[ethic]

'kay, so I understand the whole concept of related
chords on a major scale. But what about minor scales?
What are the related chords of the types of minor
scales? You know, like how the related chords of the
major scale are: maj, min, min, maj, maj, min, dim..

Would minor related chords all be either maj, min, or
dim? And do you find them the same way; every other
note of the scale? Is there an easy way to remember
which is which? =O

Oh, also, how many different minor scales are there?

[Fretsource]

As there are three forms of the minor scale (Natural, harmonic & melodic) it means it's not so straightforward. There are more chords that can be made from the notes. For example, the combined notes of the 3 A minor scales are:
A B C D E F (or F#) G (or G#) A

This gives us the chords
1 = A minor (A C E)
2 = B diminished (B D F) or B minor (B D F#)
3 = C major (C E G) or C augmented (C E G#)
4 = D minor (D F A) or D major (D F# A)
5 = E minor (E G B) or E major (E G# B)
6 = F major (F A C) or F# diminished (F# A C)
7 = G major (G B D) or G# diminished (G# B D)

But apart from classical and jazz, the most common choices are
Min, min, maj, min,(or maj) maj, maj, maj

[sustain66]

This site should help: http://www.all-guitar-chords.com/guitar_scales.php

[Nem]

if youre talking about just the natural minor scale, because its relative to the major, you can just take the same chords that ud get from the major scale

so the order would be minor, dim, major, minor minor, major major

but once you know WHY this order occurs, then you dont need to make extra effort to remmeber the exact order....it becomes quite a task as fretsource mentioned because there are quite a few different minor scales

your chord order and chord type comes from taking the first triad of all the related modes in a key. but i dont think thats what youre asking so i wont go into detail about it

[kbow]

Great link sustain66!

I am always looking for good guitar links.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by Nem

if youre talking about just the natural minor scale, because its relative to the major, you can just take the same chords that ud get from the major scale

so the order would be minor, dim, major, minor minor, major major

If we went with four note chords, would the pattern for the harmonized natural minor scale be...

min7, min7b5, Maj7, min7, min7, Maj7, Dom7

[Fretsource]

That's exactly right, Doug.

One thing though - You should avoid (or at least be careful) using that word DOM 7. Strictly speaking the Dominant chord is what we call chord V.

The proper name for chord VII7 (in a minor key) is the SUBTONIC SEVENTH.

[Doug]

Thanks, Fretsource. In a minor key, is it still the v chord that pulls us back to the root? Or does it shift to the VII chord since it's the one with the b7 (and tritone)?

[Fretsource]

Doug - I Just saw your question about the VII chord's tritone, after I had written this long rambling post. It's a good question so I'll get to work on it. Meanwhile have a look through this:

The reason that it's not a good idea to call chord VII7 a dominant seventh is because chords have both a TYPE and a FUNCTION and they shouldn't be confused.

Chord types
Chord types mean names like major, minor, seventh, major seventh, Sus4, thirteenth, etc. etc.
The names just refer to the notes and intervals that the chord contains. Each type has a distinctive sound. For example, all minor seventh chords have the same flavour, whether it's G minor 7 or B minor 7 or any minor 7, they all have the same recogniseable minor seventh sound - but a different pitch.

Chord Function
In music based on major and minor scales (which is almost ALL Western music) each chord has a function, i.e., It has a job to do and songwriters choose the chords (consciously or unconsciously) that perform the function that's required.
The best known function is the one performed by chord I. It's the home chord or key chord and the song always strives to get back to the home chord. The technical name for that chord is the TONIC CHORD.
The next most important function is the one performed by chord V. It drives us strongly back to chord I. It's technical name is the DOMINANT chord.

Here are the technical names for all the chord functions in the key of C major. The functions are the same for all keys, major or minor.
Chord I = The TONIC chord = C major
Chord ii = The SUPERTONIC chord = D minor
Chord iii = The MEDIANT chord = E minor
Chord IV = The SUBDOMINANT chord = F major
Chord V = The DOMINANT chord = G major
Chord vi = The SUBMEDIANT chord = A minor
Chord vii = The LEADING NOTE (LEADING TONE in America) chord = B diminished
(If natural minor then chord VII = SUBTONIC chord = Bb major.)

