Can someone please explain relative minor/majors?

[wavez]

So lets say im in F# major, my relative minors root is 3 note down, so it's D#, right? Ok, but what about the scale, do i still use F# major scale and just start 3 notes lower or can i change it to harmonic or melodic minor?
Sorry for my bad english, thanks!

[cimoc]

D# minor is the relative of F# major. Period. What type of minor it will be is irrelevant. The question is not valid. You certainly don't "have to" use the notes of the F# major, neither in theory nor practically.

[wavez]

Are you saying that i can use whatever minor scale? Thanks!

[Rock]

D# minor is the relative of F# major. Period. What type of minor it will be is irrelevant. The question is not valid. You certainly don't "have to" use the notes of the F# major, neither in theory nor practically.

I'm not sure I 100% agree with this... The reason D# minor is the relative minor of F# major is because they are related in that they share the same pallet of pitches. When the natural minor is altered to the harmonic or melodic forms they no longer share that perfect relationship.

Wavez, think of it this way... when you are in C major your pallet of pitches include the following notes: C-D-EF-G-A-BC What give the C Major scale its particular sound is two things. 1) the pattern of intervals and 2) the fact that C is the tonic (like home base). A minor makes use of those same exact notes the only difference is that in A minor, A will feel like home. The song will center around and progressions of melodies and chords will gravitate to the Note A. A-BC-D-EF-G-A Although the notes are the same, since the starting point is different the pattern is different (Whole Half Whole Whole Half Whole Whole). If I play a song and you see the following notes used:

G-A-BC-D-EF-G-A-BC-D-EF-G-A-BC

the song might be in C major or it might be in A minor; you would have to look for clues as to what the tonic is. (It might actually not be in C Major or A minor. For example if you find that the tonal center is D then it would be in D Dorian mode)

[Rock]

Music theory doesn't ever tell you what you can play it only describes what you are playing...

[Rock]

whoops double post

[wavez]

Wavez, think of it this way... when you are in C major your pallet of pitches include the following notes: C-D-EF-G-A-BC What give the C Major scale its particular sound is two things. 1) the pattern of intervals and 2) the fact that C is the tonic (like home base). A minor makes use of those same exact notes the only difference is that in A minor, A will feel like home. The song will center around and progressions of melodies and chords will gravitate to the Note A. A-BC-D-EF-G-A Although the notes are the same, since the starting point is different the pattern is different (Whole Half Whole Whole Half Whole Whole). If I play a song and you see the following notes used:

G-A-BC-D-EF-G-A-BC-D-EF-G-A-BC

Ok, thanks alot, Rock! That's what i orginally thought, but i wasnt sure.


But theres still one thing/question. Every minor key has it's relative major too, right? So if im orginally playing in D# melodic minor, then major key would be F# and i would get a few different notes?

[jopy]

Yes. The melodic and harmonic minor scales were primarily a tool to help with voice leading in minor keys in the CPP, because a natural minor scale doesn't have a leading tone into the tonic (i.e. the domV chord requires the harmonic minor scale), although plenty of people now use these alternative minor scales for "flavor" or they might even use them over the relative major chord.

[jancivil]

That's right, pretty much.
Historically, the 'melodic minor' came into being as 'true cadences' of the 'aeolian' and 'dorian' modes came to require the leading tone to these modes' tonic. (By the late 16th c. the practice of musica ficta (accidentals) had come to dominate counterpoint to the extent that modality was, in practical terms, finished in the milieu of sacred counterpoint. As early as late 14th c., you had a good deal of ficta , but the idea of a 'true' dorian or aeolian cadence was still often enough found at final cadential points in their original 'non-ficta' manner (eg., Landini).

By the time of Palestrina, they still called, eg., a modulation to IV, 'lydian', but in fact it was basic major, just at 'IV'. 'Ionian' still at times was considered separate from major when you saw the b7.

The use of the augmented second, see: 'harmonic minor', was still illegal. Not sure of earliest 'condoned' use, if any. You don't see it for a while yet. The melodic form of 'minor' functioned as avoidance of this interval, which I think was evil to good God-Fearing musicians.

[jopy]

interesting stuff.

is there a good book covering the transition from plainchant to functional harmony? i know a little bit about this from back in college when we discussed the ars nova and melismatic development on top of the chant cantus firmus, but it's been a long time and i know i never knew all that much anyway. (i've largely exhausted what i know in that one sentence).

