to the tonic in V-I. This helps "tonality" in music: the sense that we have the tonic as a home base. If you did not raise the 7th degree note, you would not have this.

The problem with the harmonic minor is that melodically it is "bumpy". There is a gigantic 1 1/2 interval between 6 & 7, and then a tiny semitones between 7 & 8. It lurches, and "sounds Middle Eastern". So to make it smooth (and other reasons I'm sure - I haven't gone that far yet) the 6th is also raised for the ascending scale so that you have pile of whole tones for a while. That makes it sound smooth.

As someone pointed out, the reasons are musical. So to understand listen as you play or listen to music, and if you recognize a certain type of scale, find what kind of effect it has. What mood does it give? How does it transport you or the music?

That's what I can come up with.

Linda, for the love of God, tell us if you have any idea what anyone here is talking about!

Elucidation of sorts:

There can be a time when an untaught person picks up patterns in music without quite understanding them or having the complete concepts and terminology. Questions come across strangely. Some of us have been there ourselves.

I guessed that maybe Linda was seeing some patterns in music, and she is wondering why they are written as they are. A textbook type answer might not be comprehensible if the concepts and terms aren't there to understand it. So I expanded, in case my guess was right (it might not be).

Condensation of the same:
If Linda is asking why major & relative minor keys share a signature:
- history: church modes etc. The fact that there is history. There was a time that I didn't know that. Music might have been the same for thousands of years.
- Since major & minor scales are actually modes, the idea that they are. They are not just arbitrary combinations of intervals: there is a certain mood or character to them.

Linda seemed to be asking why minor scales are presented as having three forms: natural, harmonic, and melodic. She was told that this is just how they happen to be. The harmonic minor has a raised 7th which has musical reasons. The melodic minor has musical reasons too. The important thing is to get the idea that there are musical reasons, by seeing some examples, and then start exploring (listening!). That is an alternative to be just looking for patterns of intervals and being stuck there.

That was the gamble. I saw a few knowledgeable answers but wondered if they would be understood, given the framing of the questions.

For the love of God I swear she doesn't care...

But, I see what she's asking - it should be obvious to even the most casual observer - she's asking a question similar to this:

"Why isn't a young dog called a kitten instead of a puppy?"

She likes puppies and also the name "kitten", so she wants the latter to refer to the former. It's that simple - she just wants to re-arrange reality to fit her personal preferences. Let us know how that works out...

The ultimate question then becomes: Is she a major or a minor pain?

JF

Okay thanks everyone, these insights help. I'll keep reading. I hope I didn't take up too much time.

I understand where lindar is coming from. I used to have these sorts of questions. She'll figure it out, and then have a new puzzler.

I still ask the same sorts of questions, ones that don't seem to make sense, but now I ask them about jazz chords, like why do there have to be tensions in every single chord and how come you aren't allowed to play a maj dom 7 unless it's inverted and and and . . .

C'mon.
I don't think that's quite fair, although I must admit I was tempted to write some funny stuff too.

She has some question in mind, and yes, it's probably a non-question question, but I think sometimes we probably all have some of those.....

Why DO there have to be tensions in every single chord?

P.S. I didn't know that was sort of a rule, but I can see that it could be.
Including that once in a while a chord doesn't have tension -- and then that becomes the tension.

exactly. Right now I don't know enough about jazz tensions to even ask the right questions. I know I should be asking some other question, but I say "tensions" because I see them and I think to myself "What's wrong with a triad?"

By the time I know enough to ask the right question I won't need to ask it.

(BTW.....good job not getting thrown by my typo......I meant I CAN see that it could be. You got it anyway.)

May this explanation helps?
There are also other "free" lessons....

I agree with the puppies/kittens theory.

There was a similar discussion on another board. They called it the "tea/coffee" theory...

You know I just read through most of the posts in this thread and I STILL don't know what the heck she was asking. LOL. I thought, at first, that Cathy had nailed it and figured maybe she'd had more coffee than I today or something, but then read back over it again, and honestly, I'm still confused about what she was asking for. Apparently, something got through to her, but if it did, then she's either a LOT more confused than I am, or tremendously more intelligent. LOL.

me2


I never thought for a second that anyone came close to nailing it. We were just talking without knowing what we were trying to answer.

And without a response with substance from Linda we will never know what we were trying to answer.

We shouldn't expect or pressure her to say any more. IMO it was clear pretty quickly that we were giving info on a much more advanced level than what she was asking. Really we were talking more to ourselves than to her. I think she did the best she could at asking what she was wondering about.