If we extend those chords to 4 notes then we call them
The TONIC SEVENTH, The DOMINANT SEVENTH, etc, etc.

So the name DOMINANT SEVENTH is NOT a chord type, it's a chord FUNCTION. But it has become common practice to call any chord type that looks like it by that name, whether it is performing the job of DOMINANT SEVENTH or not.

Normally it's not a problem until you start harmonising scales where the name DOMINANT SEVENTH has a fixed and definite meaning.

[knight46]

Great thread and great information Fretsource. I feel as if I have had a complete theory lesson and it makes sense.

[Fretsource]

Originally Posted by Doug

In a minor key, is it still the v chord that pulls us back to the root? Or does it shift to the VII chord since it's the one with the b7 (and tritone)?

Great question Doug.

I'll write out the chords in A minor with their sevenths

Chord i = Am (or Am7) = notes A C E (G)
chord ii = B dim (or Bm7b5) = notes B D F (A)
chord III = C major (or C maj7) = notes C E G (B)
Chord iv = D minor (or D min7) = notes D F A (C)
Chord v = E minor (or E min7) = notes E G B (D)
Chord VI = F major (or F maj7 = notes F A C (E)
Chord VII = G major (or G7) = notes G B D (F)

As you've noticed, in a minor key the notes (B-F) that pulled us strongly to the key chord now appear in chord VII7 rather than chord V7.
But that chord VII7 (G7) doesn't want to take us to the key chord Am - it wants to take us to C, exactly as it did when it was the V chord in the key of C.

By contrast, the dominant chord V7 is now a minor 7th and has nothing of the drive that comes from the major version.
The problem then is that we have no strong dominant function. Chord v is a wimp with no drive (no tritone,) and chord VII wants to drive us to a new key (C).

This was a problem for composers trying to harmonise chords in a minor key during the Renaissance period.
The solution was to simply modify the scale and raise the seventh scale note by a semitone so it became ABCDEFG#A, called the HARMONIC MINOR SCALE.
Problem solved!!
Chord v7 that was E G B D, (Em7) suddenly became E G# B D (E7) complete with tritone (G#-D) that now naturally pulls to the key chord A minor.

and Chord VII7 (G7 with notes G B D F) that threatened to force us out of the key to C major is now G# B D F, a G# diminished seventh chord that wants nothing to do with C major but wants to rise a semitone to A minor. For that reason it's no longer called the SUBTONIC SEVENTH; it's called the LEADING NOTE (or leading tone) SEVENTH because we can hear it straining to rise to the key chord (as it also does in major keys).

[Doug]

Originally Posted by Fretsource

The solution was to simply modify the scale and raise the seventh scale note by a semitone so it became ABCDEFG#A, called the HARMONIC MINOR SCALE.
Problem solved!!

Hey - that's not fair - they're changing the rules while they're playing the game.

Do we find this shift in the scale in other culture's music that is based predominantly on minor scales - for example middle eastern, spanish, gypsy music? I am a nubie in music theory but it seems to me that without the function of the dominant chord in a harmonized scale, the music may seem, well, insipid (at least to western ears).

Thanks, very much for the music theory lessons, Fretsource - they're very much appreciated.

[Fretsource]

Originally Posted by Doug

Hey - that's not fair - they're changing the rules while they're playing the game.

Do we find this shift in the scale in other culture's music that is based predominantly on minor scales - for example middle eastern, spanish, gypsy music? I am a nubie in music theory but it seems to me that without the function of the dominant chord in a harmonized scale, the music may seem, well, insipid (at least to western ears).

The easy answer is no we don't and it wasn't a problem as they never had harmony anyway. Harmony is a Western invention. It has now spread all over the world and if you walk into a bar in Tokyo, Lagos, Manilla, etc you'll hear exactly the same type of harmony that we have, based on major and minor scales.

