Minor Keys – The Relative Minor Scale | Natural Minor
If you’ve been following some of the posts on guitar keys you’ve probably noticed that they’re all in reference to major keys. The reason why is that major keys are the starting point for all keys, even the minor keys. Each minor key is related to a major key, called the relative key, which makes sense, right? If you want to understand keys you have to understand scales. Understanding the scales will help you understand the chords. Let’s take a look at a scale with no sharps and flats, the C scale. We’ll extend it a couple of octaves, remember once you get to the end of the scale you can just keep going.
C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C
Ok, so notice I’ve underlined the C’s those are the starting and ending points for the scale, and in the key of C, it would be your final chord (and usually but not always your starting chord). Going back to the post on how to find chords (and your I IV V chords) from a scale your chords would be: C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, Bdim, C, etc. Ok, so lets take that C scale again:
C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C
This time I’ve underlined the 6th note of the scale. Take any major scale, then play the scale starting and ending on the 6th note. That is your relative minor scale. So the A minor scale is the relative minor of C.
A B C D E F G A B C D E F G A
So your chords would be:
Am Bdim C, Dm, Em, F G Am
This scale is called the natural minor scale. It’s based on it’s relative major and none of the notes have been altered. We’ll discuss changing some of the notes in a later post. Basically you’ll make some of the notes sharp because it will add more finality to the final note.
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