Explaining the melodic minor Options

[flobiano]

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.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif)

An equally non technical answer maybe:

There are lots of different types of scales, some are all tones (play whole tone scales), some are all semi tones (chromatics). Others are made up of a mixture of the two. Some of the patterns of tones/ semitones sound particulaly nice and are used in lots of different types of music, these are sometimes given special name. This one is called the melodic minor.

[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.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif)

An equally non technical answer maybe:

There are lots of different types of scales, some are all tones (play whole tone scales), some are all semi tones (chromatics). Others are made up of a mixture of the two. Some of the patterns of tones/ semitones sound particulaly nice and are used in lots of different types of music, these are sometimes given special name. This one is called the melodic minor.

That might explain "why" we're playing this scale, but it certainly goes no way towards explaining "why" the notes behave as they do. It sounds like an answer given to a 6-year-old.

[flobiano]

*shrugs*

it was merely intended to be a variant of "you'll just have to take my word for it".

[linda.ff]

*shrugs*

it was merely intended to be a variant of "you'll just have to take my word for it".

How about "you don't need to worry your pretty little head about that"?

If they're not "ready" to know why but just do as they're told, they'll learn to play them, but possibly not understand them, and all you produce is performing fleas

[Arundodonuts]

*shrugs*

it was merely intended to be a variant of "you'll just have to take my word for it".

How about "you don't need to worry your pretty little head about that"?

If they're not "ready" to know why but just do as they're told, they'll learn to play them, but possibly not understand them, and all you produce is performing fleas

I have to admit my first response to your explanation was that it was "overcomplicated". But, I looked at your graphic and would now consider your method to be "complete". I think it explains the construction of the minor scales quite nicely without the complication of key signatures and "relative" keys. But then - I like pictures.

[andante]

So if they aren't ready for an overcomplicated explanation you don't let them progress at all? Do you keep them repeating things at the same level for two or three years until they are mature enough for your explanation. Not all children do things at the same rate. Some may need to accept it is so and move on and come back to the reason why at a later date.

Your pretty diagram doesn't explain it any better than the straightforward raise them both on the way up and not on the way down anyway.

[linda.ff]

*shrugs*

it was merely intended to be a variant of "you'll just have to take my word for it".

How about "you don't need to worry your pretty little head about that"?

If they're not "ready" to know why but just do as they're told, they'll learn to play them, but possibly not understand them, and all you produce is performing fleas

I have to admit my first response to your explanation was that it was "overcomplicated". But, I looked at your graphic and would now consider your method to be "complete". I think it explains the construction of the minor scales quite nicely without the complication of key signatures and "relative" keys. But then - I like pictures.

Minor key signatures are a very unsatisfactory compromise anyway, and I wonder if there was a better way they could have developed (though we're stuck with them now, I guess). I know I've already said I think C major has a lot more to do with C minor than it does with A major. Imagine a key signature which actually shows the MAJOR key, but is then followed by some kind of minor symbol showing the alteration - no, I'm not sure that would quite do it either.


I can't declare that I never have and never would use a "never mind why, just do it" approach, but it would only be as a last resort.

So if they aren't ready for an overcomplicated explanation you don't let them progress at all? Do you keep them repeating things at the same level for two or three years until they are mature enough for your explanation. Not all children do things at the same rate. Some may need to accept it is so and move on and come back to the reason why at a later date.

Your pretty diagram doesn't explain it any better than the straightforward raise them both on the way up and not on the way down anyway.

But unlike you, I've tried both methods, and I know mine works.

No, of course I don't keep them hanging around until they're ready to have a complicated answer. And do you know why? Because when you have a pupil in front of you, and a piano to show them on, IT ISN'T THAT COMPLICATED.

I've never held a pupil back because they didn't understand something. When they're ready to do grade 1 - or TG Initial - I show them that the bottom of the A minor scale goes like so, and that there are variations at the top.

First I show them the tonic and the dominant, even if I don't give them those names, then I say that because they're boss notes, the other two notes want to cling to them - and I show them on the piano. They aren't reading it on a computer monitor, that's the difference and get them to play them and feel how they fit.

Then I get them to try out the whole scale with those notes, and they almost without exception say it sounds Egyptian, Arabian, like a snake charmer, or whatever. So I tell them that's one sort, called the harmonic minor. I've never yet had a child who didn't get that far.

Then I SHOW them how we get rid of the snake charmer effect, and this actually looks quite nice in A minor, because it really does look like escalators - two blacks up, and two whites down. And they play that one too. And I've never yet had a child who didn't understand it.

