When substituting the viib for V7 in minor keys
I have noticed that the bass note is often flattened
making it a major VIIb {the leading note is not
raised a semitone}. This I can comprehend because
in a minor key approaching a cadence the V major is
used not the v minor { in viib7 the 7th
[6th of the scales] is still raised}. Have I got
this all correct? Thanks

What's viib?

She means bVII.

And when the leading tone is not raised, then the VII chord does not function as a substitution for the dominant. Instead, it's often a V7/III instead. (Or simply a part of a step progression.)

If vii is used as a dominant, then the leading tone has to be raised.

Lucy,

Terminology, and your use of the flat (b) sign, are getting in the way here. Adding some to Kreisler’s info:

Using the natural minor scale, the triad built on the 5th degree of the scale is minor, and the triad built on the 7th degree of the scale is major.
Example: Key of D natural minor. The v chord is A-C-E, and the VII chord is C-E-G.

If the composer is using the harmonic minor scale, with the 7th degree of the scale raised one-half step, the triad built on the 5th degree of the scale is now major, and the triad built on the (raised) 7th degree of the scale is now diminished.
Example: Key of D harmonic (sometimes melodic) minor. The V chord is A-C#-E, and the VII chord is C#-E-G.

Continuing to the rest of your question, depending on the composer’s intent, s/he may choose to make the chord built on the fifth degree of the scale a dominant seventh chord, in which case it will contain a major 3rd, a perfect 5th, and a minor 7th.
Example: Key of D minor. The V7 chord is A-C#-E-G.

The composer may also chose to use a seventh chord built upon the seventh degree of the scale. Two varieties are quite common, one based on the harmonic minor, and the other based upon the melodic minor.
Example: Key of D harmonic minor. The vii7 chord is a diminished seventh chord C#-E-G-Bb. (This is frequently used as a substitute for the dominant seventh chord.)
Example: Key of D melodic minor. The vii7 chord is a “half-diminished” seventh chord C#-E-G-B.

If it sounds complicated, that is because it is a rather thick, and sticky subject. So, while you may have the concept correct, the terminology is not quite there yet.

Ed

Hope you don't mind my saying so, but that's a lot harder to understand than the original post.

I don't think it's going to help Lucy much. And BTW I had a fair amount of advanced theory and it would have taken a lot of effort for me to follow it!

Mark,

Perhaps my post is more complex because it seeks to explain the various ways of looking at Lucy's chords. As you, yourself, indicated, the original post made little sense.

But I am always happy to learn! Maybe you would like a go at the various chords that are commonly constructed on the fifth and seventh degrees of minor scales, and why and how they differ?

Ed

Good thought, but for things like this, I just try (if anything) to address the original post, in a way that is relevant and narrow and at the level of the question. What you're suggesting is sort of writing a textbook chapter and I'm not highly motivated to do that. I do hope that Lucy feels she's gotten a good answer.

Maybe we should check about this:

Do you mean the bass note, or the root?

Say that you are in the key of C minor. The 7th degree chord could be BDF (B dim) if the Bb has been raised to B, or BbDF (Bb) if the Bb has not been raised. The B or Bb respectively are called the Root of the chord.

A chord can be inverted. When you have the diminished chord, it is frequently (always?) inverted so that you'd probably have Bdim/D (DFB). In this case the bottom note would be D. Whatever note you have at the very bottom is the Bass. So even if the chord itself is BDF, and the Root is always B, the Bass may be a different note.

So did you mean Root?

What a load of cobblers!
Such gobbledegook deserves to be discombobulated, ground into fine chunks, and rammed down the throat of the giddy gents propogating the garbage.

No wonder children pack in their piano lessons.

Feel much better now having lit a fuse.

btb,

First of all, none of us here are little kids, learning childish music. If someone quits because they got a complete explanation to one of their questions, s/he probably was never meant to play or sing.

Once we "write it down", taking it out of the realm of simple sound, we (for better or worse) enter the world of Theory. Here we must use terminology, and some universal rules (derived from sound) apply.

I invited Mark to answer the OP's question in a complete, correct, and SIMPLE way. No-Go! I invite you to do the same.

Always learning . . .
Ed

Besides what I said in the previous post, I honestly just don't understand what is being asked, totally, at all. I have no idea what's being described.

