Hi,

I'm I right in thinking that for grade 5 you have the choice of playing either harmonic minor scales or melodic minor scales?
If that is the case, are these the only minor scales you need to know, don't you need to play the natural minor scales in the exam? And if you don't, how will the examiner go about asking you to play either a melodic or harmonic minor scale?

I hope this makes sense, any help would be most apprecaited,

Lisa

You don't have the choice of playing them - the examiner has the choice of asking for them, and will go about doing so by saying "C harmonic minor" or "A melodic minor" or whatever.

Which instrument? In grade 5 piano you still have your own choice of whether to do melodics or harmonics.

i think you should check the scales syllabus first before you practise anything. i also remembered that you can still choose either harmonic or melodic minor scales for piano grade 5.

dennis~~

Yes, the current syllabus states you have a choice of harmonic or melodic at grade 5 piano.

It's at grade 6 you have to do both kinds.

As other have said, you have the choice up to G5, and I think the examiner will just ask for, for example, "A minor". You may be asked which version (harmonic or melodic) you're playing, I seem to remember that happening to me once.

Hrmph. It is, of course, possible that I was talking complete nonsense here.

It's grade 5 classical guitar I'm taking. I know all the scales I need for grade 5 and behond, so I know the melodic minor and the harmonic minor scales, I just want to be prepared for what the examiner is going to ask me for. My teacher doesn't work from a scale books, you see, as I know most of the scales. It was only when I started looking through an old graded scale book of mine, that I noticed it was optional and I wondered whether it still was.

Thanks guys, this has cleared a few things up for me.

Lisa - I would check the syllabus if I were you. You should be able to do this online.

Up till your last post we were (at last I was) not clear which instrument you were asking about.

It is rather bizarre to me that the natural minor is not part of the syllabus for any piano grade. Maybe it is for other instruments, but still it seems to be a gaping hole.

YES! I was wondering whether to mention this earlier. I find the natural minor the natural starting point for teaching the minor keys, and have long wished it were an option - even just at the lower grades.

Totally agree! Up until I started to learn piano, I thought the natural minor was the most common minor scale.

For grade 5 guitar, you have the choice of playing either the harmonic or melodic version of the scale.
The examiner will not specify which version to play, but will just ask for say, "D minor" and then you can play either.

And I would go for the harmonic version as the left hand fingering is the same going up and down. Obviously for the melodic, the left hand pattern is different on the way down - so a little harder to memorise, in my opinion.

I so agree about the natural minor - it is the basis of the other two minor scales and I cannot understand why it is not taught first.

In Kodaly lessons I always teach natural minor followed by harmonic followed by melodic. JudithJ's group last night began working on the harmonic minor in relation to the natural and the whole group all went, 'Oh, this makes so much sense this way!' and 'How easy it is to understand these scales now!'

I remember several years ago teaching this level to a teenage violinist. Having done natural minor with her she came back most perturbed the following week. When I asked her what the matter was she told me that she'd told her violin teacher that she'd been learning the natural minor scale and that her teacher had told her not to be so silly as there was no such thing...

It does make it much more sensible to relate the scales to the natural minor. At the moment I just want to help my student through her exam, but when we have that done with, I think this is the way we'll go.

The natural minor features heavily in the pop world - in LCM Popular Theory exams it's all natural minor until grade 4 when the harmonic minor is introduced. The melodic minor doesn't get a look in at all - even at grade 8 where we get the Jazz Melodic Minor which is same as the classical version but doesn't descend in the natural - it just comes down as it went up.

(Sorry - this is of no use but might be interesting to someone)