What is Harmonic Minor And How To Make Music With It
- Yash
- Aug 5, 2022
- 7 min read
Updated: Oct 10, 2022
In the widespread boredom epidemic of the 16th century, the Harmonic Minor scale was invented to battle the blandness of major and minor scales. While that sentence may be a complete and utter falsification of music history, it does have some truth to it.
Harmonic Minor has a dark and mysterious sound that is, as of yet, not so common in popular music, making it useful for bringing in some freshness to your compositions. So today we're going to see what exactly it is, where it came from, and some of the ways in which you can use it.
You need to know what are intervals (Major, minor, perfect, diminished, augmented) to better understand this topic. Here is a handy guide for learning intervals. An understanding of diatonic chords and roman numeral notation is also needed.
Where does the harmonic minor come from?
The purpose behind the invention of this scale is important because it also explains the function it serves.
Back when music theory was just being formed, people realized that even though the minor scale has a heavy, dark sound, it didn't have the same satisfaction that the major scale had.
That's because the major scale has a very satisfying V-I cadence that was used to conclude most songs at the time. In a minor key, the fifth chord is minor, and the satisfaction of v-i cadence is not as strong as V-I.
Here's the reason for this:
The "V" chord is made up of scale degrees 5-7-2. The "v" chord is made up of 5-♭7-2.
In major scale, when we go "V-I", the 7th degree moves to 1st degree, which is a semitone movement up to the tonic, making it very satisfying. On the other hand, in a minor scale we have ♭7 going to 1. This is a whole step movement, which is not as strong.
Once they had identified this problem with the minor scale in those days, they came up with a simple fix. Use "V" chord instead of "v". That resulted in the ♭7 being replaced with a 7.
That is the only difference between a natural minor and a harmonic minor scale, but this little difference makes a huge impact. Let's take a look at both of these scales side by side.
Note that the key signature of natural minor and harmonic minor is exactly the same. We don't use special signatures for harmonic scales.
So that's how the Harmonic Minor came to be: to make the harmony of a minor scale stronger. Now let's take a deeper look into it.
Signature sound of Harmonic Minor
As we have seen, by raising the 7th degree of the natural minor, we have changed the interval between 7th and 8th degree to a half step, but that also means that we have increased its distance from the 6th degree.
Now there are 3 half-steps between the ♭6 and 7. This is something new that we haven't seen in major and minor scale: A gap bigger than a whole step between adjacent scale degrees.
Let's hear the scale ascending and descending.
That augmented 2nd interval gives it a unique feel which can be used to make very interesting melodies, but before we get there, let's see the harmonic aspect of it.
Diatonic chords of Harmonic Minor
By changing the 7th degree, we have changed all the chords of minor scale that contained this degree. Not only that, if we take a better look at the intervals, we can get some hidden chords too. Let's see how that happens by working on each scale degree, using the A Harmonic Minor scale as an example. Feel free to skip this part if you don't care much about the process behind it and directly want to get to all the diatonic chords.
A B C D E F G♯ A
1. On the 1st degree, the triad that we get is A C E, which is minor, and if we add the 7th to it (G♯), it becomes a minMaj7 chord. This is a pretty unstable chord but could be used to resolve in a semi-satisfactory way. Perfect for film scoring.
A C E (min)
A C E G♯ (minMaj7)
2. On the 2nd degree, we get a diminished triad, just like the natural minor scale. If you form a 4-note chord starting on the 2nd degree, you would get B D F A, which is a half-diminished chord. But, you can also think of the G♯ as A♭, and if we use that in the chord instead of A, it becomes B D F A♭, which is the full diminished chord.
In scales like the harmonic minor, you will often have more than one type of chord built on the same scale degree.
B D F (dim)
B D F A (half dim)
B D F A♭ (full dim)
3. On the 3rd degree, we have an augmented triad, and an Augmented Major 7 chord.
C E G♯ (Aug)
C E G♯ B (Aug Maj7)
4. On the 4th degree, we have 2 possibilities for a triad. The straightforward one is D F A, which is a minor chord. However, just like we did earlier, we can treat G♯ as an A♭, giving us D F A♭, which is a diminished triad.
Adding another note on top of the minor chord, we would get D F A C, which is min7.
And over the diminished chord, we could get D F A♭ C, which is a half diminished chord. But again, we can treat B as C♭, giving us D F A♭ C♭, which is a full diminished chord.
D F A (min)
D F A♭ (dim)
D F A C (min7)
D F A♭ C (half dim)
D F A♭ C♭ (full dim)
5. On the 5th degree, we will get E G♯ B, which is a major triad. But then we can also treat C as B♯, giving us E G♯ B♯, which is an augmented triad.
