Chords in Minor Keys


Published on 26 January 2016
For more information from the source site of this video please visit: http://secretguitarteacher.com/youtube/advanced/theory/B-GkOnZR6Pc/84410832-chords-in-minor-keys.php WARNING! Not for beginners. This is a sample lesson from the Secret Guitar Teacher website (please see link above). This lesson comes near the end of a three-part Guitar Music Theory Course so it does assume a fairly high level of basic music theory knowledge. Having said that, there will be some insight to be gained here by anyone who has a little bit of experience working out chords to songs in minor keys or trying to write songs in minor keys. Here's the abridged transcript: In this last lesson we are going to start by looking at the third most commonly discussed minor scale -- the melodic minor. This has a different pattern on the way up the scale (the ascending melodic minor) to the one it uses on the way down (the descending melodic minor scale). As the descending scale is identical to the natural minor scale that we have already harmonised, in this lesson we will only concern ourselves with the ascending melodic minor scale. This is often referred to as the Jazz melodic minor and has the simple formula b3. When harmonised, this scale keeps the chords from the harmonic minor scale for the 1st 3rd, 5th and 7th degrees, but provides us with a Bm instead of B diminished for the 2nd chord, a D major for the fourth chord and an F# diminished for the 6th chord. So, between the three different minor scales, I count 14 different chords that result from the harmonising process. But, in practice, it gets worse! Songwriters also use the remaining two chords --in this case C#m and F#m -- that belong strictly to the major scale and don't show up in any of the minor scales! So you could say that the palette of chords used by songwriters when writing in minor keys includes chords diatonic to: the natural minor scale, the harmonic minor scale, the melodic minor scale and the parallel major scale. Do songwriters really use all these chords? I went over in my head as many minor key songs as I could think of and quite suddenly stumbled on a pattern I hadn't spotted before. You can see that in the top line here. Still looks too complicated though, so I went a step further: In a rare flash of inspiration, I realised that if you remove the red coloured chords from my diagrams, you can create all the remaining chords from just two scales: The Natural Minor scale and the Parallel Major scale. The resulting diagram has a rather pleasing symmetrical pattern! In essence this pattern is saying that all of the chords harmonised on the natural minor scale are in common use except the 2nd and 5th which are normally replaced by the chords diatonic to the Parallel Major scale (A Major in our example). It is also saying that the 5th chord from the series diatonic to the natural minor is used occasionally, as are the tonic 3rd 4th and 6th chords from the Parallel Major scale. Now let's test this against a couple of songs that hitherto, I have always found resisted easy harmonic analysis by more conventional means Here's Marvin Gaye's classic hit Quite an extreme example really in that only the key chord of Em comes from the natural minor scale -- the other 3 chords used in the song come from the Parallel E major scale. And here's a song I always struggled to remember the chords for -- because I simply didn't understand them! This time you can hear how the minor sound the song starts with, is made more mysterious by the borrowing of the relative minor chord from the parallel major key. F#m being the 6th in the key of A major). Then, as we shift towards the more assertive, positive lyric: 'Come on Baby Light My Fire'! The predominance of chords from the parallel major scale creates the right mood change to match the lyrics. Next up on the theory course we take a look at some of the theory aspects of pentatonic scales. I look forward to you joining me for that