 Hi guys, this is Jason Zak from Nathaniel School of Music. In this music theory lesson, we are going to look at how you can form any scale under the sun with three perspectives or from three schools of thought, if you will. First of all, we are going to pick a key, then we are going to look at a scale. So a key and a scale is very different. You can check out a video in the description where I explore the difference between a key, a scale, a raga as well as a mode. Do check that out. But in this particular video, we are going to just take a key, which is one of the 12 we have in music, the seven whites or the five blacks. We'll also pick a scale, which maybe we don't know. So definitely major and minor will not be there. And then we will apply the principle on pretty much any other scale, which you find new, you're working on, and maybe you're confused with the key or maybe you're confused with the scale. Because a key to form the major scale on a particular key might be tricky for you or to form a random scale on an easy key like C might still be tricky for you. So let's look at three perspectives to form pretty much any scale in life. So I'm going to take the key of C for everyone's benefit, not for mine, because I'm not so much of a C fan. But I've realized that over the years, we have been enemies, me and C. So I'm trying to change that hopefully this one year. After that, we may go back to being enemies. So if I want to look at a mode Dorian, for example, C Dorian, I want to form that, but I want it to result in the same solution, but with respect to different things so that I can see, OK, do I know it from here? Do I know it from here? And then with all those trial and error methods or those different methods, I can arrive at one unified answer and I know my answer is spot on, so to speak. And then over time, you can see what works for you. Also depending on the scenario, you might need all these perspectives depending on the real world scenarios you find yourselves in. So first off, C Dorian with respect to the major scale, C major. All the white keys formed with, you know, two steps, two steps, one step, two steps, two steps, two steps, finally, one step. So the one step will occur between the leading tone and the tonic, D C, and also between the median, that's the third note and the subdominant. That's the fourth. So the four tends to want to lead to the three and the seven tends to want to go to the tonic or the octave of the tonic. If you want to call it that. So C Dorian with respect to major, you need to remember the process. It would be a case of flattening or sharpening certain notes or certain pitches of the scale you already know which you have under the radar, namely C major. So if you are certain of C major, which can be a tricky scale at times, if you ask me, if you get your hold over the scale C Dorian, what it will do, the formula will tell you flat the third and flat the seven, flat the third, flat the seven. So what does flattening mean? Flattening does not mean go to that third note and go and right flat. Neither does sharpening mean that sharpening doesn't mean go to the fourth and right sharp, just as a formality. It's not going to do the trick. You have to flatten things by going down by lowering, going down a chromatic step or what most people call as a semitone in music. Okay, it's a confusing word, but semitone is the shortest measurable distance, at least on a piano, because you have these fixed 12 pitches, which you can't really bend much like violin players and guitar players can. So assuming semitone is the shortest, some of them call it a half step for that and a whole step for a tone. I just tend to say closest chromatic note from here or closest pitch from here tends to vibrate better for me with a more logical brain. Now, if you take the E and when I say flatten the E, what does Dorian formula again? Flat three, flat seven. If you take the E, flat the third, what's going to happen? You're going to move down a step. That is essentially what flattening means, move down a step and if the resultant note, after moving down a chromatic step or a semitone, happens to be a black note and it happens to be E flat, you call it E flat. So that would be the E flat of the Dorian or the three flat as we call it. So what else does Dorian have? The remainder is same as major. However, the seventh degree is not the leading tone, it's the flat seven. Okay, also called as a subtonic. That's your B flat, flat seven. Intervalically, we say minor seventh. So what ended up happening? You took the seven, you moved it, you lowered it down a chromatic step or a semitone. B becomes B flat. In some cases, F could be lowered to get E. So you shouldn't get confused with flattening. In some cases, if you do F, white note, what happens when you flatten the F? F flat is actually another white note, E. On some cases, if you might have a black note, F sharp, what happens when you flatten the F sharp? Sounds a bit weird, but flattening, remember, is lowering the note. When you flatten the F sharp, you're going to get