Minor Keys

Take the C major scale and start it on A instead of C. You get A B C D E F G — the same seven notes, in the same order, beginning somewhere else.

That is A natural minor, and it is called the relative minor of C major. The two share every note and every chord; what differs is which note feels like home. Start and end on C and the music sounds bright. Start and end on A and exactly the same notes sound sad.

Every major key has a relative minor three half steps below it. C major and A minor. G major and E minor. D major and B minor. When you see a song with one sharp in its key signature, it is either G major or E minor, and the only way to tell is which chord it keeps coming home to.

A Minor

A natural minor — the notes of C major, starting from A.

A natural minor, one octave in open position

A B C D E F G A. Compare it with the C major scale from lesson two — identical notes, different starting point.

e
B
G
D
A
E

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--------------------0--2--|
-----------0--2--3--------|
--0--2--3-----------------|
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A minor at 109 BPM, built on F major 7, E minor 7 and A minor. Play the scale above over it.

There is a complication, and it is worth knowing because it explains something you have certainly heard.

In natural minor, the chord built on the fifth degree comes out minor — in A minor, that is E minor. But a minor chord there has no leading note, so it does not pull home the way V does in a major key. Composers found this unsatisfying, so they raise the seventh note of the scale by a half step, turning G into G sharp. That gives the harmonic minor scale, and it turns the v chord from E minor into E major.

So when a song in A minor uses an E major chord — and thousands do — it is borrowing from harmonic minor to get that pull back. The raised note is also what gives flamenco and a lot of metal their particular flavour.

E

E major, the raised-seventh V chord in A minor. The G sharp inside it is the borrowed note.

A minor moving to G, F and E major. That E is harmonic minor at work — listen to how hard it pulls back to A minor.