Lucy: I think you might get better replies if you forget the terminology and just say what are the notes of the chords you're talking about. You might also need to rephrase what you're asking -- I don't know -- but first we need to understand better what you're talking about. Kreisler was pretty sure he understood, and probably he did. LoPresti was too, but I can't tell because I didn't understand his post.

For what it's worth, I thought your explanation was very straightforward and perfectly explained the OP's question. I think certain people (like me) prefer using an example key/scale/chord than just roman numeral notation. I like to see both laid out when someone is explaining something to do with harmony, because then you can double check to see if you are understanding the notation correctly. I understood what you were saying within the first two sentences and probably would have wrote the exact same thing.

Thank you for the vote of confidence - I appreciate it.
I, too, believe that the more light one can shed on theoretical principles, by using concrete examples, the better.

But, what has happened to Lucy?

Makes perfect sense to me what Kreisler and LoPresti said.

Seriously? Taking one excerpt at random

Parsing it:
- using the natural minor scale

Having taken advanced theory, the basic theory of natural minor scales should be familiar to you

- the triad built on the 5th degree...

Let's use A natural minor as an example. The 5th degree notes are E G B

- is minor

E G B is indeed minor.

- the triad built on the 7th degree

In A natural minor, this has to be G B D

- is major

Which GBD is indeed

Followed by an example.

Which of these things set out by Ed is unclear? This is quite basic theory, as is the rest of it.

In my book the Major scale is
TTtTTTt (totalling 6T)
and the minor scale
TtTTTTt (totalling 6T)

The ONLY differences between the scales is
the 2nd degree (t) half-tone and 3rd degree T (tone)
in the minor scale.

I didn't say it was unclear, just that it was hard to understand. I found it formidable, and I thought Lucy most likely would too. I was approaching this all in the context of the original post, and from the gitgo it seemed to me that his post was on a totally different level -- far more complicated and more detailed than what was being asked, including that he was saying a lot of stuff that wasn't necessary for answering the question. My first difficulty with the post was right up top, with the term "natural minor," which, believe it or not, I don't really know. I'm sure it's just a thing of what vocabulary gets used in what venues, and that it's synonymous with some term that I do know, but it would have taken my looking it up to see which one. Glancing down the rest of the post, I had a similar impression that it was both above and beyond what had been asked. I couldn't help thinking that someone who could easily understand his reply wouldn't have needed to ask the question. I gather that you don't think any of this -- and I imagine that with good reason Ed will feel your impression is more meaningful than mine.

Interesting. Would that TtTTTTt pattern of the minor scale be an exact reverse if played descending (tTTTTtT)?

Ed

Well, if that's the case you should add natural, melodic and harmonic minor scale to your book.

Not to be rude but knowing the different modes of minor scale, natural/melodic/harmonic is pretty basic theory...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_scale

I do know them! (Very well, thank you.)

I just didn't know that term.

Anyway....the issue is whether the reply we're talking about was put in a way that the OP would be likely to understand, or that most readers of the thread would. It wasn't put in a way that I could readily understand, and, rightly or wrongly, I take that as an indication that Lucy probably wouldn't, at least not easily, and many other readers probably wouldn't, and not just because of the term "natural minor." I didn't make a big thing of it; I just teased Ed a little, and I hope he didn't mind.

BTW, I'm not sure if you're thinking I lied about having taken theory or that the courses I had were lousy.

Mark_C

I'm Not questioning your background but I find it a little puzzling because I thought natural minor scale was a fairly common/universal term. I'm curious What did your teacher call it?

I think part of the problem, as you and others have stated is that the question itself a little strange.. I understand vii diminished being used as substitution for V but not bvii. Major bVII in minor key could mean tonicization/modulation to another key(Kreisler's answers)

on the other hand, if the OP is asking why there is vii, and bvii being used in a minor key, then LoPresti's answer probably what OP is looking for, as those two chords come from different modes of minor scales.

All these chappies
wanting to muddy the modal waters with clutter such as

Dorian/Hypodorian
Phyrygian/Hypophrygian
Lydian/Hypolydian
Mixolydian/Hypomixolydian
Aeolian/Hypoaeolian
Ionian/Hypoionian

When the only ones worth remembering ...
(survived 2500 years from the Greek Golden age) are
the Lydian (major scale) and Dorian (minor scale).