Then I give them the choice between the two. I'd say it's somewhere between a quarter and a third of them who plump for the harmonic, either because they like the sound, or the feel,or occasionally becasue it's the same going both ways. But more of them choose the melodic. Sometimes they take some time to learn which name belongs to which.

I realise some of the things I propose on this forum seem like crackpot ideas - such as teaching pedalling by saying just stick your foot on the pedal, we'll deal with lifting it off once you've got that bit. But you have to understand that these come from years of trying them out and knowing that THEY WORK.

[andante]

It does seem like a crackpot idea to use two sheets of paper where one sentence says the same thing, but I think we will have to agree to differ.

[linda.ff]

It does seem like a crackpot idea to use two sheets of paper where one sentence says the same thing, but I think we will have to agree to differ.

I don't "use two sheets of paper" with a pupil. I do SHOW them what this is about, and then have them try it. Showing them knocks away a lot of the verbal explanation that needs to go round it.

And "one sentence"? Forgotten already. Particularly if it's had no other explanation

It takes about five minutes to learn both the harmonic and melodic A minor scales my way. And the next week they can still do it.

You don't seem to believe that when I do it, it works. So yes, we'll agree to differ. You can say it doesn't work (you haven't done it that way) and I can say it does (I have) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[andante]

I didn't say it didn't work. You are putting words in my mouth!

I just said that the pretty pages you posted (which you said you had given to your pupils, giving the impression that is your standard method) said nothing that I could see that was more than what I said. The melodic minor has the 6th and 7th note sharpened on the way up and not on the way down. I can't see how that is more forgettable than trying to remember which two notes like to get cosy with the ones next to them, which seemed to be the basis of your explanation.

Where did I suggest you wouldn't demonstrate the two extra sharps on the way up? You seem to be deliberately trying to misunderstand and saying that the only person who can explain anything is you!

[sbhoa]

I avoid using the word sharpened.
I describe it as raised by a semitone as it doesn't always result in notes called sharp.

[Cyrilla]

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[andante]

That was precisely why I worded it as raised in my original post, but Linda didn't like the fact that I said you raised neither on the way down. (She didn't say why) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

[linda.ff]

I didn't say it didn't work. You are putting words in my mouth!

I just said that the pretty pages you posted (which you said you had given to your pupils, giving the impression that is your standard method) said nothing that I could see that was more than what I said. The melodic minor has the 6th and 7th note sharpened on the way up and not on the way down. I can't see how that is more forgettable than trying to remember which two notes like to get cosy with the ones next to them, which seemed to be the basis of your explanation.

Where did I suggest you wouldn't demonstrate the two extra sharps on the way up? You seem to be deliberately trying to misunderstand and saying that the only person who can explain anything is you!

OK, first you need to read my first post on this subject more carefully. I said I made that graphic for "a pupil who asked me for it". And actually it was an adult pupil. And just to clarify things, she said it was about the minor scales in general and the difference between the harrmonic and the melodic, And she said it made more sense to her now that she'd seen the graphic. I've only shown it to a couple of other pupils since, and that was after I'd already shown them how it worked on the piano.

I teach the harmonic and the melodic together as a rule, and I used that notion of the 6th and 7th being attracted to the tonic and dominant (or being a bit clingy) because it explained the big gap between them. That was nothing to do with the melodic minor. The subsequent description, of raising the 6th on the way up, or lowering the 7th on the way down, was how to get rid of the big gap. Not how to make a melodic minor out of a key-signature with no reference to the harmonic.

In fact when I first do minors, I don't do key-signatures at all. I do C minor from C major in just the 5-finger position. Neither do I do key-signatures when I first teach the A minor scale because it isn't necessary. I do key-signatures for pieces, but for the first two or three scales I just build the scale, using the tonic and dominant as its scaffolding.

It's just my take on theory (by which I don't mean the theory exam, I mean the way music works, a subject I've been studying for over half a century)

So, no, you didn't say it didn't work, but you said it was over-complicated (remember though that this is teaching both minors) and would confuse younger pupils. I can assure you it doesn't.

As for raising neither on the way down, I am thinking of a scale as going up and then down, so the 6th and 7th are already raised on the way up. To say that when you go back down you "don't raise" them, rather than that you lower them, sounds ambiguous. Please remember I'm talking about the way a scale is built in itself and not with relation to a key-signature.

If you build your melodic out of your harmonic - which is the natural position of the 6th and 7th notes when not passing up or down through both, by virtue of their attraction to the tonic and dominant - you raise the 6th to go up (the 7th is already "high"), and you lower the 7th to come down (allowing the 6th to fall back into place),

Minor scales are not a by-product of a key-signature. They are a different colouring of the major scale on the same tonic.

[soccermom]

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.