If you haven’t studied up on minor scales yet, stop now and readĪ minor scales primer Harmonizing the natural minor key in A minor The remaining chords don’t correlate as precisely as opposites of the major scale, but they’re close. What I mean is that in the harmonized major scale, the I, IV, and V chords are major while the II, III, and VI chords are minor.Īs you’ll see in a moment, in the natural minor scale, the I, IV, and V are minor.

You can sort of think of it as the inverse of the harmonized major scale. The natural minor is the most similar to the major scale in the construction of its harmonized scale. In general, you follow the same procedure to harmonize any minor scale as you do to harmonize the major scale. How to use the harmonized scale How does harmonizing the minor scale work for the natural minor scale? If you need to know more about the basics of harmonized scales, read The three forms of the minor scale-the natural minor, the harmonic minor, and the melodic minor-have different sets of harmonized chords since each uses some different notes from the others. Each of the chords uses only notes from the minor scale. Harmonizing the minor scale means building a series of seven chords starting with the root. But since there are three forms of the minor scale, things get a bit more complicated. We stick strictly to diatonic notes from the scale to find the chords of the harmonized minor scales. Harmonizing the minor scale works just the same as building a harmonized major scale.

B flat melodic minor scale bass