what is the formula for the harmonic minore scale

I've seen a chart all over the web for chord progressions in a harmonic minor scale that looks like this.

Even the fact that one of the three scales has different forms depending on direction, and that one of those forms is identical to the form of one of the other scales, suggests that this whole approach to modeling music theory is problematic. If you insist on analyzing minor music in terms of the three minor scales, you find that most real tonal music mixes all three forms of the scale, using one or another at different points depending on various considerations. It tends to increase confusion rather than to reduce it, and it tends to complicate theoretical analysis rather than to simplify it. 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.'

What is the formula for the harmonic minore scale