Guitar Reviews

 HARMONIC MINOR Fig. 1 What is a Harmonic Minor Scale? Looking back at modes of the major scale , a Harmomic Minor Scale can be seen as a Natural Minor (Aeolian Mode) with a major seventh note(Fig. 1) Fig. 2 Fig. 2 above shows a regular A Aeolian Mode. The Aeolian Mode is the 6th Mode in the Parent Scale, in this case the scale of C, whilst Fig. 1 shows the Harmonic Minor comprisong of the altered 7th note.  The Leading Tone of the Harmonic Minor As our ears can very easily pick up intervals in music. We can tell a half, or a whole step interval. An augmented second interval (3 half steps) would always cause trouble for composers and performers. Composers had set rules when writing melodies so no unexpected interval jumps would create an unwanted sound in the melody. The whole step movement in the Natural Minor, or Aeolian Mode, between the 7th note and the octave was something that somewhat concerned composers, so they sharpened the 7th create a 'leading tone' so it would na...

 Guitar Modes  If you find this article useful, please subscribe, it really helps my blog. A melodic scale is a progression of notes a particular order.  The idea of "mode" in Western music theory has three progressive stages: in Gregorian chant theory, in Renaissance polyphonic theory, and in apparent symphonious music of the common practice period. In each of the three settings, "mode" joins the possibility of the diatonic scale, however contrasts from it by additionally including a component of song type. This means that repertories of short melodic figures or gatherings of tones inside a specific scale, so that, contingent upon the perspective, mode assumes the significance of one or the other a "particularized scale" or a "generalized tune". Present day musicological practice has stretched out the idea of mode to prior melodic frameworks, like those of Ancient Greek music, Jewish cantillation, and the Byzantine arrangement of octoechoi (the ...

    modes (sounds scary, eh?) Not really. Music modes explained   Modes in music have been around for a long time, they are nothing new. They were formalized in the 1600’s and are used in all types of music and used by a wide variety of musical instruments. Should I learn modes? Learning modes allows you to colour any tune you are playing, or improvising, with feeling. It also allows the sound of the song to focus on a differing tonal centre. If your playing is beginning to sound boring and you feel you are stuck in a rut, this could another reason to study modes. Modes can be seen as scales within a parent scale. Many people use mode and scale to mean the same thing, however, this is not strictly true. A mode can be seen as a scale of it’s parent scale, derived from a different point in the parent scale. All modes are scales but not all scales are modes. The Blues Scale for example is not a mode. From the ...

  INTERVALS   Intervals are important in music and they are the basics for chord and scale construction. An interval is the difference in pitch between one note and another. Intervals can be either designated melodic or harmonic. A melodic interval is when notes are played in a melody (unsurprisingly lol), and harmonic intervals are notes that are played at the same time eg. a chord, double-stop, etc. Ok, so what harmonic and melodic Intervals do I need to know? Good question, thank you for that. I will endeavour to answer it, (mmm clears throat…) Wow, that looks confusing.. This may be easier Intervals are designated as either perfect (P), major (M) or minor (m). If you look at the fret diagram you can see that written above the sixth semitone is  Ƅ 5. Above that is the type of interval, in this particular case it is a A4/d5. This is an Augmented 4th or a Diminished 5th (sometimes called the Tri-Tone). All this means is the Perfect 4th note has been sharpen...