MWR wrote:Major, minor, harmonic minor, and melodic minor were mentioned before. First off, because the melodic minor scale descends as the natural minor you can't use it effectively as a scale of origin because the harmony's always changing. Jazz minor is the same as the ascending melodic minor but it ascends and descends with the same notes. It's a far more common scale than the true melodic minor.
Of the above mentioned scales which are scales of origin? Well major obviously, harmonic minor, and Jazz minor. They can all have modes built from them. These aren't the ONLY ones but they are by far the most common. What about Natural Minor? Well, if you remember natural minor is the sixth mode of the major scale. You can't build modes from modes, daaaaar! Why is it consistantly mentioned along with those three other scales of origin? That's because it's considered the true or grandaddy of all minor tonality scales much like the Major scale is to major tonality scales.
i feel i need to correct some things in here, my theory professor gave an entire lesson on this subject last semester
the only "scale of origin" is the major scale. of course the modes originate from the major scale, but so did the concept of a minor scale.
when modes were first being applied, certain ones were used more often because they were less "problematic." for instance, the locrian mode is extremely problematic (in the sense of tonal motion) because of its odd scales degrees (every thing is flatted), but the mixolydian and the lydian were more practical because they only had one scale degree difference from the major scale.
regarding the origins of minor: the aeolian mode is considered the natural minor over the other three minor modes because its scale degrees create more consonance than the others. the scale degrees of aeolian are 1, 2, b3, 4, 5, b6, b7.
but aeolian was still problematic. the first problem encountered was the absence of the leading tone. without scale degree seven, you are lacking one of the most key defining tones in the scale. since the b7 leads down to scale degree six, the scale didn't have the final push to scale degree 1. also, with a b7, the V chord becomes minor, and thusly loses its function (a VERY important function). so what did the early theorists do? they simply raised the seventh degree of the aeolian mode to make a leading tone. so now the scale degrees are 1,2,b3,4,5,b6,7. look familiar? thats the harmonic minor scale! the harmonic minor scale was derived by fixing one of the "problems" of the aeolian mode
but doing so created another "problem." since harmonic minor contains b6 and 7, the scale now contains an augmented melodic second. this is a problem because it fucks up the diatonic stepwise motion that all scales are based off of. this is also what gives the harmonic minor its eastern type sound. so what did the early theorists do to fix this? they raised the sixth degree of the harmonic minor scale. so now they had 1,2,b3,4,5,6,7. hey look at that, its the melodic minor! and look at that, it still maintains the diatonic order (5 whole steps and 2 half steps). so the melodic minor is also a derivation of another scale.
this is why i keep stressing that the melodic and harmonic minor are scale forms, NOT separate scales.
and you may also wonder why the melodic minor descends with the b6 and b7 (as if it was aeolian). thats because these scale degrees dont create the same problems whilst descending.
that was just a little history lesson, if you have any questions ask away. and maybe if you are nice i will tell you the origin of the "b"
