Explaining the melodic minor Options

[BitterSweet]

I am currently trying to get my junior music student prepared for Grade 3 theory in the summer. She's very capable, and can manage most of the areas, but she does seem to struggle with melodic minors.

She does play piano, but hasn't covered them yet on piano. I also don't want to rely too much on her other musical skills, so have been trying to get her to look at songs which use the minor, like Greensleeves (which has a fab example of melodic minor in), but it's not helping.

Any suggestions of other ways to explain it, before I resort to getting her to learn the rule by wrote (endlessly drawing out all the melodic minors, or something equally as dull)?

[linda.ff]

I am currently trying to get my junior music student prepared for Grade 3 theory in the summer. She's very capable, and can manage most of the areas, but she does seem to struggle with melodic minors.

She does play piano, but hasn't covered them yet on piano. I also don't want to rely too much on her other musical skills, so have been trying to get her to look at songs which use the minor, like Greensleeves (which has a fab example of melodic minor in), but it's not helping.

Any suggestions of other ways to explain it, before I resort to getting her to learn the rule by wrote (endlessly drawing out all the melodic minors, or something equally as dull)?

Consider the tonic and the dominant. they are boss notes. In the harmonic minor (not so much a scale, despite the fact that it's the only one some teachers teach up to grade 5, as a repository of notes for making chords and tunes from) the 6th snd 7th notes are very "clingy" and hug the tonic and dominant, staying only a semitone away.

As this leaves a big gap that makes you sound like a snake charmer, if you're going up, persuade the clingy number 6 to go up a semitone - now a tone away from the dominant and a smoother run up to the tonic. On the way down it's the other way - the 6th can settle back where it was, but the 7th needs to come down.

The other way (though this helps more with playing than writing, I think) is to think of escalators. You can't come down the up escalator, you get chucked out of the shop (I know that from experience, and it wasn't me doing it, it was my friend, but the manager caught her and we both got sent out (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) ) So with the choice of a tone or a semitone away from the note above or below, it's "high up, low down". Whatever you do with 6 and 7 on the way up, drop them by a semitone on the way down.

It still isn't what happens in real music, though (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ph34r.gif)

Here's a graphic I made for a pupil who asked about it
http://deemajormusic.co.uk/lff/wp-content/...odic-minors.pdf

[andante]

That sound confusing and overcomplicated. Why not just say you raise the 6th and 7th on the way up and neither on the way down? Very simple and easy to remember.

[linda.ff]

That sound confusing and overcomplicated. Why not just say you raise the 6th and 7th on the way up and neither on the way down? Very simple and easy to remember.

but not as pretty. And how can you "raise neither"?

[sbhoa]

That sound confusing and overcomplicated. Why not just say you raise the 6th and 7th on the way up and neither on the way down? Very simple and easy to remember.

but not as pretty. And how can you "raise neither"?

By sticking to what's in the key signature?
One way to think of the descent is that it's the relative major but not starting on the tonic.
Different explanations work for different people.... the fun of teaching.

[andante]

That sound confusing and overcomplicated. Why not just say you raise the 6th and 7th on the way up and neither on the way down? Very simple and easy to remember.

but not as pretty. And how can you "raise neither"?

Why are you trying to make it sound pretty at the expense of having a clear explanation. I don't see what you mean about "raise neither". They are a semitone higher than the key signature on the way up and not on the way down. It is the harmonic minor where the 7th is raised on the way down.

[Cyrilla]

And when you use solfa it is all so clear and simple...

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[linda.ff]

That sound confusing and overcomplicated. Why not just say you raise the 6th and 7th on the way up and neither on the way down? Very simple and easy to remember.

but not as pretty. And how can you "raise neither"?

Why are you trying to make it sound pretty at the expense of having a clear explanation. I don't see what you mean about "raise neither". They are a semitone higher than the key signature on the way up and not on the way down. It is the harmonic minor where the 7th is raised on the way down.

I've met so many students who can't remember the rules, believe me, or can blindly learn and obey rules but have little idea of why they're doing it. Having a picture often helps to set it in the mind further. And the rules, while correct, and succinct, often come into the category of Never mind why, just do it. The attraction of the 6th and 7th to the tonic and dominant in the harmonic minor explains why you get this big gap. Then the movement up and down explains how and why the alteration happens.

Also we have to remember that building a minor scale doesn't always depend on having the key-signature. I haven't checked grade 3 theory recently, but I seem to remember scales being required with or without the key-signature.

