Natural Minor scale

The Natural Minor, or Aeolian mode, is the first scale we will study. The easiest way to remember it is to play from the A key to the next A key on the keyboard (all white keys). Its structure is:

As the image above shows, another way to remember the Natural scale is to begin two notes down from the C major scale (that you already know)

As you can see in the image above, the structure of both scales is quite similar, just the order of tones and semitones are different. Please notice that the words “Tone” and “Whole step”, as well as “Semitone” and “Half step” are considered to be synonyms.

If you don’t remember quite well what are tones and semitones, just HERE and you will be able to review this topic.

Examples of the Musical Literature

The majority of examples in music come from Medieval music like this Liturgical song called “O, come Emmanuel”

But we can also find examples in modern music, such as in “Losing my religion” (REM) or “Billy Jean” (Michael Jackson)

(You can click on the titles of the songs to listen to them)

Technical exercises

Scales, Arpeggios and Broken chords exercises – A minor natural – Click here to download the PDF

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