Hey Friend,

We've covered a lot of ground with regards to the most common major keys and their chords. So far we've studied the keys of C, G, D, A and E major.

And we could continue along this path and look at B major, and that would finish out the natural keys (keys based on the natural notes) for the next six keys. We wouldn't come back around to F major for a few months. 

So I think I'm going to mix it up a bit on you. Instead of continuing on with major keys, we're going to start working with some of the minor keys. 

The five majors studied to date are the most common that you'll see in Rock music, but Rock also loves minor keys. 

Patterns are the building blocks of music, and minor keys are no exceptions. Here's the good news; if you have memorized the major scale pattern, you already know the minor scale pattern. All you have to do is shift your focus a little.

Let's review...

In a major scale, notes have spaces between them. Sometimes it's one fret, and sometimes it's two. These spaces are called intervals. One fret is called a half step. Two frets is called a whole step.

Major Scale:     1     2     3     4     5     6     7    (8)

                           \   /  \   /  \   /  \   /  \   /  \   /  \   / 

Intervals    :         W    W    H    W   W    W    H

A minor scale uses the following scale interval pattern:

Minor Scale:        W  H  W  W  H  W  W  

In effect, the sixth note in a major scale is the same as the tonic (root) note in a minor scale. The minor scale pattern starts with the interval between the sixth and seventh notes of a major scale.

If this sounds a little confusing right now, don't worry. It took me a long time to wrap my head around it. But I'm going to make this as easy as I can for you.

Unfortunately, it's Monday and I have to head off to the j.o.b. We'll continue this tomorrow. Have a great day!

Peace~

Dave