Ukulele Scales: Minor Scales

Unlike the major scale, there are a whole bunch of minor scales. For this post, I’m going to stick with the natural minor scale. The big advantage is that if you know your major scales on the ukulele, you don’t have to learn anything new. The notes in the A minor scale are exactly the same as C major, B minor is the same as D major. The minor scale has the same notes as the major scale three frets above it.

When you are improvising with these scales, make sure you emphasize the root note (A for A minor etc.).

As with the major scales, find patterns that start and end with the root note that can be moved up and down depending on which key you’re playing in.

A Minor
c major

A# (Bb) Minor
c# major

B Minor
d major

C Minor
d# major

C# (Db) Minor
e major

D Minor
f major

D# (Eb) Minor
f# major

E Minor
g major

F Minor
g#major

F# (Gb) Minor

G Minor
a# major

G# (Ab) Minor
b major

View Comments

17 Comments

  1. Nelson May 8th, 2008 3:04 am

    Yay for minor!
    Flatted sevenths, woo!

  2. Woodshed May 8th, 2008 8:28 pm

    I’m more of a major seventh man myself. But I can see the appeal of both.

  3. John October 17th, 2008 2:37 pm

    F# (Gb) Minor needs to be fixed. It’s the same image as G Minor.

  4. Woodshed October 18th, 2008 5:33 pm

    Thanks, John. *Fixed*

  5. Jimmy July 10th, 2010 9:22 pm

    as a noob, i don’t understand this too well

  6. Jimmy July 10th, 2010 9:35 pm

    never mind, i got it now

  7. Kieran June 12th, 2011 7:24 pm

    where can i find melodic and harmonic???

  8. TroyP September 1st, 2011 8:12 am

    I’m also not finding these as clear as your major scale examples. Thanks for all the help, though.

  9. Woodshed September 1st, 2011 11:48 am

    Troy: Aren’t they exactly the same?

  10. Jason July 28th, 2012 2:19 pm

    I’m having trouble understanding where the G string fits into these scales.

  11. Woodshed July 29th, 2012 7:04 pm

    Jason: Best to ignore the G string if it’s giving you problems. It’s not going to ruin it.

  12. victor September 15th, 2012 11:53 pm

    Digging these little lessons. I have my grandpas 60 year old uku. Glad I can play it now

  13. Woodshed September 16th, 2012 12:05 pm

    victor: That’s great!

  14. mike February 14th, 2013 4:36 am

    yeah, i really hope you edit this page to be as easy to understand as the major ones. i can’t make sense of this system…

  15. F December 2nd, 2016 12:27 am

    What I dont understand is when you say in “Key”. I watch videos sometimes where people are reffering to a certain “in key” . Is that a type of tuning? can you explain? thank you

  16. Woodshed December 2nd, 2016 2:16 pm

    F: The key is the scale and group of chords used in the song. So a song in the key of C would use the C major scale for the melody and might have chords like C, F, G and Am.

  17. Jacob October 31st, 2017 3:33 pm

    With the G string I use it a lot on the 2nd fret in place of an open A because it personally sounds better but that is just my opinion

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