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I wonder if you might mean minor chord and major chord, not scale. Simple, indeed.

Minor scales can also be built by lowering notes in the major scale, but I wouldn't call it "the middle note" that is lowered. If you are talking about scales, what do you mean by "the middle note"?

I could draw on your phrasing and say that the melodic minor scale is built from the major scale by lowering the middle note of the tonic triad by half a step, but that isn't a simple explanation any longer, because of all the extra concepts it drags in.

Good that you went ahead and played Greensleeves. There are lot of musical ideas crammed into that one tiny page on A minor that appears before Greensleeves. I would like to approach the idea of minor scales slowly. Before going on to minor scales, do you feel that you grasp major scales now?


Hooray!

Picking up from Kymber's realization: In minor scales vs major scales, what happens to the first 5 notes is constant - the third note is lowered for a minor scale. That's the same as when you take the I chord (C for the key of C major) and turn it into a i chord (Cm for the key of C minor). The next 2 notes are varied and that's what gives us the names of the 3 minor scales we all seem to learn:
[C D Eb F G] Ab Bb C --- C natural minor
[C D Eb F G] Ab B C --- C harmonic minor
[C D Eb F G] A B C --- C melodic minor, which is just like C major except for that Eb.

I learned to see it that way later. Originally I went the relative major/relative minor route (keys of C minor, Eb major)

For those who don't have Alfred's AIO Level 1, here is the general state of play for theory covered up to the point where Shey is.

Scales

Alfred's has introduced the C major, G major and F major scales. It defines the major scales using tetrachords.

It has just introduced the A minor scale (in both natural and harmonic forms, and possibly even melodic, I can't remember) as the relative minor to C major, and then given Greensleeves, a piece in A minor.

Chords

It has also introduced the I, IV, and V7 chords in those keys (or maybe just I and V7 for A minor), and shown how to move notes around, and omit the dominant from V7, to get the forms of the chords that are close together on the keyboard. For example in C major, I = C E G, IV = C F A, V7 = B F G. It calls these the primary chords for a key. It hasn't gone into any detail about what the "7" means in "V7", and it initially introduces this chord as G7=BFG before (a long time later) showing the root position GBDF, so I can imagine that to someone learning this all for the first time from Alfred, the names of the chords (at the very least) would be one gigantic mystery.

Alfred's hasn't talked about the resolution of the embedded tritone when going from V7 to I, and hasn't talked about cadences. I think it has labeled the chords in the pieces that are being played, so there are musical examples where the patterns could be observed, but Alfred's hasn't drawn attention to them.

It has given the 12 bar blues progression, but written out as:
I I I I IV IV
I I V IV I I
so that the 3-line regular return to I is completely obscured. The following makes more sense to me:
I I I I
IV IV I I
V IV I I

Intervals

From the beginning Alfred's has been introducing intervals, but only as notes a given number of lines and spaces apart, and only the generic form, not distinguishing major and minor intervals. For example two notes on an adjacent line and space form a second; two line notes that skip a space or two space notes that skip a line form a third, etc. It has done seconds through octaves.

After introducing all the intervals in the above manner (over a series of lessons), it defined half step and whole step in order to introduce tetrachords for the major scale. I can't remember if it pointed out the connection to seconds (minor and major); I don't think it did.

It has not talked in any detail about the intervals in a major triad, and I don't think it has introduced minor triads yet.

Way forward

Anyway, out of all of that, and following Shey's lead in what he mentions, and that tangleweeds had already started by explaining major scales, I'm thinking that starting with major scales, and then going to minor scales, and later filling in chords and intervals (or maybe intervals and chords, depending on which order Shey asks about things) might be a useful order.

YES!!! Thank you. I am going to go fix that right now!

Thank you for that summary, PianoStudent88, and all the work you put into it. It is very helpful.

since we are on the topic and its kind of going in depth here. Does anyone know a real easy to understand method for the various notes in each key and what the dominant note is? not only that but i have a hard time accepting things by just memorization, i tend to work best when i know WHY it is what it is. for example im pretty sure the dominant note is the first note of a scale. but why is that? some things i can let fly and just agree to know without really understanding the origin, like how key patterns came to be formed, but this kind of stuff I feel i need to understand why XYZ note is the sub dominant note or why something is the tonic and what those actually mean.

also, about the I II IV and V stuff. is that just shorthand for things like C chord and F chord? my bastien book im using has those in there, but it just kind of tells you "this is IV, this is I". but why not just call it C? perhaps I need to progress a bit to really grasp it? i don't know, perhaps someone could link to a good explanation or break it down a bit!

does this make sense?
everyone here rocks!

[/quote]

I could draw on your phrasing and say that the melodic minor scale is built from the major scale by lowering the middle note of the tonic triad by half a step, but that isn't a simple explanation any longer, because of all the extra concepts it drags in. [/quote]

Yes, that is exactly what I did in the beginning. "Oh all I have to do is lower or raise x note?". I looked at how something related to something I already understood. This made it a little more manageable and made me see how things are connected. Once I sort of got the basics down I was able to take it to the next level, the "extra concepts".

I think the difficulty sometimes is when someone who is very knowledgeable can't explain in a way that the beginner doesn't feel overwhelmed. I have some friends who were Berklee graduates trying to explain theory to me. They brought in all the extra concepts before I was ready to understand them. Like teaching someone algebra when they are trying to learn to add. I had to dumb it all down for myself. Take this big complicated thing and break it down so my poor little brain could handle it all-ha ha ha.