One of my pupils has a mother who, though now a scientist, says she learnt piano in Australia up to "concert standard" and says she was never ever taught melodic minors - they just weren't on the curriculum in Australia.

And when you use solfa it is all so clear and simple...

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Unfortunately they've yet to incorporate sol-fa into theory exams. Possibly a pity, but then think of the confusion for candidates from some parts of Europe (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ph34r.gif)

[sbhoa]

Also we have to remember that building a minor scale doesn't always depend on having the key-signature. I haven't checked grade 3 theory recently, but I seem to remember scales being required with or without the key-signature.

But if writing without key signature wouldn't you start from knowing what it is? I know I would.
I do think that your graphic explanation could be useful for some people though.

[flobiano]

That sound confusing and overcomplicated. Why not just say you raise the 6th and 7th on the way up and neither on the way down? Very simple and easy to remember.

but not as pretty. And how can you "raise neither"?

By sticking to what's in the key signature?
One way to think of the descent is that it's the relative major but not starting on the tonic.
Different explanations work for different people.... the fun of teaching.

I know it doesn't address the why but I always remember it as follows:

From the tonic
Up is as the major but with a minor third
Down is as the minor key signature (or as relative major keysignature depending on how you prefer to think of it)

It does rely on knowing both major/ minor key signatures though.

[andante]

I think primary aged children are more used to knowing something is right before understanding why. (They know that grass is green before you tell them about photosynthesis and chlorophyl) It doesn't mean that they won't understand it later. All that "being attracted to the dominant" makes it much less clear rather than more so, particularly for a young child as in the OP. A case of learning to run before you can walk.

[linda.ff]

I think primary aged children are more used to knowing something is right before understanding why. (They know that grass is green before you tell them about photosynthesis and chlorophyl) It doesn't mean that they won't understand it later. All that "being attracted to the dominant" makes it much less clear rather than more so, particularly for a young child as in the OP. A case of learning to run before you can walk.

Fair enough. So what do you do when a child says, as they sometimes do, "why?"?

The problem with some of the rules is that it's easy to get the words confused.

I do know one thing: I teach all of mine melodic and harmonic from the word go - even at TG Initial Grade - I teach it very much the way I've described (but obviously showing them on the keyboard) and I know it works.

But then I'm also the person who thinks the minor is derived from the tonic major and not from the relative major (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) It does mean learning key-signatures is a separate job, though, but I still think it makes more sense.

I know it doesn't address the why but I always remember it as follows:

From the tonic
Up is as the major but with a minor third
Down is as the minor key signature (or as relative major keysignature depending on how you prefer to think of it)

It does rely on knowing both major/ minor key signatures though.

That's how I teach B minor. But as you say, it doesn't explain the why.

[andante]

The answer to why would depend on the child and how much detail they could cope with. In some cases the answer to why would be "I think for now you will have to take my word for it, and later when you have learned more it will all make sense". If you give a primary age child the same explanation you would to an adult with far more musical experience then you will confuse them.

[Misterioso]

I think primary aged children are more used to knowing something is right before understanding why. (They know that grass is green before you tell them about photosynthesis and chlorophyl) It doesn't mean that they won't understand it later. All that "being attracted to the dominant" makes it much less clear rather than more so, particularly for a young child as in the OP. A case of learning to run before you can walk.

I'm afraid I agree; but I do like the the idea of the lifts, up one way and down another, and think it would stick in the mind of a young child very well to at least become the way to recognising the difference between harmonic and melodic minor.

As an aside, though, the whole question is being complicated now since learners of some instruments are required to learn natural minor in the early practical grades (Grade 1 violin being a case in point). I am teaching it to the first up-coming grade 1 violinist who has had to learn it for the new syllabus, and (because I am so accustomed to hearing the other minor forms) it really grates on my ear - and I think it does on hers, too. I can perfectly understand the reasons for its introduction, as a way to later understand how the other forms work, but teaching young children that there are three forms of the minor is, I think, too confusing, especially as the natural minor isn't covered in the early theory grades.

Sorry, (IMG:style_emoticons/default/offTopic.gif)

[linda.ff]

The answer to why would depend on the child and how much detail they could cope with. In some cases the answer to why would be "I think for now you will have to take my word for it, and later when you have learned more it will all make sense". If you give a primary age child the same explanation you would to an adult with far more musical experience then you will confuse them.

Most of the pupils I have taught it to are of primary school age. Not like 6 year-olds, but 7-11. They understand the harmonic and melodic by shape (as well as the rules, though they probably can't recite the rules parrot-fashion)