[jancivil]

interesting stuff.

Not really. That's stuff from a class I got kicked out of, 8 am, humorless pedant taught it... when a piece was called like: 'Beatus Homo', I'd LAUGH!!!! being a kid and all. Many moons hence... oh well.

is there a good book covering the transition from plainchant to functional harmony? i know a little bit about this from back in college when we discussed the ars nova and melismatic development on top of the chant cantus firmus, but it's been a long time and i know i never knew all that much anyway. (i've largely exhausted what i know in that one sentence).

Long transition. Landini cadence... he was around 1380 I think... by, ca. 200 years later, 'modal' usage was about done for.

The accepted rule book: Thomas Benjamin, Craft of Modal Counterpoint. Which is mainly of interest historically - for instance he says stuff like 'as pure lydian wasn't used (universally, he says, 'F lydian' used Bb), we won't be discussing it here.'

[Jafo]

Music theory doesn't ever tell you what you can play it only describes what you are playing...

+1

[Jafo]

is there a good book covering the transition from plainchant to functional harmony?

Here ya go. Ionian mode = Major scale; Aeolian mode = minor scale. Add chromatics to taste. The Mixolydian mode is still valid, for the flat seventh. Everything else fell by the wayside.

I think these remained, because Bach & Co. found that it was pretty cool to have I-IV-V7, and i-iv-V7, as opposed to other permutations. Or maybe Western ears like Major and Minor scales in melodies. Or maybe that these sounded less Gregorian. Or something. Maybe Mozart lost a bet, and had to write in only two modes for the rest of his life.

[llatham]

interesting stuff.

is there a good book covering the transition from plainchant to functional harmony?

I'm sure some people have tackled it, though most of the articles will probably be in JSTOR instead of readily available. I did find a Dissertation:

http://www.marietta.edu/~nda001/NDAdiss.pdf

And there are links in the bibliography that should be helpful in addition to the content itself.

There's specifically a chapter on Modality to Tonality starting page 93.

There's also an author(ess) who wrote on Modality in J.S. Bach's Chorales - most people assume Bach to be a Tonal composer, but many of his Chorales - being based on plainchant hymn tunes - often are better understood as "tonalized modality" or modal pieces with functional harmony being applied. Studying Bach's Chorales with that in mind can provide a lot of insight into this "hybrid" period.

HTH,
Steve

[llatham]

But theres still one thing/question. Every minor key has it's relative major too, right? So if im orginally playing in D# melodic minor, then major key would be F# and i would get a few different notes?

Let's clear things up a bit wavez:

Any minor key doesn't have a relative Major and vice versa. A better way to understand it is that there is a pair of Major and minor keys that are relative to each other.

The Key of C Major and the Key of A minor are relative to each other.

Ok, now here's what seems to be tripping you (and some others) up:

A "Key" is a set of hierarchical note relationships. We typically represent those notes by a "Key Signature". A Key Signature of 1 sharp tells us that the notes in question are A B C D E F# and G. That set of notes represents the relative Major/minor pair of keys of G Major and E minor.

But "SCALES" are a wholly different animal. E minor is a key, Natural, Harmonic, and Melodic are types of scales found in that key. And really (at least in historical practice), composers didn't "use" scales to compose. By that I mean, Bach composed in E minor. He didn't "use" E harmonic minor. What he did was, compose in the KEY of E minor, and adjusted the notes C and D depending on melodic or harmonic needs.

The idea of Natural, Harmonic, and Melodic Minors as "scales" is really more of a mnemonic device. However - good or bad - those things have become scales in their own right.

But I wouldn't really say the A Major SCALE is relative to the F# minor scale. I'd say the KEYS of A Major and F# minor are relative.

A scale is really just a stepwise ordering of pitches drawn from the primary notes of a key, starting on the Tonic. So in an oversimplified sense, the most correct thing to say is that an A Major Scale and an F# minor scale are the same thing, one starts on A and one starts on F#. However, we do typically assign "key status" to scales, and thus think of them similarly.

But personally, I think if you can make these mental distinctions, it aids comprehension, despite what you end up calling in order to discuss it with other musicians.

So yes, if you're playing D# melodic minor, when you modulate to F# Major you'd have a few different notes (namely B# and Cx). But remember, the KEYS of F# Major and D# minor share the same key signature and same basic pitch content.

HTH,
Steve