Interestingly, one of my music teachers told us that he had yet to find a theory book he likes. And, even the one he chose for our class had mistakes in it.

He recommends and used musictheory.net a lot for his class.

Sweet06, which Bastien book are you using?

yes, this is exactly what I was talking about.
I also agree with PS88 about there being more to it. But I think when just starting out, at lest for me, seeing these patterns can be helpful.

Kymber, I agree with you about the usefulness of the raise/lower a note idea, and the need to find a way to explain things simply without drawing in more concepts than are needed -- and if the concepts do seem to be needed, to step back, rethink, and simplify again! I would never use my "melodic minor" sentence as a way to introduce even melodic minor scales, let alone minor scales in general. I was trying to work my way into understanding what you might have meant.

I also find keystring's explanation to be one useful way of understanding minor scales.

The roman numerals are used when you want to transpose from one key to another - at least that is one reason for using them.
I want to answer your other question - my music teacher explained this very nicely in my class. But I want to check my notes first to make sure I word it right (i'm at work right now). Unless someone gets to it fist-he he.

Shey:

I find that the theory in Alfred AOIO are lacking. I supplement mine with other theory books (from the regular Alfred series, Faber series, online etc... take your pick) I also use a notebook and try working out some of the concepts.

For example, Figuring out I, and V7 chords, I sit down with my notepad and try to figure out the chords in different keys then what the book has. Then I move to the keyboard and try them out.

I also agree with the others that as you play more you will slowly grasp more. Some theory completely escaped me last year, this year I'm beginning to get it.

Don't get discouraged. We all learn at different paces and it's not a linear line.

If you are not a teacher you would make a really good one.

Before I really knew anything about this stuff someone was talking about scales then got into chords and then once he got into cadence chords my brain just shut down. Now that I understand what i means I'm like hmmm why was that so hard for me to understand before. ha ha ha -It's all a journey

ahhh kymber i see the purpose of the numerals. because if its a V chord in the key of C major, that same chord will produce the same (i use same loosely) type of sound in a different key right?

hehe nice, im at work as well.

I kind of have bits of pieces of this info floating around, but i feel a real good explanation would kind of tie them all together. like i know that certain scales want to resolve to a certain note and it doesn't feel/sound right till you resolve a progression and that kind of stuff... but again its all random bits of "i think i kinda get it".

Oh for the chords, I is one not C. V7 is five seven. From my understanding the Roman numerals are used because of transposing. Roman numerals are a counting system, so they are numbers not letters.

yea i know what the roman numerals are at face value, numbers. what they mean in the context of chords and music tho, i clearly have no idea.

It's kind of like giving a universal identification to the scale degree/chord. So you can just say the V chord. When you get into chord progressions it makes a lot more sense.

So lets say you have the chord progression of I-IV-V.
That progression applies to all scales/chords. So if you know your scales and chords. Then that formula applies to then all _ basically you will get the same feel not matter what key you are in.

So in C major that progression would be C-F-G.

[cross-posted with Kymber]

Sweet06, the way you summed it up in response to Kymber above is good.

Here's an example. There is a standard sound for the 12-bar blues chord progression. (Actually there are several variations of common 12-bar blues progressions, but here's one.)

I could tell you: in the key of C, the chords are
C C C C
F F C C
G F C C

But suppose you want to play it in the key of G. You could work out the transposition chord by chord, or by ear, or I could tell you, that the pattern is
G G G G
C C G G
D C G G

But wait, now you want to play it in the key of F. Working out the transposition, or by ear, or asking someone else who knows, the chords are found to be
F F F F
Bb Bb F F
C Bb F F

There's a pattern here: it starts with several of the chord that starts on the 1st note of the scale: that chord can be called I in shorthand. Then there are a couple of the chord that starts on the 4th note of the scale: that chord can be called IV in shorthand. Eventually there's a chord which starts on the 5th note of the scale: that chord can be called V in shorthand. (Notice that the number for the chord matches which note of the scale it starts on -- that's why the chord numbers are what they are.)

Wow, that's a lot of writing to describe the 12-bar blues, and we still have 9 more major keys yet to go!

It's much faster to summarize the 12-bar blues by saying just:

This is the 12-bar blues:
I I I I
IV IV I I
V IV I I

For someone who knows their scales and chords, that single sentence gives them everything they need to know to play a basic 12-bar blues in any key.

Roman Numerals are used because they define the function of a chord within the current key.

They are based on the degrees of the scale. We use, by convention, Arabic numbers 1 - 7 for degrees of the scale and Roman Numerals (RN) for the chords based on them.

1 I Tonic provides the tonal centre of a key and gives a sense of home within that key. The vi chord can also have a home feeling but not quite as strong.

2 ii or II or IIm Supertonic Also by convention we use lower case (or upper case + m) for minor chords. Supertonic because it is above the tonic.

3 iii Mediant is so called because it is midway between the tonic and the dominant. Before modern temperaments the Mediant, like the Dominant provided a pure interval.

4 IV Subdominant is a dominant interval below the tonic.

5 V Dominant. This chord literally dominates the key.

6 vi Submediant is a third (mediant) below the tonic.

7 vii Leading note Neither a major chord (a major third with a minor third stacked on top) nor a minor chord (a minor third plus a major third stacked on top) but a diminished one chord (two stacked minor thirds).