yourself a good old F. Flatten the F sharp to give yourself an F. So C Dorian, what were the things which contrasted or differentiated from the major? The flat three and the flat seven. And it's good to remember it this way because if you're used to major and if you're playing on Dorian, you definitely need these two notes to make it sound like a Dorian scale. If you're playing a song and saying it's on Dorian and you never ever use the important representing Dorian notes, well, it's going to sound something like this. It's a bit obscure. You don't know what it is. But if you add those important notes, it starts sounding very Dorian. Also, explore the intervals between the notes, not just linear, you know. You can do, explore the skips. So that's your C Dorian, very useful scale. It has a very brave sound and to explore Dorian further, we have a very, very detailed video using some of my compositions which I've done on Dorian. Do check that out in the description. So we found the Dorian with respect to the major that definitely gets us to acknowledge the uniqueness of the scale. What if we know minor? What if you know C minor? C natural minor. So let's say you happen to know this scale and if you don't know C minor, you know that it's the sixth degree or it is the relative minor of some major. Which major scale is C minor relative of? It's the scale from which you get C as the sixth. So E flats sixth is C minor. So you can actually, in any case, we have different ways to form minor scales also. One with respect to major. You flat the three, you flat the six, you flat the seven. The other ways respect to the parent major scale where we say it has the same key signature. In other words, the same sets of notes. But you'll have to start it from the sixth degree of some major scale. So anyway, minor, if you don't know C minor, remember it could have come from E flat major. So E flat major sixth is C. Now anyway, let's say you know C minor, which I'm sure you do. And you want to form C Dorian. So you tell yourself, okay, C Dorian will be formed by raising. This is where they use the word raising. By raising the sixth degree or the sixth note or the sixth scale note with respect to C minor. So in the C natural minor scale, that's your sixth flat Dorian will raise that. So in this case, raising would mean sharpening. But then A flat when sharpened or when raised, when you go up a step, this is where you might fall into that confusion. Don't go and write A sharp. No, A flat when you go up to A sharp will be a tone. It'll be two steps. So up one, when you raise it by one plus one, you're going to get A. So A flat when raised becomes A natural minor Dorian. So we ended up and we ended up with the same set of notes. But from another perspective, so if you're composing a song pretty much on C minor, but when you don't give the opportunity for the sixth to be played, like the pentatonic scale, right? The pentatonic scale doesn't have the sixth. So it's a very unambiguous scale. It can be used for anything. But if you want to commit to an emotion, say that would be natural minor because I played the minor sixth. There's a lot of pain in the natural minor. A little bit of hope if you use some of those major chords. While the Dorian has a lot of hope because of that brave movement between the tonic and the predominant or the fourth chord which is now major, you know. That's minor. So we have a resource on our Riff website which can help you contrast this information a lot more. We leave a few links in the description. So you will have a list of some of my compositions on the natural minor, some of them on the harmonic minor, some of them on the Dorian as we are learning now, a few of them on the melodic minor and some of them on a couple of minors which even I don't know. I call them the hybrid minor which even I don't know what it is officially called. You can help me with that. And we also have something called as the exotic minor. So there are a bunch of scales in there which you can research and get a grasp of the sound with some actual real world music composed by me. So I use Dorian a lot and I tend to like that minor third resolving to the major sixth. But I resolve to the major sixth via the flat seven. So it also helps greatly once you form the scales somehow, figure out where your half steps and your whole steps are or figure out where it's just one chromatic between and two chromatics. So in the Dorian, where is the half step? Between the two and the three flat, correct? And also between the seven flat, B flat and it's sixth normal which is A. So for all you know, that movement is very common. Similarly, so these two, these half step movements, these two half steps are there in Dorian which makes it very, very important as a composer. You'll be using those a lot melodically. Anyway, I digress. I have to come back to how you can form the Dorian using one more method and that is using the concept of modes where if you think about it, if you've learnt a bit of classical music theory, you've already learnt a bit of modes right there. You've