Up to this point, the songs we have been learning to write have all been based around the major scale. The set of chords that are formed from the notes in this scale gives rise to a vast and interesting sonic space through which one can explore. It is not, however, the only space available to you as a songwriter to work in. The major scale leads to a home base centered around a chord that is major in quality, and sometimes this sound isn’t appropriate for the feel a song is trying to evoke. For many songs it’s useful to be able to center your progressions around a different chord, a minor chord instead, for example. In this chapter, we will introduce the minor scale and discuss the techniques that go into writing a great song based around it.
The minor scale uses a different set of notes than the major scale. To see the differences, compare the C major scale with the C minor scale on the piano (the following graphics do not play).
Now listen to each of these scales to hear how they sound:
The minor scale\n\tsounds different than the major scale, so it shouldn’t be surprising that the songs you write with it will also sound different. From the pianos above, notice that scale degrees 3, 6, and 7 are different. In the C major scale, these scale degrees correspond to E, A, and B respectively. In the C minor scale, however, scale degree 3, 6, and 7 correspond to E♭, A♭, and B♭.
To hear how these differences manifest themselves in real music, let’s take a song that was originally written in major and “convert” it to minor. We’ll do this by using the same scale degrees (i.e., the melodies in major and minor will both go 1 1 5 5 6 6 5); however, the underlying notes that correspond to these scale degrees will be different to reflect the fact that we are building our song from different scales. First, listen to the normal major version of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”:
Now listen to the same song but with the notes converted to reflect the scale degrees of the minor scale.
The general feel of the song has changed dramatically. In the next section, we will look at how the minor scale gives rise to a different set of basic chords.
Because of the different notes present in the minor scale compared to the major scale, many of the chords built from it will be different. For example, the “one” chord, as always, contains the scale degrees 1, 3, and 5. In major, this creates a major quality chord. In minor, scale degree 3 is one note lower (in the key of C, scale degree 3 is an E♭ in minor, E in major), and this causes the quality of the chord to change to minor. Therefore, in minor, the “one” chord is labeled i instead of I to indicate its minor quality:
The “two” chord, labeled ii° , contains scale degrees 2, 4, and 6, and has a diminished quality, so it gets a lower case Roman numeral with a degree symbol.
The “three” chord, labeled III, contains scale degrees 3, 5, and 7, and has a major quality, so it gets an upper case Roman numeral. In C minor, the notes E♭, G, and B♭ form an E♭ major chord.
This pattern is continued to build all of the basic chords from the minor scale:
Check for Understanding
In this section, you’ve learned that certain scale degrees are different between major and minor scales. Which scale degrees are ishared between the two scales?
Check for Understanding
Which chords based on the major scale have the same quality as their corresponding chord based on the minor scale?
Check for Understanding
Listen to the melody of “Paradigm Shift” by Masashi Hamauzu with the chord progression removed. Is it possible to tell whether this melody is using the major or the minor scale?