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All they are saying is...C minor and E flat major have the same key signature ...

The key of C minor and E flat major have the same key signature. The book says that the scale has that key signature without clarifying, and that was the first point of confusion. Apparently the book then went on to present an harmonic minor scale, since he says that the B stayed B natural, and didn't explain that either.

You can have a C minor (natural, harmonic, melodic) scale in music without having the key signature of E flat. If you are coming into music the first time and run into incomplete explanations like the one in the book, it can lead to confusion and misconception. When I downloaded that book I had already done several levels of theory and glossed over that part.

I have a question that I'm not sure is theory and I hope someone can help me out here.

When a flat is placed beside the lower note of an octave, but the upper note is not flatted, do you flat the whole octave or do you only flat the lower note but play the upper note as written? For example, it's an octave F but the lower F is flatted and the upper F is left as is (there's no natural sign beside it). So do you play the octave as F flat (E) or do you play it as F natural on top and E on the bottom?

Thank you!

The rule is that only the lower note is flatted, and the upper F is played as written. Many notators will write a natural sign explicitly next to the upper F to make this clear and/or to reassure the reader that the flat sign hasn't been accidentally left off the upper F.

Or there may be an error in your score.

What piece is this?

Well, in my experience (Which could be wrong) I believe Harmonic is the most common, especially in classical music. The reason is it has a leading tone (half step) between the last note of the scale and the Tonic. This is a very strong sequence, and also allows the V chord in that key to be a Major chord. In other words, it makes resolution to the tonic much more tense and interesting.

The Harmonic minor is not used as much in modern/pop music because it sounds too strong and classy. Modern pop music uses more natural minor or sometimes minor modes like Dorian, because the leading tone just sounds wierd in pop music.

The melodic minor might be the least common, because it is more intricate and again may have been more popular in classical music to allow a melody to use the leading tone on the way up, but sound more minor like on the way down.

A very interesting exercise I found to do was to play "Greensleeves" in all 3 minor variations and compare. It's amazing. Ask yourself or someone else which one sounds "Correct" , or the most correct and you will find it's hard to say. They all sound right.

Thank you for clarifying. It does sound strange to play the top F natural and the bottom E but I guess that's what it is. The name of the piece is "A dream is a wish your heart makes." It's written with Chopin Ballade 4 in mind. Great piece!

Maybe of interests for some, a couple of tutorials on counterpoint and harmony: http://www.youtube.com/user/artofcounterpoint

While a little complex to navigate (it's not a step by step tutorial at all), very interesting for people who want to start analyzing music: http://www.tonalityguide.com/index.php

wow there's a lot of descriptive information on constructing and dissecting harmony there; thanks for posting, Jean

This link takes you to the site's Table of Contents for easy navigation: http://www.tonalityguide.com/tableofcontents.php

Fantastic resource! The navigation leaves a lot to be desired, but the content is excellent. Thanks for sharing this Jean-Luc!

Is this a typo on this page?: http://www.tonalityguide.com/tkchordlabelling.php

Shouldn't the II over the V at the bottom of the page be a ii? It looks like an A minor chord to me. I would think it would only be a II if the top note was a C# rather than a C. Right?

I think you are right, it is most definitively a minor chord and it should be ii, not II

I must be learning something then! There's no way I would have picked up on this a couple months ago, and a couple months before that it would have been absolute gibberish.

Hopefully you guys can help me.

I'm learning chords in a pattern. I learned the c chords and did the pattern like this: RH: ceg, egc, gce, ceg LH: ceg, egc, gce, ceg.

Now I'm to add the E major. So I'm not sure I have this right.

so I would go RH: eg#a, g#ae, aeg#, eg#a

Um is that right?? I'm just inverting the Icord correct? So lost here HELP!

eg#b.

The inversions looked fine though.

LOL yes I meant b.

Thanks. It's my first time figuring out inversions on my own.

I was thinking, "I don't even need to go to the piano to know that would be one ugly sounding chord!"

That's great Becca, you will find that using inversions can be fun and smooths out somethings by not having to jump all over to play chord progressions. Maybe just moving two fingers instead of your whole hand to a new position.

Perhaps better to go to the piano though. By changing the B in the e major to an A instead (ie. E, G#, A) you've got the makings of an Amaj7. Just add a C# and you have the entire Amaj7. Move the notes around or spread them out. But, any way that you can find to play this chord, it is going to sound very hip and nice. Not ugly at all.

Of course, this is entirely off topic of the E major. Just pointing this out though, as sometimes what looks like it may be ugly on paper, is not that way at all.

I gotta say, without the C# in there, I'm still standing by my original conclusion

With the C#, that is one seriously awkward chord to play, for all inversions. At least under my fingers.

Thanks Ragdoll! That is exactly why my teacher is having me start to do inversions. I was having issues with my chord changes in Greensleeves. It's getting better now.

Greener, okay so if I have this right it's E, G#, A, C#?