Major and Minor Basics - Intervals, Triads, and Scales

Listen carefully. What's the difference between this and this? If you said one sounds happy while the other sounds sad, or one sounds light while the other sounds dark, you've got the right idea. Just in case you weren't able to hear it, I'm going to play them again. The first is major, and the second is minor. What makes it happy or sad? Well, it might not be as complicated as you think it is. Music contains patterns, and those patterns become commonly associated with specific emotions. Songwriters tend to know exactly which patterns can tug on the right emotions, because they've studied them in one way or another. Today, I'm going to explain and demonstrate just how these major and minor patterns work. But first, a real quick welcome to Music Theories. On this channel, I explain and analyze all content related to music, music theory, and music history. The only prerequisite to Music Theories is that you love music. Period. So, if you love music, join our community. Be sure to subscribe for more content, and hit the notification bell. Maybe give this video a like while you're at it. This video is part of a series I'm making explaining the most basic fundamentals of Western music, so be sure to check out the other videos on this playlist to get the most out of this content. If you're more into the music history side of things, I've got you covered. I recommend the playlist on music recording and distribution, or my playlist on the music industry. Alright, back to business. In Western music, we use the first seven letters of the alphabet. A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Each letter represents a different pitch, as we can see here on the music staff. Once you pass G, you start over at A, and this pattern repeats over and over and over. When you play two pitches, the distance between them is known as an interval. You can think of intervals as a unit of measurement in music, the way you'd think of an inch, a centimeter, a foot, etc. Each interval is mathematical and will always be the same, despite the starting point. Western music's smallest interval is called the half-step. This is the smallest possible distance between two notes in Western music. The half-step is best visually represented on the piano, since the instrument is not only built in half-steps, but also laid out in sequence. A half-step on a piano is any note immediately right or left of your initial note, including the black keys. A whole-step is simply two half-steps. So, again, on the piano, instead of playing the note immediately to the right, you'd skip that one and play the one next to it. Half-steps can be designated by using what are called sharps and flats. Sharps indicate that something is one half-step higher than a designated pitch. For example, C to C-sharp. Flats indicate that a pitch is one half-step lower than a designated pitch. For example, D to D-flat. Notice on the piano that C-sharp and D-flat fall in the same key. Here's the thing that confuses a lot of people. Sharps and flats are actually just different names for the same thing. The catch here are the notes B, C, E, and F. When initially learning the notes of music, it's easier to consider B, C, E, and F to be natural half-steps, meaning within the musical alphabet, you won't include B-sharp, C-flat, E-sharp, or F-flat. This is visually represented on the piano as well. However, B-sharp, C-flat, E-sharp, and F-flat are present within specific keys that you'd encounter later in your music studies, but you don't need to worry about that at this point. Normally, you'd be using only sharps or only flats based on the key that you're in. I'll explain that further soon enough. Given all of that information, we can add our sharps and flats to the seven letters mentioned earlier to have our full musical alphabet laid out in half steps. So your alphabet can look like this, or it can look like this. Different names for the same thing. Great song too. Now, when it comes to understanding and using major and minor concepts, this alphabet will be very, very useful. So if you're just learning, I advise you to have it in front of you as we move forward. Let's jump back to intervals for a second. Again, intervals are the unit of measurement in music. Let's look at our musical alphabet again, this time starting on C. My first interval, which really isn't an interval at all, is called unison. This is the pitch played twice. So here is a unison interval starting on C. C, moving forward, will be what I'm using as my root note, also known as the tonic. So basically, I'll start every interval on C. To find my other intervals, I'm going to count up in half steps. So if my tonic is C, and I count up one half step, this is called the minor second. Let's go back to the tonic and count up two half steps. This is a major second. Three half steps is a minor third. Four half steps is a major third. Five half steps is a perfect fourth. Seven half steps is a perfect fifth. Eight half steps is a minor sixth. Nine half steps is a major sixth. Ten half steps is a minor seventh. Eleven half steps is a major seventh. And if I count 12 half steps starting from C, I'll have a perfect octave, which is also C, just a higher version of it. This might sound like a lot, but stick with me. I've created some visuals to help you. They're available in the description below. You'll often see intervals designated by a shorthand, which is a letter and a number. Our perfect intervals are labeled with a capital P and the number of the interval. So a perfect fifth would be a capital P and the number 5. Major intervals are labeled with a capital M and minor with a lowercase m. So a major third would be capital M and the number 3, while a minor third would be a lowercase m and the number 3. It's also worth mentioning that all of my charts are included in my Music Theories blog, where you can read this script, which is also free and linked below. Again, I want to emphasize that when I explain things this way, it may seem like musicians are doing a heck of a lot of counting just to learn their scales. But once you're familiar with the musical alphabet and the sound of each interval, these things are actually quite simple, since the intervals never change, only the root note does. Educated musicians will be able to identify intervals when they hear them. If someone plays two notes that are seven half steps apart, they'll be able to tell you that it's a perfect fifth, simply because they've studied that interval thousands of times. Knowing your intervals both visually and aurally is one of the most useful tools you can learn in your music studies. I've linked some sites and apps down below that will help you do so. Now let's take a look at how these intervals play their part in music. A chord is a layering of several pitches played simultaneously. When played together, they ring out as one unit of sound. This is also called harmony. Chords