Explaining the melodic minor Options

[linda.ff]

Just to say that my daughter had been struggling for quite a while with the theory of melodic scales. She knew what they were supposed to sound like, and could play them, but couldn't understand how to write them down until her piano teacher told her about natural minors. I had been taught years ago to raise the 6th and 7th notes and flatten them on the way down. She kept getting confused about what she was flattening them from. It was much easier for her to remember to think about the key signature, add a raised 6th and 7th note on the way up and then just stick to the key signature on the way down.

Yes, that is what happens when you play them. It depends on knowing what the key-signature is, of course.

But when you first learn them, and you probably only do one octave, where you will have trouble is on the turnaround at the top, and nthere it's easier to look at both the 6 & 7 as they go up, and lower them - remember you've only just played them if you're at the top - as you come down. It's easy enough with things like A minor or C minor where it's one colour up and the other down, but harder where there's no easy visual guide. That's the situation where thinking about "lowering" them helps, at the turnaround.

I suppose it depends on how you've learnt your scales. Some people assiduously use a scale book; I never do, and as far as playing them is oncerned, I prefer to think in tones and semitones at the top, and have a "high" pair and a "low" pair for 6 and 7 - high going up and low going down

[AnnC]

I stick to - "use the notes/key signature from the relative major and raise the 7th up and down for harmonic, raise the 6th and 7th going up for melodic but change nothing going down". For children we draw army majors and their cousins, the minors, to explain relatives. I let them play them on the piano, despite the fact that most are non-pianists.
No-one seems not to get it, but I still can't explain "why" the pattern of notes must be different in a simple way. Why are there the different forms? Sorry if this is fundamental, but it has never been explained to me satisfactorily on my musical journey.

[PianoNotes]

In my mind too much talking and not enough doing = confusion.

[andante_in_c]

I explain the different names by showing how the notes in the harmonic minor provide the best chords for harmonising a minor melody, because the raised seventh degree is used to give a major chord V. I play a I-V-I sequence with both a minor and a major dominant chord and they agree the major chord sounds better.

I then explain that the melodic minor scale gives a smoother melody line than the bump between the sixth and seventh degree of the harmonic minor scale, and so is often used when writing melodies in a minor key.

[Cyrilla]

In my mind too much talking and not enough doing = confusion.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif)

[Bagpuss]

Golly.

I dunno....I just teach my pupes the notes.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif)

Maybe that's where I've been going wrong...

Time-for-Wine-Bag x

[barry-clari]

hmm...

Either use sol-fa, or a phrase like 'raise the sixth and seventh note of the scale by a semitone, in the upward direction only' would be plenty enough, in my opinion.

Make it easy and straightforward, and concentrate on making music (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Cyrilla]

Golly.

I dunno....I just teach my pupes the notes.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif)

Maybe that's where I've been going wrong...

Time-for-Wine-Bag x

hmm...

Either use sol-fa, or a phrase like 'raise the sixth and seventh note of the scale by a semitone, in the upward direction only' would be plenty enough, in my opinion.

Make it easy and straightforward, and concentrate on making music (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif)

Natural minor: l,t,d r m f s l
Harmonic minor: l,t, d r m f si l
Melodic minor: l,t,d r m fi si l (natural minor descending).

Simples.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[JudithJ]

I explain the different names by showing how the notes in the harmonic minor provide the best chords for harmonising a minor melody, because the raised seventh degree is used to give a major chord V. I play a I-V-I sequence with both a minor and a major dominant chord and they agree the major chord sounds better.

I then explain that the melodic minor scale gives a smoother melody line than the bump between the sixth and seventh degree of the harmonic minor scale, and so is often used when writing melodies in a minor key.

I like this approach. It explains "why", for people like me who haven't grown out of the two year old "why" phase.

[GMc]

Yes, I like that explanation too. Just used it on daughter who plays both (you have to these days for AMEB I am afraid) but who gets a choice of which to use in AMEB theory. Despite my combined family knowledge gleaned from well over 10 teachers between the 3 of us all doing two instruments over the years no one had much idea about the why. Clearly we were all white sheep who did what we were told and followed the rules. Daughter immediately asked what the point was when taught the two forms and none of her teachers had anything very useful to offer on the topic at the time.

[linda.ff]

Natural minor: l,t,d r m f s l
Harmonic minor: l,t, d r m f si l
Melodic minor: l,t,d r m fi si l (natural minor descending).

Simples.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Cyrilla, may I ask something please? Since it seems that most disciplines that use sol-fa name the minor as l, t, d etc rather than d. r, ma(maw?) - do you also use the technical names of the steps of the scale at all, and if so, in the minor, do you call la the tonic?

Golly.

I dunno....I just teach my pupes the notes.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif)

Maybe that's where I've been going wrong...

Well, that's what I do in the long run, too - but what was the thread called again?

[Bagpuss]

Cyrilla's teaching right now, but I think I'm right in saying that yes, "la" is the tonic in the minor scale.

No need to snap at me, linda.ff - I just tend to keep things very, very simple that's all.

I've only ever had one pupil fail their scales in an AB exam so I guess something's working. (And yes, I can prove it!)

Each to their own.

Interesting reading.

Bagpuss (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[linda.ff]

Cyrilla's teaching right now, but I think I'm right in saying that yes, "la" is the tonic in the minor scale.

No need to snap at me, linda.ff - I just tend to keep things very, very simple that's all.

I've only ever had one pupil fail their scales in an AB exam so I guess something's working. (And yes, I can prove it!)

Each to their own.

Interesting reading.