figured the key signature, the circle of fifths, what does that tell us? Every major scale has a relative minor. You can flip that around and say every minor scale has a relative major if you feel minor should get all the glory, so to speak. So if a minor scale is formed as the sixth degree from every major scale, then it begs to ask the question what about the other degrees, what about the second degree, third degree, fourth degree, fifth degree, seventh degree. So in a major scale context, the Dorian will always be the second degree from any major root. So if you look at C Dorian, you ask yourself a simple question, which major scale has C as the second note or the second degree? It's a bit tricky because if I ask you what is the second from C, you'll probably say D, but which note's second note or which roots or which tonic second note, major second, is C. The answer to that is B flat major, isn't it? But if you play B flat major with B flat rooted, it has the C, it doesn't sound C Dorian, right? Because of the B flat in the bass, but if I do C in the bass, even if I play B flat major, you've moved into another dimension, you've moved into the world of Dorian. So you might as well acknowledge that and develop your music alongside the unique notes, giving respect to the root of course, the important notes as well as the unique notes, stable, unstable, you've changed your mood. But it's important to know that you can find the Dorian just like you find minor. So if I were to say C Dorian is the second degree of the B flat major. Now if I tell myself I want to now do some other Dorian, let's say D Dorian. D Dorian would be the second degree of what? C D, correct? C major's second note is D. So if you play C major starting on D, of course you have to work on the sound aspect, but just the notes tell us that the Dorian is the second degree from C major. The Phrygian is the third degree from C major. Lydian is the fourth degree from C major. It has a very bright sound because of the sharp form. G Mixer Lydian is the fifth degree. That's your Aeolian and that's your natural minor. We call the natural minor sometimes Aeolian because in modally that's the name they give it. And lastly the Locrian. Very tense, that's your seventh degree. So from that aspect the Dorian would be the second degree. Now even if you have a scale which you might not know, let's say a scale like the Phrygian dominant or some such thing which could be you can always equate this to some scale that you might know and it would be the mode of that particular scale. The Phrygian dominant would end up being the fifth degree or the fifth mode of the fifth degree of the F harmonic minor scale. So the F harmonic minor scale, it's fifth degree would end up being the C Phrygian dominant scale. And similarly a scale which I love to use the Mixer Lydian flat 6 scale. So the C Mixer flat 6. Just like the word Mixer Lydian tends to mean it's the fifth mode of what? F melodic minor. So if you know your parent scales and if you enhance your vocabulary or library of your parent scales move from major to the harmonic minor and then the melodic minor. These three parents will give you a ton of other scales. You'll have so many to deal with. It may actually end up being too much at the moment sometimes as composers. So you can even stick with the major modes which are seven. You get seven for the price of learning one scale. And to explore this concept further check out some of my theory and composing videos on how to use modes. Very important chapter in music as you go forward from just your traditional major and minor scales. Right guys? So we've thus looked at three perspectives from which you can form pretty much any scale in music. The three perspectives are A with respect to major B with respect to minor and C with respect to a modal family where the tonics second in the case of Dorian it would be the second from a major with respect to the major scale you flatten the three and the seven with respect to any major scale you'll get Dorian and with respect to minor you raise the sixth and similarly they say harmonic minor you raise the seventh. I think they should say you raise the seventh with respect to the natural minor. They have space to write all that but that's the truth isn't it? Harmonic minor you have a flat three you have a flat six and you have a normal major seventh then why do these people say raise the seventh? I guess it's because of the natural minor. So anyway hope you found the lesson useful I hope it clarified a few things or a few doubts that you might have had and do let us know your thoughts in the comments don't forget to hit the like button the share button the subscribe button any of those buttons you find there which might help our channel grow right guys thanks a ton the notes are waiting for you on our Patreon page do consider heading over there as well and looking at the different tires you have different options to learn music from me as well you can do private classes you can do workshops and a bunch more cheers and catch you in the next one