can have different tonal qualities based on the notes that they contain. They can be major, minor, dominant, diminished, etc. But we'll get more into that another time. The most basic major chord is known as the major triad. It's made up of a root, its major third, and its perfect fifth. So if we again start on C, our major triad is C, E, and G. This can also be designated as 1, 3, and 5. Let's do that again starting on G. Our root is G, then our major third is B, and our perfect fifth is D. My major triad is made up of G, B, and D. Major chords on chord charts and sheet music are often designated by just one capital letter. So for example, if you see a capital C on a chord chart, you're expected to play C major. As you may have guessed, minor triads work exactly the same way major triads do, except for one very important difference. When comparing our major and minor triads, there's only one interval that's changed, the third. The major third interval in the major chord is swapped out for a minor third, and it gives us a whole new chord, the minor triad. That makes my formula root, minor third, perfect fifth. Or if we're using numbers, 1, flat 3, 5. Let's do this again starting with C. My root is C, my minor third is E flat, and my perfect fifth is G. This gives me the C minor triad. C, E flat, G. Let's do that again starting on G. The root is G, which makes the minor third B flat, and the perfect fifth D. So my G minor triad is made up of G, B flat, and D. And so on and so forth. If you're reading chord charts, minor chords are usually designated by a capital letter next to a lowercase m, like A-M-E-M-C-M, etc. It can sometimes be written as a capital letter next to M-I-N, or a capital letter next to a dash, like so. In music, the term scale refers to a set of musical notes in a particular order. The major scale is the one that's the most familiar to us, and therefore the most comfortable. This is what often evokes the feeling of happiness, calmness, etc. While the term major is used quite often, what people are technically referring to when they say that is the Ionian mode, but more on that later. It sounds like this. Now, I can start from any pitch and play a major scale, and it'll sound the same. It'll just be lower or higher. Did you notice how they sound the same? Some popular major songs include Bad Moon Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revival, Let It Be by The Beatles, Country Roads by John Denver, Perfect by Ed Sheeran, and Yellow by Coldplay, and so on. Like I mentioned before, the major scale is just a pattern that's always the same, every single time. If you follow this formula, you will always have a major scale, without fail, starting from any pitch in the chart in front of you. The major scale is made up of all the perfect intervals, and all the major intervals. Again, starting on the note C, I'm gonna sort of fill in the blanks of this formula I just wrote out. C, D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. D is the major second of C, E is the major third of C, and so on. This is my C major scale. Let's do it again with a different starting pitch. I'll follow the same exact formula, starting on the letter G. G, A, B, C, D, E, F sharp, G. This is my G major scale. You can follow this starting from any pitch, and you'll end up with a major scale. If you practice these scales regularly on your instrument, you'll memorize your scales sooner than you'd think. The process is exactly the same with a minor scale. The natural minor scale is the one that is second most used in Western music. Again, while people commonly use the term minor, what they're technically referring to is called the Aeolian mode. Minor scales can also sound familiar and calm, however, because we're more familiar with the major scale, the minor tends to come across as sad, dark, etc. It sounds like this. Just like the major scale, I can start from any pitch and play a minor scale and it'll sound the same. It'll just be lower or higher. Again, notice how they sound the same. Some popular minor key songs include House of the Rising Sun, Oops I Did It Again by Britney Spears, Losing My Religion by R.E.M., California Dreamin' by the Mamas and the Papas, and Levitating by Dua Lipa, and so on. The simplest way to think of a natural minor scale is to think of it as a relative to the major scale. For example, the C major scale is C, D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. If we play that same scale but start on the 6th degree, which in this case is A, we get A, B, C, D, E, F, and G, which is the A natural minor scale. This relationship is known as the relative minor of that major scale. So, A minor is the relative minor of C major. If we look at the G major scale, the 6th degree is E. If I write that same scale just starting on E, I get my E natural minor scale. That means that E minor is the relative minor of G major. Just like the major scale, the minor scale is just a pattern that is the same every single time. So, if you follow the formula, you'll always have a minor scale without fail, starting from any pitch in the alphabet. The perfect intervals in the minor scale remain, as does the major second. So, that leaves us with the 3rd, the 6th, and the 7th. All of these intervals will be minor rather than major, simple as that. If I follow this formula starting on the letter C, I get C, D, E flat, F, G, A flat, B flat, and C. This is the C minor scale. Let's do it again, but with a different starting pitch. I'll follow this same formula starting on G. G, A, B flat, C, D, E flat, F, G. This is your G minor scale. Let's quickly look at how these scales compare to their parallel majors, which is the major version of the same root note. Remember that the only difference between the two is the 3rd, the 6th, and the 7th. So, C major is C, D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. And C natural minor is C, D, E flat, F, G, A flat, B flat, C. You can find the parallel minor scale of any major scale by lowering the 3rd, 6th, and 7th note by one half step. Remember, the definition of the term flat in music is lowering something by one half step. So, we'll call this flat 3, flat 6, and flat 7. So again, here's our G major scale. G, A, B, C, D, E, F sharp, G. If I flat the 3rd note by lowering it one half step, I have B flat. By the same logic, the 6th note becomes E flat, and the 7th note becomes F natural. And that leaves us with the G minor scale. See how that works? That was a ton of information in one video, so I suggest you take your time with these concepts and really internalize them. Pause, rewind, rewatch as much as you need to. They become second nature after a while, I promise. Don't forget to like and subscribe if you haven't already, and maybe share this video with anyone you know that's on a journey to learn music. I'm looking forward to the next part of this series, and I really appreciate your support on this so far. Thanks again for watching.