Which scale? Major or minor?

[Amblin]

For the past few months, my knowledge surrounding music theory has grown a bit. There is one thing though that still is somewhat troublesome, which is how to determine which scale a track is in.

Lately I've just played the keys alongside a track to find out which notes that match, when I want to know which key the track is in. This technique worked perfectly fine until I talked with a friend of mine that also makes music.
The conversation went something like this:

Me: "Ahhh...your track is in A Major right?"
Him: "Nope, it's in F# Minor"
Me: "...que?"

That's when I found out that a track can be in a major scale and a descending minor scale at the same time.
Now, my question follows, how do you determine if the track is in A Major or F# Minor?

Does everything come down to the first chord that is played, if it is major or minor?

And I also got a bonus question. When people talk about "the minor scale". Which one of them to they generally mean? Harmonic, ascending, descending? This has gotten me confused.


*EDIT* CRAP! this post got way to long

[frederik D]

Well, scales can get confusing at times, I agree.

To determine which scale (the major or the relative minor) a piece is in, you "normally" would look for the finishing chord (and to a lower degree the starting chord, cause quite a few pieces don't start on the tonic - and less pieces don't end on the tonic).
And of course you can look for added accidentals (# leading notes can give a clue too...) too. But: it can be that a piece in A major has sections in F# minor, or have parts that have tendencies towards that key (some small V-I cadence)... So, judging a key is just some general classification, based on the ankerpoints (finish, start...) of the piece.

For your second question I can't give a conclusive answer: I guess the term minor scale just functions as a general classification (opposed to the major scale) which covers/contains the different subtypes...

well, just my two cents, of course!

bye,

frederik

[Opax]

When people talk about "the minor scale". Which one of them to they generally mean? Harmonic, ascending, descending? This has gotten me confused.

It can depend on a number of things - the notes used in the melody, the chords used throughout the piece, etc. There are rules when it comes to composing, but rules often tend to get broken, therefore there are no rules.

Remember that a natural minor scale, contains the exact same notes as its relative major, e.g. A minor = C major, E minor = G major, etc.

The harmonic minor scale is almost the same as the natural minor, but the 7th step is raised a semi-tone - giving you that eastern/Arabic feel.

The melodic minor is weird, because it goes up in one direction, and comes down in a different direction. Think of a natural minor scale, but when you ascend, raise the 6th and 7th steps - very similar to a major scale, but with a flattened 3rd. When you descend the melodic minor scale, it simply returns to the natural minor - the 6th and 7th steps return to their default natural minor positions.

[Petimar]

What chord is played when a melody is resolved? If that chord is A, the key is A. If that chord is F#m, the key is F#m.

Melodies can temporarily change keys. Jazz tunes do this all the time.

[Toxikator]

The harmonic minor scale is almost the same as the natural minor, but the 7th step is raised a semi-tone - giving you that eastern/Arabic feel.

The melodic minor is weird, because it goes up in one direction, and comes down in a different direction. Think of a natural minor scale, but when you ascend, raise the 6th and 7th steps - very similar to a major scale, but with a flattened 3rd. When you descend the melodic minor scale, it simply returns to the natural minor - the 6th and 7th steps return to their default natural minor positions.

The thing to note, though, is that it's extremely common for forms of the minor to be used interchangeably. That is to say, you might have an ACEG (i7) chord to start your progression, but your dominant chord might be EG#BDF (a V9). The G moves to G# based on context; in this case, the sharpened 7th is typically only introduced as a leading tone. However, it's not uncommon, say, to see ACEG# chords as well, depending on how they're used in a progression...

Melodic minor, too... while it does technically only have an "ascent", this is a bit archaic for modern composition and if you find a piece that uses the raised 6th interval (either to create a diminished chord on the 6th, create a major chord on the 4th, or create a minor chord on the 2nd) it's not necessarily going to show up in an "ascending" context.

Long story short, if a piece is in "A minor", you can consider the diatonic notes to be all of A, B, C, D, E, F, F#, G, and G#, not only one particular set.

[liqih]

What chord is played when a melody is resolved? If that chord is A, the key is A. If that chord is F#m, the key is F#m.

Melodies can temporarily change keys. Jazz tunes do this all the time.

That's it, almost all musicians *agree* that where the melody ends it's the key of the song

[JumpingJackFlash]

For the past few months, my knowledge surrounding music theory has grown a bit. There is one thing though that still is somewhat troublesome, which is how to determine which scale a track is in.

Lately I've just played the keys alongside a track to find out which notes that match, when I want to know which key the track is in. This technique worked perfectly fine until I talked with a friend of mine that also makes music.
The conversation went something like this:

Me: "Ahhh...your track is in A Major right?"
Him: "Nope, it's in F# Minor"
Me: "...que?"

That's when I found out that a track can be in a major scale and a descending minor scale at the same time.
Now, my question follows, how do you determine if the track is in A Major or F# Minor?

Does everything come down to the first chord that is played, if it is major or minor?

And I also got a bonus question. When people talk about "the minor scale". Which one of them to they generally mean? Harmonic, ascending, descending? This has gotten me confused.

Traditionally, there are three important minor scales; Natural, Harmonic, and Melodic.
See my Introduction to Music Theory or my post on Scales, Modes and Chords, for more details, or use my Glossary.

The Melodic minor is the only minor scale that is different ascending and descending, all the rest are the same both ways.

When people talk about keys, they (should) mean the Natural minor. The other forms of the minor are technically Scales, not Keys (although many modern musicians use the terms interchangeably).

Every key signature is shared by both one major and one (natural) minor key. - We say these are the relative major and minor of each other. (See here for more details).

So, for example, all the notes of C major are also contained (exclusively and exhaustively) in A minor, its relative minor:
C D E F G A B
or A B C D E F G
(You just start on a different note).

As other people have said, one of the main ways to distinguish between major and minor is by the last chord. (Also, to a lesser extent, the last note if the chord cannot be determined).

Typically though, in real music, the Natural minor scale is not used very often on its own (it sounds weird). Often, people will use the Melodic or Harmonic forms, (or even a different scale that isn't quite either of these, but don't worry about this yet) instead (or as well).

The (main) difference between the Natural minor and these other versions of the minor scale is the leading note (the seventh note of the scale).
In both the harmonic and ascending melodic minor scales, the leading note is one semitone sharper (higher) than in the Natural minor.

So, in A minor for example, according to key signature, the seventh note is G.
However, in the harmonic (and ascending melodic) minor, the seventh note becomes G#.

Because most pieces in minor keys use this sharpened seventh at some point (if not frequently), this becomes another way to distinguish between major and minor keys. - In other words, you look for this as an accidental.

So, for example, the notes E F G A B C D all belong to both C major and A natural minor.
However, if it were in a minor key, the seventh note of that key would often be sharpened. - So, if it was like this, then C major is a good bet. However, if the G was a G#, then A minor would be much more likely.

Or, to put it in the context of your original example, the seventh note of F# minor is E. If this was raise by one semitone, it would become E# (which, enharmonically is the same as F-natural, but it should be spelt a E# in a tonal context). - If the piece contains this note, F# minor is a distinct possibility. If it doesn't, then it is less likely (but not impossible).

As with all things, there are exceptions, and just because something is like (or not like) how I have said, it doesn't mean anything for definite, but it can give you a clue. It gets very complicated with certain (more modern) types of music, but this is a useful tip nevertheless.