this is part two of a series of videos designed to help you calculate and understand minor scales in this video I'll be explaining harmonic minus scales and it is important that you've watched part one where I detail how to calculate natural minors an essential step towards calculating harmonic minors at the bottom of the screen I've left the instructions on how to calculate the natural minus scale you must always follow these steps first in order to calculate a harmonic minus scale let's assume we wanted to calculate C harmonic minor ascending and descending here's the C natural minor scale we calculated in part one that's steps one and two completed to turn this natural minor into a harmonic minor we need to add a new Step at the bottom of the screen I'll detail the instructions for harmonic miners the next step step three is raise the seventh by a semitone ascending and descending a few things to note here firstly if you're not sure what semitones are have a look at my video about accidentals and semmit tones this explains everything you need to know secondly when I say raise this means add a semmit tone and finally when I say seventh I mean the seventh note of the scale we count the notes from c number one until we reach the seventh note this one what note is it it's B flat not B don't forget to always keep an eye on that key signature step three tells us to raise it by a semitone therefore we change the note to a b one semitone higher than B flat we haven't quite finished yet step three tells us to raise the seventh by semitone in both the ascending and descending scale we've only tackled the ascending scale so far now which is the seventh note this one or this one the seventh note is always calculated by counting up from the starting note so the seventh note is the B flat you raise this by a semitone it also becomes B natural we've completed step three and we now have C harmonic minor ascending and descending so in a nutshell to create a harmonic minor scale we first create a natural minor scale steps one and two we then raise the seventh note a semitone in both the ascending and descending versions of the scale let's try B harmonic minor descending step one calculate the key signature let's look at our circle of fifths here's the B we start counting from the a one two steps on the sharp side of the clock takes us to B therefore B minor has two sharps in its key signature we look at the order of Sharps the first two letters are F and C so these are the notes which will make up our key signature so let's pop them onto our stve step one complete step two write in the notes we start on B and then ensuring that there is a note in every space and on every line we add in the notes down to the next B remember that this is a descending scale hence why we're going down steps one and two complete we've now created B natural minor to convert this to B harmonic minor we follow step three raise the seventh by a semitone ascending and descending now we've not been asked to create the ascending version so we can ignore that part of the instruction but we must raise the seventh in our descending scale so which of these notes is note number seven it's this one remember that we always count up to determine the seventh note so we now raise it by a semitone a becomes well is it B flat or a sharp they are both a semitone higher than a now you may remember from part one that I said there needed to be a note on every line and in every space if we used B flat there would be two notes on the same line this line therefore the answer has to be a sharp to ensure that there is a note in every line and on every space always be really careful with this make sure you don't end up with too many notes on each line or in each space that's it we've completed step three we have B harmonic minor descending just one final example B flat harmonic minor descending step one calculate the key signature let's have a look at our circular fifths here's the B flat in the top left of the clock we count around starting from the A 1 2 3 4 five B flat is five steps away from a on the flat side of the clock therefore B flat minor has five flats in its key signature we look at the order of flats the first five letters are b e a d g so these are the notes which will make up our key signature let's pop them onto our Stave step one complete step two right in the notes we start on B flat now there's no need to put in the flat symbol AS this is covered in the key signature and then ensuring that there is a note in every space and on every line we adding the notes down to the next B flat and remember that we're only going downwards as this is a descending scale step two complete we've now created our B flat natural minor scale to convert it to B flat harmonic minor we follow step three raise the 7th by a semitone count the notes up from the B flat to find the seventh note here it is a flat we need to raise this note by a semitone we add in a natural symbol to make it a a being one semitone higher than a flat step three complete we now have our B flat harmonic minor descent scale so remember once you've calculated the natural minor scale to change it to a harmonic minor scale is just a simple tweaking of the seventh note you raise it by a semmit tone in both the ascending and descending scales I do hope that this video has been useful to you in part three I'll be explaining how to calculate melodic minor scales