Re: [Harp-L] Modes/minor questions

[Joel Fritz <jfritz666@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Relative minor starts on the sixth degree of the major scale.  In the 
high school chorus the teacher decided he was going to teach us some 
theory.  It never got beyond practicing singing the natural, harmonic, 
and melodic minor scales and reciting "Whole step, whole step, half 
step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step." to learn the 
intervals of the major scale.

Most of the small amount of theory I know came from playing my mother's 
autoharp and guessing what things like dim 7 on the guitar chords on 
sheet music meant.  In college I took a theory for dummies (non majors) 
class and learned the names of the things I'd learned on the autoharp.





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Eric Chard wrote:
> I really appreciate the discussions of theory, although I may be 
> thinking too much rather than just practicing.  Be that as it may:
>
> At 08:38 AM 2/15/2006, you wrote:
>
> > "Minor" tunes are in Dorian mode, so 3rd position (the majority), or
> > Aeolian mode, 4th position.  The fact that I was cheerfully playing all
> > these modes/positions, blissfully unaware that here on Harp-L and 
> > elsewhere
> > there were angst-ridden discussions going on about how to do it, has 
> > led me
> > to the conclusion that its often best to see the harp as a bunch of notes
> > waiting to be played rather than a complex beast with almost as many
> > positions as the Kama Sutra!  ;-)
>
>
> Thank god!  I'm at the stage where I just try a buncha harps and find 
> one that sounds good with the song.  (Can slow things down a lot.)
>
> A musician friend told me "knowing music theory  won't lead you to the 
> right note: it just helps you GUESS _better_."
>
> For some reason, I'm fascinated lately by minor keys.  It appears the 
> way to find relative minors is to take the key, and subtract ..uhhh.. 
> four semitones?  Which is usually two notes, but not always?
>
> Re modes: "Dorian"=minor?  Or, are there also MODES for MINOR scales, 
> i.e. Dorian in Am?
> (I know that Am is the same key signature as C, so "C-Dorian"= "A 
> minor", right?)
>
> Just for sitting around and blowing haunting improvisations, the Lee 
> Oscar natural minors are GREAT fun, at least to the player.  I crave a 
> harmonic minor just to see what it sounds like.
>
> Eric

>