Bagpuss (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Sorry, I wasn't meaning to snap, it was just that several of us have been explaining how or why it's the way it is because that was what we assumed the OP wanted, not just a rule to go by. We can all do that as well and I'm sure we all do (for the record, I do it the way I described for grade 1 where the minors are A and D, but after that I do gradually start to revert to the "rules", where necessary, as I think by that time my pupils understand the structure.

OK, following up the tonic/la business, what do you do about music which has a major/minor dichotomy such as several of Schubert's songs (there will be many around on r3 at the moment as it's wall-to-wall Schubert until about Christmas now) such as the first one in Die Winterreise - do you keep switching the same keynote from do to la? Or to use a non-classical example, Cockles and Mussels which is sometimes sung with the third verse on the tonic minor

I accept that neither way is going to be perfect. I grew up knowing those syllables from a very early age, though I can't for the life of me remember where I learnt them - it certainly wasn't in school, and I don't think it was my dad who was my early music "teacher" if a steady osmosis can be called teaching, and yes, I certainly thought of the minor as being la-ti-do-re-mi; it was only later when I relaised that the minor and the major starting on the same note were really different modes, different "colours" if you like, of the same key, that I wondered if it ought to be do-re-maw, and I feel quite sure I've heard it being done that way years and years ago (though I might be remembering someone doing it with a fixed doh)

I know this brings us back to medieval modes, and I'd guess this means the Dorian starts on D and the Phrygian on E and so on. But the minor as we normally use it isn't really quite the same thing; it's not simply the aeolian mode; it shares the same strong structure of the tonic and dominant with its major, drops or lowers its third according to what mood it's in (I like blues, it can't make up its mind, and the piano is very frustrated that it can't just sing down the crack like singer can) - and there's a quick piece by Kabalevsky in op.39 called Clowns which goes ABC# ABC(nat) ABCBABC(nat) and so on all the way through*: I'd love to see that rendered in sol-fa, though appreciate it wasn't really developed for that kind of music.

One last question: why is it sometimes called "tonic sol-fa"? Is that expressin used in Kodaly practice, and does it mean tonic as in keynote, or something slightly different?

*well, not just those notes, the clowns would soon be booed off (y'boring!) but switching from major to minor intervals at almost every beat

[Cyrilla]

I think possibly something that bothers me about all this is the word, 'explaining'. In my experience, 'explaining' is never enough...

I have to admit I'm not really sure why it was called 'tonic solfa' by Curwen - we now prefer the term 'relative solfa'. It basically means that any note can be the tonic.

Yes, there is a school which uses 'do-re-maw' but we don't. Absolutely 'la' is the tonic in the minor and we teach students both relative minor and tonic minor in this way.

I'm not totally sure what you mean about the 'major/minor dichotomy'. The wonderful Laszlo Nemes, Director of the Kodaly Institute, did a whole week's study of Die Winterreise with the advanced group at last year's summer school, but sadly I couldn't be in the group as I was teaching at the same time (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) . I'm not familiar with the tonic minor version of Cockles and Mussels, but if it was in G major (say) to begin with, and then in G minor, you would sing the major version as starting 's, d dd dm' (G is do) and the tonic minor one as 'm l ll ld' (G is la - ie Bb is do).

I know the Kabalevsky piece - really there are two options: 'drm' then the do=la 'l,t,d' so 'drm / l,t,d / drmr / l,t,d' - or 'l,t, di / l,t,d' etc. Argh - this really looks nonsense and very complicated written down but it isn't in practice (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif) .

I'm unclear as to what you mean by 'the minor as we use it isn't....simply the Aeolian mode' (IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif) .

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

(Btw, at the risk of embarrassing Bagpuss, she omits to say that the one pupil she's had fail their scales is the only one out of over 220 pupes to have done so...)

[linda.ff]

I know the Kabalevsky piece - really there are two options: 'drm' then the do=la 'l,t,d' so 'drm / l,t,d / drmr / l,t,d' - or 'l,t, di / l,t,d' etc. Argh - this really looks nonsense and very complicated written down but it isn't in practice (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif) .

I'm puzzled as to why l,t,di is acceptable but not d r ma

I'm unclear as to what you mean by 'the minor as we use it isn't....simply the Aeolian mode' (IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif) .

Because in it's "normal" form (as opposed to the so-called "natural" form which IS the aeolian mode) it has a semitone between the leading note and the tonic, and a semitone between the sixth and the dominant, because of (I've said this about ten times in this thread) the natural attraction of those strong degrees, almost like a kind of gravity. I don't give a monkeys about key-signatures when it comes to minor keys, I think they're the best of a bad job, but the raised leading note I don't feel is really accidental to the key itself.

This is why my definition of how the melodic minor is formed, even though the end result is the same, is different from many others on here. The sixth in naturally "flat" and the seventh naturally "sharp" and if you play melodies like 1234565432171, or 1234565-8-7-8 that's where they'll lie. It's only when ascending or descending through both the 6th and the 7th that it need smoothing out. And despite the way we play it in orthodox scales, many composers smooth out that snake-charmer gap the other way round, using the notes you'd expect ascending in a descending passage and vice versa - it makes no odds really in the music.

(I don't mean that I don't teach the accepted minor key-signatures, thye're absolutely necessary for sight-reading and theory, but I do rather wish notation had developed in a slightly different way, so as to be able to indicate that the tonic is the same as in the major on the same note)

It's obvious that we can't agree on this - not because either of us feels the other is "wrong" - I don't. But for one thing, it's clear that in sol-fa you have to jump in one direction or the other. To use la as the tonic suggests to me an adherence to the relative minor, to use do in the minor, an adherence to the tonic minor.

It's taken me over 50 years studying all kinds of music music (including an Oxbridge degree) to grow in this conviction, it's not just an eccentricity.