Bass Scales: The Harmonic Minor

So, following on from last weeks “bass scales” post on the natural minor scale, this weeks lesson will be about the harmonic minor scale. I mentioned last week that the natural minor scale was called “natural” because we hadn’t altered it in any way…so by that logic, what makes the harmonic minor scale…”harmonic”?

Yes, I did talk about this in the guitar scales post, but I thought I’d go over it again for the benefit of you bassists. The main difference between the natural and harmonic minor is that when you harmonise the scale you create different chords.

If you don’t already know what harmonising a scale is, please refer to the post I linked to above.

Harmonising the Minor Scale

Here is the A natural minor scale in fifth position:


G -------------------5-7-9-
D -------------5-7-9-------
A -------5-7-8-------------
E -5-7-8-------------------

The scale basically starts on A, and goes: A B C D E F G (and then repeats in higher and higher octaves forever…). If you were to harmonise this scale (i.e. make chords from the notes of it), you would have these chords:

Am – Bdim – C – Dm – Em – F – G

However, it sounds better to go to an A minor from an E major, rather than an E minor (as we have in this scale). So, every time a song had an “Em – Am” as part of the chord progression, it would get changed to an “E – Am”- because it sounded “better”.

The main effect that this had was that, if you want to change that chord to a major one, you have to raise the third (of the chord) by semitone- one fret. So now you’re technically using this scale:

A – B – C – D – E – F – G#

Where the “G” has been raised one fret to a “G#”.

The Harmonic Minor

So, the harmonic minor scale is the natural minor scale that has been changed for harmonic reasons (reasons to do with harmony, or chords).

Here is the tab:


G -------------------5-7-9-
D -------------6-7-9-------
A -------5-7-8-------------
E -5-7-8-------------------

…and when you harmonise this scale you get these chords:

Am – Bdim – Caug – Dm – E – F – G#dim

Raising that one note has changed the C to a “C augmented” (because the 5th is now a #5), the Em to an E, and the G to a “G# diminished”. As I said before, though, the main chord that is used from this scale is the E major to lead into the A minor.

Rob.

June 8, 2011 at 7:00 pm | Bass Scales, Music Theory | No comments