What Is the Natural Minor Scale? In music theory, a natural minor scale is a seven-note musical scale characterized by a minor third scale degree (also known as a flat third), a minor sixth scale degree (or flat sixth), and a minor seventh scale degree (or flat seventh).
What’s in a natural minor scale?
A Natural Minor is: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A. Notice that the A Natural Minor Scale has no notes with accidentals. Let’s build an G# Natural Minor Scale. Our starting note will be G#.
What is an example of a natural minor scale?
Natural minor scales share a key signature with a relative major key that has the same diatonic notes. For example, the D minor scale is the relative minor of F major. The E minor scale is the relative minor of G major.
How many natural minor scales are there?
There are 3 minor scales, or more precisely, 3 variants of the minor scale because of how harmony and melody interact in tonal music.
Why is it called a natural minor?
A minor has the same key signature that C major does. To play an A Minor scale you simply start on A and play up to the following A, making sure that every note is the same as it is in C. This type of minor scale is called the Natural Minor and will it always have the same key signature as the relative Major.
What scale degree do you alter in natural minor?
In order to create a natural minor scale, we simply start with the major scale and lower the 3rd, 6th, and 7th scale degrees by a half-step. In our example above using the F major scale, this means we will be lowering the A (the 3rd) to Ab, the D (the 6th) to Db, and the E (the 7th) to Eb.
What’s the difference between harmonic minor and natural minor?
In summary, the harmonic and natural minor scales are mostly the same. The main difference is the harmonic minor’s seventh scale degree is raised by a semitone compared to the natural minor’s seventh scale degree. The harmonic minor has a leading tone while the natural does not.
Is natural minor the same as relative minor?
Natural Minor & Major Scale Comparison
These scales are actually the same! The only difference is the A minor scale starts on the sixth note of the C major scale. The A minor scale is called the relative minor scale of the C major scale.
Is natural minor used?
The notes of Em are exactly the same as G major, just starting on E. This is the ‘natural’ minor. The scale is played according to its key signature, and looks like this: This is probably the most commonly used minor scale, especially in popular music.
How do you convert major to natural minor?
In order to convert a major scale to a minor scale (natural minor), the 3rd, 6th, and 7th degrees are lowered by a half-step.
What are the 3 types of minor scales?
MINOR SCALES: There are 3 forms of minor scales: natural, harmonic and melodic. Natural Minor scale — a scale that contains half-steps between 2-3 and 5-6 scale degrees (the natural form). Harmonic minor scale — a form of a minor scale with half steps between 2-3, 5-6 and 7-8.
How do you identify A minor scale?
When you suspect that the key is minor, look for the raised 7th in the music. ‘Raised 7th’ means that the 7th note of the scale is raised by one semitone. For example, in E minor look for D sharp in the music (that’s 7 notes up from E).
What are the Solfège syllables for the natural minor scale?
The scale structure of the Natural Minor Scale is always 1-2-b3-4-5-b6-b7-1, no matter what key you are in. The Solfege syllables of the Natural Minor Scale are always Do-Re-Me-Fa-So-Le-Te-Do, no matter what key you are in.
