Day 2 – Chords in a minor key
And parallel keys.
And examples in the video at the bottom.
But first…
1. The natural minor scale
We mentioned yesterday that the A natural minor scale (A B C D E F G — the alphabet scale) uses the same notes as its relative C major scale.
That means that the triads (and the seventh chords) in the key of A minor are the same as in C major but in a different order.
In a minor key, the tonic chord (the i chord), as well as the subdominant and the dominant chord (the iv and the v), are minor — not major — chords.
The major chords, on the other hand, are on the 3rd, 6th and 7th degree, which are in fact the flat third, flat sixth and flat seventh degree, if we take the major scale as a point of reference.
Indeed, to form the natural minor scale on the same root as the major scale, you need to lower by half a step (flatten) the 3rd, 6th and 7th degree of the major scale. That is also evident when you consider the intervals between the root and these three degrees: in the major scale, we have a major third (4 semitones), a major sixth (9 semitones) and a major seventh interval (11 semitones); whereas in the natural minor scale, we have a minor third (3 semitones), a minor sixth (8 semitones) and a minor seventh interval (10 semitones).
So, to get C natural minor from C major, we flatten E, A and B and we get:
C D Eb F G Ab Bb C
And vice versa, to get A major from the A natural minor scale we saw above, we sharpen (raise by a semitone) C, F and G (the 3rd, 6th and 7thdegree) and we get:
A B C# D E F# G# A
(You probably know that C# and Db are the same note. The reason we don’t use Db in A major is because we only want to use each letter once. That’s why we don’t use D# in C minor either, otherwise we’d repeat the letter D.)
So, to go back to the chords in the minor key. Here’s how they look with Roman numerals:
i ii⁰ bIII iv v bVI bVII
(There is an argument for using III instead of bIII for example, but for the sake of consistency, let’s keep the major scale as our reference point and stick to bIII.)
2. Minor tonic and dominant
As we just saw, not only the tonic, but also the dominant in a minor key are minor chords.
In A minor, these are Am and Em.
The v -> i cadence gives us an alright resolution – the roots move by a fifth, and there is one leading note (B from Em moves up a semitone to C in Am).
It’s a common trick, however, to use a V chord instead of the diatonic v chord. In plain English, that means using the major chord built on the 5th degree – in this case, E major instead of E minor.
That gives us a stronger resolution, because we now have 2 leading notes – B to C, but also G# (the 3rd degree of E major) to A.
Yes, G# is not part of the A natural minor scale, and the E major chord does not belong in the corresponding key, but composers would basically do anything to get the sound they like (in this case, a strong resolution).
You should follow their lead too, by the way. I keep spouting these rules, but in the end they are just a means of coming up with more sounds, which you can pick and choose from to your liking.
Now, why do I keep talking about the “natural minor” scale? It’s because there are other minor scales (as there are other major scales in fact).
G# actually does belong in an A minor scale – A harmonic minor – in which the seventh degree is not flattened (again with reference to the major scale).
F# belongs in another A minor – A melodic minor, in which the only flattened degree (and the only difference with the major scale on the same root) is the 3rd degree.
The melodic and harmonic minor scales give us different diatonic triads than the ones we have seen so far, so they will be very interesting to explore in a later challenge.
For the time being, it’s enough to remember that you can substitute the major version of the chord on the 5th degree for the minor version you get naturally, in order to get stronger resolution to the tonic (and songs like Hit the Road Jack by Ray Charles)
3. Borrowing from parallel keys
You might have heard people talk about “modal interchange”. It sounds scarier than it is, just like “diatonic chords of the major scale”, which basically refers to the triads you can build with the 7 notes of that scale.
Modal interchange, simply put, is borrowing a chord that does not exist in your key (a non-diatonic chord) from a parallel key – a key with the same 1st degree (tonic).
In practical terms, that means that short of changing keys altogether, you borrow a chord (or two) from the parallel major or minor to spice things up.
When you use a V chord in a minor key, you are, in a way, borrowing it from its parallel major key.
C major and C minor are parallel keys. The former is the latter’s parallel major and the latter is the former’s parallel minor. (Sorry, English major acting up 🙂 )
In C major, we have the chords:
C major, D minor, E minor, F major, G major, A minor and B diminished
In C natural minor, we have:
C minor, D diminished, Eb major, F minor, G minor, Ab major and Bb major
We just saw that we can borrow G major for a song in the key of C minor.
We can also borrow Eb major for a song in the key of C major, as George Harrison does in Something.
Ab Bb C (bVI bVII I) is a nice uplifting (closing) sequence.
Ab (bVI) is made up of nothing but leading notes, drawing it to G, but also resolves nicely to C thanks to the movement Ab-G and Eb-E.
Fm (iv) (the relative minor of Ab) resolves very nicely to C too thanks to two leading notes (F and Ab).
And the list goes on.
As a general idea, it is always interesting to experiment with using the major instead of minor version of a chord and vice versa. In Creep, which is in the key of G, Radiohead use not only a III chord (B major) instead of a iii chord, but also both a IV and a iv chord (C and Cm).
4. Today’s challenge
OK, time to write a song (fragment).
Try one in a minor key today.
Or try one with borrowed chords from a parallel key.
Or both.
Bonus points again for exploring a new key like E major or G minor.
See you tomorrow for a pint of secondary dominants!
But first, today’s video lesson, as promised:
