While you can teach minor scales by rote or handing a written scale to your students, I have found the best way to teach minor scales is by helping students understand them.
If I haven’t mentioned it before, I’m an ear player.
Thanks to my mom (my main childhood teacher) who did not play by ear, I am a very strong note reader.
But there were many ways I slipped into relying on my ear rather than reading.
And minor scales was one of those.
Once I heard a minor scale, I fiddled around until I figured out minor scales in other keys.
And did a LOT of messing up.
You probably have students like me.
It wasn’t until I was in my teens and actually tried to understand minor scales that I was able to more accurately play all three minor scale forms.
Understanding how the natural minor, harmonic minor, and melodic minor scale steps differed worked wonders in my minor scale playing!
Here are three different methods you can use to teach minor scales to your students.
1. Teach Minor Scales Based on Steps/Pattern
As a teen, I was good at memorizing patterns, so I latched onto the minor scale steps.
Here are the patterns in whole steps (W) and half steps (H):
Natural Minor Pattern
The same ascending & descending
Ascending W‑H‑W‑W‑H‑W‑W
Descending W-W-H-W-W-H-W
Harmonic Minor Pattern
The same ascending & descending
Ascending W‑H‑W‑W‑H‑3H‑H
Descending H-3H-H-W-W-H-W
Melodic Minor Pattern
Different ascending & descending (descending is Natural Minor)
Ascending W‑H‑W‑W‑W‑W‑H
Descending W‑W‑H‑W‑W‑H‑W
And here they are if you use tones (T) and semitones (S):
Natural Minor Pattern
The same ascending & descending
Ascending T‑S‑T‑T‑S‑T‑T
Descending T-T-S-T-T-S-T
Harmonic Minor Pattern
The same ascending & descending
Ascending T‑S‑T‑T‑S‑3S‑S
Descending S-3S-S-T-T-S-T
Melodic Minor Pattern
Different ascending & descending (descending is Natural Minor)
Ascending T‑S‑T‑T‑T‑T‑S
Descending T‑T‑S‑T‑T‑S‑T
Once you teach minor scale patterns, your student can start on any pitch and figure out the minor scale by following the pattern.
If this is the way you like to teach minor scales, then you’ll want to check out our Mythical Minors Bundle 2 – Natural, Harmonic, Melodic Scales Boom™ Cards Digital Music Game.
However, this isn’t always the best option for some students, so here are two more ideas.
2. Teach minor scales based from major scales
If your student knows their major scales really well, then it may be easiest to teach minor scales from there.
All you have to do is lower specific scale degrees then you have your minor scales.
Natural Minor: lower the 3rd, 6th, 7th
Harmonic Minor: lower the 3rd and 6th
Melodic Minor: lower the 3rd ascending
lower the 7th, 6th, and 3rd descending
To give your students great practice with this, check out our Mythical Minors Bundle 1 – Natural, Harmonic, Melodic Scales Boom™ Cards Digital Music Game.
3. Teach Minor Scales Based on the Key Signature
Minor scales don’t actually have their own key signature.
They adopt from the major key signature (called “relative” major/minor scales).
A relative minor scale is a minor 3rd (or 3 half steps) lower than the major scale.
So if you’re on C major, the relative minor is A minor.
Or, you can work backwards.
If you need to know the key signature for C minor, go up a minor third to E-flat Major.
When using key signatures, these are your minor scale patterns:
Natural minor: no change
Harmonic minor: raise the 7th
Melodic minor: raise 6th and 7th ascending
No change (from key signature) descending (or lower the 6th and 7th again)
Bonus: Use a game to teach minor scales!
Of course, we think one of the easiest ways to teach minor scales is by using a music theory game!
After releasing our major scales music game, we knew we had to provide a minor scales game.
Mythical Minors is a colorful game through and through!
Students will identify a minor scale then lay a scale token on the dragon wherever they’d like.
The end result is a dragon full of colorful scales–and whoever has the most colors on the dragon wins!
Easy and Intermediate Minor Scales
There are 2 levels of cards:
- Level 1 features A natural minor, A harmonic minor, and A melodic minor
- Level 2 features all 3 forms in A minor, D minor, and E minor (with key signatures)
There are also fun cards like “remove an opponent’s scale token” and “if you guess the next minor scale correctly, lay down 2 scale tokens!”
The 8 scale token colors makes this game very easy to play with 2-8 players.
See how it’s played in the video!
- A complete breakdown of what you get in the music game download
- A step-by-step tutorial for how to play the game
- A few teaching tips and suggestions
>>> Watch How to Play Mythical Minors here
Here’s what you’ll get with the Mythical Minors printable download:
- Mythical Minors game in 2 sizes: US letter & A4
- Mythical Minors game board
- 40 Level 1 minor cards
- 40 Level 2 minor cards
- 64 scale tokens (8 of each color)
- Mythical Minors success poster
- 2 Mythical Minors activity sheets (piano keys and staff) in 2 sizes: US Letter & A4
- Print release
Mythical Minors was Music Game Club’s February 2024 game of the month. Anyone can buy it now in our shop here.
But there’s more!
Minor Scales Digital Music Games!
In addition to the Mythical Minors printable game, we have launched 8 Minor Scales Boom™ Cards (digital music theory games) that you can get to review minor scales in different ways.
See a preview in this video (don’t see the video, watch it here).
You can get our Music Game Club Boom™ Cards each month with the Boom™ Cards membership at $8.97/month.
Or, save $13 (from list price) by getting both the printable game and 4 Boom Cards by our top membership tier for just $14.97/month.
Why a Membership?
You’ll receive a wealth of resources that can elevate your teaching experience and keep student morale high all year.
You’ll maintain the energy and enthusiasm throughout the entire year, ensuring a consistent and engaging experience.
Your students will start asking for their new game each month and be excited to learn new music theory concepts!
Not to mention, getting the game of the month via the membership is the cheapest it will ever be!
At list price in Music Game Club’s shop, Mythical Minors printable game and Mythical Minors Boom Cards are priced higher.
>>> Sign up for Music Game Club Membership here
How do you Teach Minor Scales?
Comment and share YOUR best tips, games, or even just fun memories about minor scales! We love hearing from other teachers!
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