But if you go to a concert of classical or traditional music in those places, you'll hear music conceived without harmony, but very rich in melody, rhythm and tone.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by Fretsource

Harmony is a Western invention

No doubt western music has developed harmony much farther than other cultures but let me add a bit along these lines from some articles I've found on the internet.
A few hours of reading does not make me an expert so take this for what it's worth, but I found some musicoligists that believe that the existence of a diatonic scale gives weight to the idea that they had harmony in their music. The reasoning is that it is very rare to have melodies jump more than a few notes at a time so it would be rare to have melodies that have intervals of 5ths in them. But a diatonic scale is made by cyclying through the 5ths - you get all the notes in the scale and end up back where you started (but off by a bit because the natural harmonics are not well-tempered). So if the scale is diatonic then they probably made use of 5ths in their music which means that the 5ths were played with the melody as drones perhaps. Rudimentary maybe but I guess you'd have to call it harmony.
Oh, and even though many culture's music (including Chinese and Mongolian - a large part of the world) are pentatonic, many others are diatonic. In fact, the oldest song in recorded history - dating back to 3700BC is diatonic. And a flute discovered in a Neanderthal site is diatonic.

But in any case, drone notes are a far ways off of modern jazz in terms of harmony.
Anyway, it's all interesting stuff. Thanks for sharing Fretsource.

[Fretsource]

I know what you mean Doug. Ideally, a statement like "harmony is a western invention" needs to be more fully explained but when you're trying to quickly answer a post you have to keep it concise and relevant.
So thanks for giving me the chance to explain it more fully.

I was talking about the science of harmony that has been developed in its present form over the last 1000 + years, not just combining notes as in drones or parallel fifths which have been used all over the world.

Let me take your points one at a time.
Drones.
Drones are ancient and found all over the world from bagpipes to sitars to didgeridoos. Some primitive instruments probably had unintentional drones that were at first ignored or tolerated and then gradually accepted as having some musical value.

Perfect fifths (and fourths).
These are also ancient and widespread. When you see TV documentaries of African village women singing while washing clothes by the river, you can hear lots of octaves and fifths thrown in to great effect. They've obviously been doing that for thousands of years, possibly hundreds of thousands of years. Perfect fourths are another interval found in various cultures such as certain styles of Chinese music.

You can say those are instances of harmony in the very narrow sense of "notes sounded together" (You can say the same about the dawn chorus). But they're not considered harmony in the modern sense of consciously combining notes to exploit and organise the vast range of pitch relationships that exist between notes.

That was the state of harmony all over the world just over a millennium ago. We were all singing single line melodies, sometimes along with drones, and sometimes adding fifths or fourths purely for the pleasing sound they provided.
But in Europe at this time, church choir masters, began to organise their singers according to the natural register of their voices (e.g., soprano, alto, tenor, bass) and provide each group with individual parts that had different notes designed to complement each other in various ways, with an ever expanding range of emotional effects. Modern harmony dates from this practice.

Ancient harmony

Dr Ann Kilmer spent years translating some ancient (4000 years) musical texts from Syria, which described how to perform a piece of music. It revealed the use of harmony, which was a startling discovery as no other evidence of any systematic use of harmony in the world occurs until about 3000 years later in Europe. Many professionals in her field dispute the accuracy of her findings, especially as it flies in the face of all other evidence (or lack of) of any systematic use of harmony. Have you heard the song? Here it is:
http://www.amaranthpublishing.com/kilmer.mid

Another suggestion of the use of harmony is when you see ancient Egyptian drawings of harpists. They are often seen plucking the harp at opposite ends, one arm stetched out and the other held close. They can't be playing melody notes that far apart, so it's a hint that harmony may have been around then.

The jury is still out on the whole subject, though. If it could be proved to be true, then all the world's encyclopedias would have to be re-written. And the big questions remain. What happened to their harmony? Why did they stop? Music from later periods is essentially non harmonic.

The Neanderthal flute
This is a claim by the musicologist Bob Fink that a hollow short length of bone found in Slovenia (or Slovakia?) is not only a flute, but that it originally played a diatonic scale because of the space between the two (or three?) holes it contains. I quite like his reasoning but his claim is strongly disputed by many of his colleagues in various fields, some of whom claim that's it's not a flute at all, and the holes are teeth marks made by an animal..
Anyway - he makes no claim at all about harmony, just the use of diatonic melody.