Who did I hear say “shut up” when I started prating
about some ghastly chappie called Glareanus
who published some rot in 1547 called Dodecachordon ...
some say he died of the Plague ...
all those plagal ending don’t you know.

Kind regards, btb

I'm sure it's puzzling.

I had two years of theory in college, two different teachers. The program was pretty rigorous. There were two levels of music theory courses; this was the upper level, the one taken by music majors. I never saw or heard the term "natural minor" during these courses, nor had I in my prior years of piano study, nor have I in the time since then, much of which I've spent discussing music with serious musicians.

What term was used for "natural minor"?
I had to finally look it up to see what it is.

We mostly called it nothing. It didn't get referred to very much, and when it did, we called it the Aeolian mode (which was one of about 6 or 7 modes we studied). When we called minor scales by name, it was just harmonic and melodic.


For sure. It was my main point in the first couple of posts. What I said about Ed's post was just a side comment.


So, you're saying he wasn't answering the question at all? I assumed he was sort of answering it but with a lot of additional stuff that wasn't needed and which made it less accessible -- but as per what I've said, I couldn't tell any of it clearly, neither the question nor his answer.

Mark, in the lower theory before college did they give? The natural minor is rather standard over here at the earlier level. It tends to be used to build up to the other two. Aeolian is to natural minor what Ionian is the major scales. We still say "major" and not "Ionian". I'd say it's a Canada-US thing except that I seem to remember that Ed hales from Chicago unless my memory is wrong.

That muddies the waters further. That is what the Greeks called them, but when they became church modes, the major was called Ionian, and the minor (natural) was called Aeolian. The Lydian, in church mode is what you get when you play the white keys on the piano from F to F, while Dorian is D to D.

Lots of jazz players and such use modes, but are probably scratching their heads at the hypos.

Hi BTB,

Your scale names are a little confused. The easy way to keep them straight is to remember that you can derive each by starting on a white note/key on the piano and playing nothing but sequential white keys up an octave. Depending on which note you begin on, you will be playing in:

Ionian C-C (major)
Dorian D-D
Phrygian E-E
Lydian F-F
Mixolydian G-G
Aeolian A-A (natural minor)
Locrian B-B

It is of course possibly to play any of these keys starting on any note, but if you remember this approach, you can always figure out the right collection of half vs. whole steps to the key you are interested in. I have a mnemonic device to remember the order of these modes too. It is:
"I Don't Play Lousy Music At L________", where for the final L you can pick some sort of venue or person's house who is memorable to you.

Hope that helps keep them straight,
Mark

P.S. Dorian and phrygian modes that you mentioned do sometimes appear in classical music - phrygian in particular has an Eastern European flair, as does dorian to some extent. And I understand that they all have more or less of a place in jazz music, but I've never studied jazz formally, so I can't speak on it...

P.P.S. From what keystring says, it sounds like the ancient Greek nomenclature might use the same names in a different order when referring to the modes. If that's the case, then the topic of modes has great potential to be a confusing topic of discussion, and I apologize if my post sounded patronizing.

The only other explanation I can think of is if you are minor key and modulating up minor 3rd (relative major), in that case both the vii dimnished(which also works as substitue for V) and V7/bIII (OP only said major, but not the quality of the 7th) can be used to pivot to the next key.

For example in key of C minor

B full diminished and it's inversion can be used to pivot to Eb (they share the same diminished chords
Bb(7) as V of Eb.

They are both somewhat interchangeable

Mar C

I edited the post for clarification. I think LoPresti's answer is pretty straight forward.. but whether or not it answers the question really depends on what the OP is actually asking.

MarkH

I think btb is just trolling.

Thanks MarkH for the explanation homing in on the Ionian mode for the Major scale ... of which I was aware ... them thar Greeks apparently settled on a fixed arrangement of the modal notes ... and depending on which mountainous group you twanged your lyre ...

Spartans TTtTTTt
Phygians tTTTtTT
Lydians TTTTtTt
M/lydian TTtTTTt
Aeolian TTtTtTT
Ionian TTtTTTt

Hope I got all the twangs right ... wonder if the Dorian Spartans imposed their modal notes on the Athenian Greeks when they hammered Pythagoras and Co.

Perhaps they needed to wait till the arrival of the mighty Macedonian king Alexander the Great in 323 BC.