Adding another note to the major chord gives us E G♯ B D, which is a dominant chord.
And adding it over the augmented triad makes it an Augmented 7th chord.
E G♯ B (Maj)
E G♯ B♯ (Aug)
E G♯ B D (Dom7)
E G♯ B♯ D (Aug7)
6. On the 6th degree, we have the maximum number of possibilities. For triads we can have F A C, which is major. Or we can treat G♯ as a A♭, and make F A♭ C, which is a minor triad. Then, we can also treat B as a C♭, and make F A♭ C♭, giving us a diminished triad.
For 4-note chords, we can get F A C E (Maj7), or F A♭ C E (minMaj7).
With the diminished triad, we can use F A♭ C♭ E, giving us a very rarely used dimMaj7 chord, or we can treat D as an E♭♭, which gives us F A♭ C♭ E♭♭, which is a full diminished chord.
F A C (Maj)
F A♭ C (min)
F A♭ C♭ (dim)
F A C E (Maj7)
F A♭ C E (minMaj7)
F A♭ C♭ E (dimMaj7)
F A♭ C♭ E♭♭ (full dim)
7. On the 7th degree, we will have G♯ B D. But we can also treat G♯ as A♭, and use C and E with it to give us A♭ C E, which is an augmented triad.
For 4-note chords, we will have G♯ B D F, which is a full dim chord.
G♯ B D (dim)
A♭ C E (Aug)
G♯ B D F (full dim)
Here's a table that shows all the triads as well as tetrachords diatonic to this scale.
Scale Degree | Triads | Tetra Chords |
1 | i | i minMaj7 |
2 | ii° | ii°7, iiø |
♭3 | ♭III+ | ♭III+Maj7 |
4 | iv iv° | iv-7 iv°7, ivø |
5 | V V+ | V7 V+7 |
♭6 | ♭VI ♭vi ♭vi° | ♭VI Maj7 ♭vi minMaj7 ♭vi°7, vi°Maj7 |
7 | vii° VII+ | vii°7 |
Here's another view of the same information:
Now let's see some of the things you can do with this plethora of chords.
Writing chord progressions in Harmonic Minor
As I explained before, typically the harmonic minor was just used to alter the 5th chord of minor scale to make it a stronger resolution, and that is not limited to V-I resolution. This scale has a very strong pull towards the i chord in various ways.
1. V7 - i This is the classic resolution. Not much explanation required. Here I have a 2-5-1 progression, but I can use a full diminished chord on 2. So it becomes ii°7 - V7 - i.
2. V+7 - i You can use a V+7, which is an even more tense chord than the V7, and resolve it to the tonic.
3. i minMaj7 - i
This is more of a way to extend the harmony. Instead of directly going from any chord to i, you can instead go to i minMaj7, and then to i. This will reduce the impact of the resolution, and is barely even worthy of being called a "resolution". But what it does is, make the movement more subtle and sophisticated. Use it wisely. Here I have a progression
i add9 - iv min7 - V7(♭9) - i minMaj7 - i
4. Full diminished chords (vii°7, ii°7, iv°7, ♭vi°7)
These chords can all be used to prolong the harmony as auxiliary diminished chords, or as a passing diminished for the tonic. All of them also resolve to the ♭VI chord.
5. ♭III Aug - i or ♭III Aug - ♭VI This chord can also be used in two ways. Either to i, or to ♭VI, as a deceptive cadence. In this recording we have iv min7 - iv°7 - ♭III+Maj7 - ♭VIMaj7. The ending of this progresion feels refreshing because the listener expects it to end on the i chord, but we played ♭VI instead.
Further Learning
By now you must have a general idea of what you can do with this scale. But we have yet to go a little ways with it. Just like the modes of major scale, Harmonic Minor also has its own modes. I will explain each of them in another article, but you can watch this amazing video by Signals Music Studio to get a head start on the topic: Modes Of Harmonic Minor
If you are a guitarist looking to learn different shapes of this scale all over the fretboard, here's a useful guide by JustinGuitar: Harmonic Minor On Guitar
Here's an article by Producer Hive showing modern songs that use the scale in different ways: Harmonic Minor In Pop Music
Conclusion
Harmonic Minor is made up of scale degrees 1 2 ♭3 4 5 ♭6 7
There are multiple kinds of diatonic chords, including Aug, full-dim, minMaj7, Aug7, Aug Maj7, dimMaj7.
It is a harmonically stronger cousin of the natural minor scale.
In the next part, I would be taking a look at the modes of harmonic minor. Please subscribe to my blog to get updates on more posts about music theory, composition and production. Thanks for reading!
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