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Theory Behind The Minor Scale

It is important to understand how a minor scale is made up. Remember a tone is a two fret move and a semitone is a one fret move. A minor scale is made up of 8 notes, the 8th note being the octave. Usually books will write the 8 steps of the scale in roman numerals like this ( I - I - III - IV - V - VI - VII - VIII ). To modernise this we will just use the numbers 1 to 8 ( 1st - 2nd - 3rd - 4th - 5th - 6th - 7th - 8th notes of the Major Scale) or just ( 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 ). Then we place the spacing between each of those eight notes (remember <T> = Tone, and <S> = Semitone).

1 <T> 2 <S> 3 <T> 4 <T> 5 <S> 6 <T> 7 <T> 8

Remember: the numbers shown in the diagram to the left are the order number (1st, 2nd, 3rd etc.) Not your finger numbers.

As you can see below both scales would be A minor scales if they were played from the 5th fret. The root note which is marked by the darker circle is placed on the "A" note, it's that simple. So when you learn the shape of a minor scale on the guitar, you have learnt every minor scale e.g. ( A, A#, B, C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A ). Depending on where you start the scale from.

 

Major Scale Formula	1 <T> 2 <T> 3 <S> 4 <T> 5 <T> 6 <T> 7 <S> 8
Minor Scale Formula	1 <T> 2 <S> 3 <T> 4 <T> 5 <S> 6 <T> 7 <T> 8

The minor scale is structured slightly different to the major scale, moving tone, semitone, tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone. Let's take a look at the major scale below, (this is a two octave major scale).

This pattern moves in the order of two tones then a semitone, then three tones then another semitone. Since it is a two octave scale it does this twice. If we start from the sixth note of the major scale and go up one octave, see what happens ?

As you can clearly see this is the format for a minor scale (one tone, then a semitone, two tones, then another semitone then finish with two more tone moves. So hidden in every major scale there is a minor scale and in every minor scale there is a major scale. This is what is known as " Relative Minor " or " Relative Major ". This is when a major and minor scale share the notes of the scale but the starting notes (root notes) are different.

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