Week 5 — Readings & Resources · Minor, Three Ways

Course: MUS 156 Music Theory I · Kenosis College
Instructor: Professor Hemsworth
Unit: Learning Unit 5 of 16 (Week 5) · two sessions per week
Your primary reading is the Week 5 chapter (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer.

How to use this page

Everything here is a link to an external resource — open it in your browser, the way you'd open any link a friend sent you. Nothing to buy, download, or sign into.

The load is light on purpose: five links, grouped by the unit's three big ideas plus one strictly-for-fun extra. One item per group is plenty; all five is thorough. If a link disagrees with the course on a convention (some sites sing minor with a moving do, or shrug at the g♯/a♭ distinction), the course convention in the Week 5 chapter wins — that's not the site being wrong so much as the field having dialects, and this course speaks one dialect consistently: do-based minor, tonic always do, enharmonic never equals.

① The three forms of minor

Maps to the chapter's natural / harmonic / melodic sections, and Session 1's Segments 4–6.

• Minor Scales — Open Music Theory — all three forms built from the same tonic, with staff notation for each and the raised degrees marked. Read it for the side-by-side spellings; it's the closest published match to this unit's "three recipes" framing. (reading, ~12 min)
• The Minor Scales — musictheory.net — the same ground as an animated click-through: natural, harmonic, and melodic built before your eyes, one accidental at a time. A good first stop if you'd rather watch the raises appear than read about them. (interactive lesson, ~6 min)

② Minor keys, signatures, and the relative relationship

Maps to the chapter's relative/parallel and fifteen-keys sections, and Session 1's Segments 2–3.

• Key Signatures — musictheory.net — how one signature serves a major key and its relative minor, walked through the whole circle. Use it to drill the pairing this unit's quiz leans on. (interactive lesson, ~5 min)

③ Degree names

Maps to the chapter's "names for the seven degrees" section and the studio vocabulary.

• Scale Degrees — musictheory.net — tonic through leading tone, each degree named and placed, including the subtonic case this unit cares about. Short and exactly on target. (interactive lesson, ~4 min)

④ For the curious only — the modes sidebar

Maps to the chapter's "for the curious" box. Nothing here is assessed, in this unit or any other.

• Introduction to Diatonic Modes — Open Music Theory — the wider family the chapter's sidebar waved at: Dorian, Mixolydian, and their siblings, for ear players who want names for sounds they already live in. Skip it freely; enjoy it freely. (reading, ~15 min)

Pick-one quick path (≈10 min total)

Short on time this week? You've read the chapter — then do exactly these two:

1. Click through The Minor Scales in group ① and watch the three forms assemble.
2. Run the relative-pair stretch of Key Signatures in group ② until naming the minor tenant of any signature feels automatic.

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move pages. If a link fails, tell Professor Hemsworth and lean on the chapter in the meantime — it covers everything the quiz covers.