Theory posse – so here’s a little more on minors….. harmonic and melodic minors.. but before we tackle these, a little background information would help understanding them and where they come from……

From the 17th to 19th centuries, music was very structured and bound by some pretty strict rules and methods. One of these was the use of something called a ‘cadence’. Think of a cadence as a punctuation mark. There are four types of cadence – ‘perfect’, ‘imperfect’, ‘interrupted’ and ‘plagal’. I’ll not go into how why and where these are used as it is a large topic in it’s own right [and only useful to folks formally studying music or writing in Baroque, Classical or early to mid Romantic style]. For this topic, we are interested in the ‘perfect’ cadence [a chord progression of chord V to I]. Think of a perfect cadence as a ‘full stop’ at the end of a section of music [also at the end of the entire piece]……
Not only do chords V to I produce a perfect cadence, but V must be major [better still, a dominant 7 chord].
If you cast you mind back to the chords generated by a major scale you’d notice that chord V7 is a dominant 7 so the perfect cadence is generated nuturally be the notes within the scale. So in the key of G major a typical perfect cadence would be D7 to G……
So let’s look at this with respect to a minor key….. The chords of the key of Em are Em, F#mb5, G, Am, Bm, C, D….. so we have a problem… chord V is minor [in this case Bm]. V to I in the key of Em is Bm to Em and it just doesn’t sound very ‘final’….. not good for something that wants to be a ‘full stop’….lol

The solution is to modify chord V from being minor to major [or dominant 7] when in a minor key during a perfect cadence. So in the key of Em…. Bm to Em becomes B to Em [or better still B7 to Em]….. now we have a new problem…… the scale don’t fit with the modified V chord…..

The scale of Em is: E, F#, G, A, B, C, D
The modified chord V7 is now B7 which is: B, D#, F#, A – so we can see that the D from the scale and the D# from the chord clash……. Ouch…..

The solution is to modify the scale to fit the modified chord [but only during the cadence – not for the whole piece of music]…

This of course gives birth to a new scale that contains E, F#, G, A, B, C, D#…
The spelling of this scale is: Tonic, major 2nd, minor 3rd, perfect 4th, perfect 5th, minor 6th major 7th… and this scale is called the ‘harmonic minor’ scale….. and sounds very cool…

Given that this scale has been 'enharmonically' altered [it contains a note that is outside of the natural minor scale] it is not a 'diatonic' scale [as are the major and minor scales]. This means that the 'key signature' is Am and the major 7th note is marked in music notation as an 'accidental' - the '#' sign appears beside the note and not beside the clef.

Theory posse - and to complete this part.....let's get back to the 1700,s in the key of Em at a perfect cadence….

You’ll notice that the interval between the 6th and 7th degrees of the harmonic minor scale is pretty large. It is a ‘sharpened major 2nd’ – C to D# [not a minor 3rd – C to Eb] which ‘sounds’ just like a minor 3rd… This is all well and good for us musicians but there was a problem – choirs hated singing this interval especially with melodies in the ascending direction… it really is pretty tricky to visualise and then sing this interval.

The solution was to reduce the size of this interval by raising the minor 6th to a major 6th [during the perfect cadence over chord V7]

Now we have yet another newly modified scale spelt: Tonic, major 2nd, minor 3rd, perfect 4th, perfect 5th, major 6th major 7th… and this scale is called the ‘melodic minor ascending’ scale….. sounds very cool too…and is used in exactly the smae manner as the harmonic minor.... when writing, the scale of choice is yours.....

So using E as the tonic we get: E, F#, G, A, B, C#, D# [used over the chord of B7 [V7] in the key of Em]

The ‘melodic minor descending’ scale is the same as the harmonic minor….

For these scales and the perfect cadence, this really is the tip of a huge and incredibly useful / interesting iceberg that I’ll expand on in greater detail over time….

Also, the G-everywhere thing won’t work for these two scales, it’ll need to be modified [in the same manner as you’ve seen above]….. don’t even try until to have mastered the basic ‘G-everywhere’ exercise as these two are a bit of a hand-full….

Austin - It's a PC version.

Invigor - Tell him to get his stuff on the net.

themagician: the webmaster said earlier that they can't make the webcast parts downloadable because the people at sony are busy pickin their noses (as any record company would do...not epic of course, just sony) but since i enjoy being an ass i'll make them myself. being the 31337 h4x0r that i am, mauaha, take that sony!

oh, btw, happy 100th me!

ha, i was screwed :P

potato head groove guy - Welcome to the site!

haha michelle...there's a song by tracy bonham, it's called "behind every good woman" and the chourus is like "behind every good woman there's a trail of men" haha, funny to think of joe slappin his stuff around, hahahaha, never saw joe in that way, he's only been a godly guitarist to me...he looks good holdin that JS2000CG tho...he's so short :P

Guitarbabe- Yeah Michelle said it all, we were just having a bit of a laugh, nout wrong in that is there and I am happy to say that I join the many when I say I Love Joe too and this is meant in the best possible taste, his inspirations obviously come from the love of Rubina and ZZ so let's all take a moment and say Love and Respect to Joe and his family.

Austin - I also had Joe look and point at me when we were in London this year, connection with the master is priceless.

Phydeux - how do you do that stuff.

Local person - I never did understand why men whacked balls round a field but if it gets rid of your tensions then go for it.

Well I'll finish by saying yesterday we had the best day. Austin - my sunny lad travelled down to a Championship Dog Show serenaded by LISF yet again and not only won his class, he was then awarded the Kennel Clubs Challenge Certificate for being the best male Dobermann there that day, he then went up against the best female Dobermann who is a Champion in three countries, and he beat her for best overall specimen. To say that Andy and I were stunned is an understatement.

JSCLONE1

man, if i knew you were playing GTA3.....contact me on icq...remember how we fixed Resistance for you ???

Ahhh.....almost weekend...one whole weekend to play my recently acuired JS1000WH....i am so in love with her...

Happy Friday, everyone.

chocoholic - It's cool to hear that your dog is still doing great in the competitions. It's weird how it does better after listening to Joe...haha.

hey all,

clarky : thanks teach... :-)))

D C K : my best friend at college 10 years ago played SWTA for me, before i knew who joe was... he played it note-for-note!!... and left me with my jaw on the floor... i was also influenced a bit by my dad...

ovation : i still can't remember mr alexander's title... it may be one those that you mentioned...

chocoholic : congratulations on the success at the dog show...

It's stu not boo

Jeez, what a load of posts overnight..........

ZAXIMUS - yeah I think he was chased by a bull, but i love the bit when he gets his fingers tied up in knots - lmao, where are from man, do you play ?

MICHELLE - How much oil could a gum boil boil if a gumboil could boil oil ? (that was the other one that my grandfather used to get us on as kids) Thanks for the memory!

STU NOT BOO - You never asked me when i was a newbie (sniff sniff), don't bother now, i'm too offended ;-)

PHRYG DOM - I was just going to gloss over NK99's post, i'm with you but live and let live, as ever the CLARKMEISTER proves to be very interesting as well as theorectical

CLARKY - I'm reading and learning dude (thanks) any sign of the new axe yet ? btw i'm glad that you have only referenced the minors at the mo, I've tried to go a bit bit further with PHRYG DOM and only suceeded in confusing myself, esp cos i'm on 'no playing' break with hand pains. I dread to ask this question and PHRYG DOM will kick my butt for doing it BUT.......... Why are there 15 keys, when 3 of them are enharmonically equivalent (Db, Gb,Cb) to (C#,F#,B)........ if it's going to start another A#/ Bb confusion maelstrom don't worry about it ;-)