The Minor Scale

Lesson 8/32 | Study Time: 5 Min
Course: Blues Fingerpicking Guitar
The Minor Scale

The Minor Scale

In western music there are three different minor scales. These are the natural minor, the harmonic minor and the melodic minor. Each features a slightly different sequence of tones and semitones, as illustrated in the following examples using A as the tonic.

A Natural Minor Scale

A Harmonic Minor – 7th note sharpened (called the leading note):

A Melodic Minor – 6th and 7th notes sharpened when ascending and returned to natural when descending.

Of these three minor scales outlined, the melodic minor is the most commonly used. The following table lists the 13 most commonly used minor scales.

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Brett Duncan

Brett Duncan

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Class Sessions

1- INTRODUCTION 2- The Rudiments of Music 3- Blues Fingerpicking Slide Guitar 4- Alternating Thumb Style 5- Fingerpicking the Blues 6- Chord Based Licks 7- More Scale Patterns 8- Bass Line Techniques 9- Blues Progressions 10- Constant Bass Line in the Key of E 11- Left Hand Techniques 12- Constant Bass Line 13- Tuning Your Instrument 14- Note Values 15- Twelve Bar Blues Progression 16- Playing Position 17- Time Signatures 18- Eight Bar Blues Progression 19- Chord Diagrams Used in This Book 20- Hand Technique 21- Scale Diagrams Used in This Book 22- Picking the Strings 23- Scales 24- Tablature 25- The Chromatic Scale 26- Tablature Symbols 27- The Major Scale 28- The Minor Scale 29- The Minor Pentatonic Scale 30- The Blues Scale 31- Keys and Key Signatures 32- Relative Keys

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