Relative Minor

A relative minor is a minor scale that uses exactly the same seven notes as a major scale, but treats a different note as home. C D E F G A B is C major. Start those same white keys on A and you get A B C D E F G: A minor.

Not a single note changed. Only the tonic, the note that feels like the floor, moved from C to A. That one change is enough to turn a bright scale into a dark one. Play both and listen for where each one wants to come to rest.

The relative minor always begins on degree 6 of the major scale, the note we named the *submediant* in the Major Scales chapter. In C major, degree 6 is A, so the relative minor is A minor.

This is also why the vi chord in every major key is minor: it is the tonic chord of the relative minor, built on the same seven notes. When a major-key song lands on vi, it is briefly visiting its relative minor's home.

A minor scale has its own formula, measured from its own tonic, not from the major scale it borrows notes from. Compared with the major ruler 1 2 3 4 5 6 7, the natural minor lowers three degrees: the 3rd, the 6th and the 7th. Each b turns a major interval into a minor one.

Check it on A minor: C is a minor third above A (the b3; major would want a major third, C#), F is a minor sixth above (the b6; major has the major sixth, F#), and G is a minor seventh above (the b7; major has the major seventh, G#). The white keys have not moved, but measured from A, three of them land on lowered degrees. That is what "minor" means in numbers.

There are two different ways to pair a major key with a minor key, and it is worth keeping them apart from the start. Relative keys share the same *notes*; parallel keys share the same *tonic*.

The formula 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 describes both, because the formula is measured from the tonic, not from the key signature. Apply it to A and you get A minor (white keys). Apply it to C and you get C minor: C D Eb F G Ab Bb.

Minor sounds darker for two reasons that work together: three degrees are lowered, and the ear is measuring everything from a new tonic. Let's hear each lowered degree on its own, with the tonic fixed on C so nothing else moves.

Now switch back to the relative pair. C major and A minor have the very same notes, so why does A minor still sound dark? Because from A, the notes C, F and G *are* the b3, b6 and b7. The letters did not change. The distances from home did. Same landscape, different vantage point.

Every major key on the sharp side of the Circle of Fifths has a relative minor sitting on degree 6, sharing its exact key signature. Here are the four you will meet most.

Check one with the formula. E minor is 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 on E: E F# G A B C D. The F# is still there: it is degree 2 of E minor and degree 7 of G major. Same seven notes, same one sharp, new home.

The pattern continues around the circle: B major ↔ G# minor (5 sharps), F# major ↔ D# minor (6 sharps).

The flat side works exactly the same way: find degree 6 of the major scale and you have the relative minor, with the same flats in its key signature.

Notice C minor appearing here as the relative of Eb major. Two sections ago it was the parallel of C major. Both are true: C minor shares its *tonic* with C major and its *notes* with Eb major. Every minor key has one of each.

Stack a triad on every degree of the natural minor scale and you get the seven diatonic chords of a minor key. They are the same seven chords as the relative major. Only the numbering starts in a different place.

Compare the shapes. In major the tonic, subdominant and dominant (I IV V) are all major. In natural minor, the tonic and subdominant are minor (i iv), and so is the dominant, v. That minor dominant is the one chord musicians most often change, as the next section explains.

In a real minor-key song, the dominant chord is very often major: V (E major in A minor) instead of the diatonic v (E minor). The reason is the leading tone.

Natural minor has a b7 (G in A minor), a minor seventh above the tonic. It slides home gently. Raise it to a major seventh, the natural 7 (G#), and it becomes a leading tone sitting right under A, pulling hard toward the tonic, the same pull that B → C has in C major. That G# is the 3rd of the E chord, so the chord becomes E major: E G# B.

Minor keys have a handful of progressions that appear over and over. Play each chord in order (one button per chord) and notice how every progression circles back to i.

Compare the second and fourth rows directly. i-iv-v and i-iv-V differ by a single note, G versus G# in the last chord, and the ending changes from drifting to decisive.

Because a major key and its relative minor share every chord, a song can move between them without changing a single note in the key signature. It only has to change which chord feels like home. This is one of the most common ways to give a verse and a chorus different moods.

Every chord in the verse is also a chord in A minor (III-VI-VII-III), and Am and Dm are also chords in C major (vi and ii). Chords like these that belong to both keys are pivot chords: you can be on one and step into either key from it. The only chord that truly announces "we are in minor now" is the E major with its G#: that note is not in C major at all.

The big idea of this chapter: a set of seven notes does not have one fixed meaning. Where you put the tonic decides what every note is. From C, the white keys are 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. From A, the same white keys are 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7. Nothing on the keyboard changed. The ruler moved.

Two doors open from here. The same trick, keep the notes and move the home, works for every degree of the major scale, not just the 6th. Start on D and the white keys become 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7; start on G and they become 1 2 3 4 5 6 b7. Those are the modes, coming later in the course; natural minor is simply the mode on degree 6.

The other door is smaller and closer. We have been playing every chord with its root at the bottom. In the next chapter, Inversions, we keep the same three notes of a chord and move *which one is lowest*. It is the same idea applied to a chord instead of a scale. You already have the instinct: same notes, new bottom, new sound.