Unfortunately, this analytical tool is rather poorer than many that were developed over the centuries.

Rather, it is a descriptive or analytical tool: it is an attempt to explain how music works.

Composers did not start with these scales and then work to see what they could come up with using them. Instead, the idea of three different minor scales was invented.īut, like much music theory, this was not a generative rule. Because of this chromatic alteration, most pieces in minor keys used 8 or 9 distinct pitches (ignoring octaves), and arranging all of those pitches in a single scale did not achieve the desired result. The three qualities of minor scale appear to have arisen in the 19th century as a device to reconcile the chromatic alteration that was prevalent in minor-key harmonies with the new fashion for playing scales as a way of learning to play an instrument. Harmonic minor, on the other hand, is a scale, and a rather artificial one at that. It could also be the name of a mode, such as Dorian or Mixolydian. The first is the 'home' pitch, called the 'tonic,' such as D or A flat, and the second is a quality designation, which is usually either major or minor. The preposition 'in' denotes the key of a piece. I would summarize the other answers by calling out a faulty premise of the question: there is no such thing as a song 'in harmonic minor.'

G harmonic minor scale