Minor scale

Every major key has a relative minor, which starts on the 6th scale degree or step.

The intervals between the notes of a natural minor scale follow the sequence below: where "whole" stands for a whole tone (a red u-shaped curve in the figure), and "half" stands for a semitone (a red angled line in the figure).

Instances can be found in Mozart, Beethoven (for example, the finale of his String Quartet No.

A familiar example of the descending scale is heard in a Ring of bells.

[5] In popular music, examples of songs in harmonic minor include Katy B's "Easy Please Me", Bobby Brown's "My Prerogative", and Jazmine Sullivan's "Bust Your Windows".

The scale also had a notable influence on heavy metal, spawning a sub-genre known as neoclassical metal, with guitarists such as Chuck Schuldiner, Yngwie Malmsteen, Ritchie Blackmore, and Randy Rhoads employing it in their music.

While some composers have used this interval to advantage in melodic composition, others felt it to be an awkward leap, particularly in vocal music, and preferred a whole step between these scale degrees for smooth melody writing.

Composers frequently require the lowered 7th degree found in the natural minor in order to avoid the augmented triad (III+) that arises in the ascending form of the scale.

Examples of the use of melodic minor in rock and popular music include Elton John's "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word", which makes, "a nod to the common practice... by the use of F♯ [the leading tone in G minor] as the penultimate note of the final cadence.

However, the flat fifth is present as a passing tone along with the perfect fifth, and the scale is often played with microtonal mixing of the major and minor thirds – thus making it harder to classify as a "major" or "minor" scale.

Plus, when expressing the names of major scale keys as abbreviations, the Roman alphabet of the corresponding tonic note is sometimes upper case to indicate only the tonic note name.