Hey Friend,

So far, we have looked at the chords of three minor keys (we’ve covered their relative major keys, too, but it’s been a while). These are A minor, E minor and B minor.

It’s now time to study A major’s relative minor key - that would be F# minor.

The easy way to figure that out is to place your finger (any finger will do) of the root note (tonic) of the major key and slide it down in pitch by three frets. A is at the fifth fret of the sixth string (first string, too). Slide your finger down three frets and that gives you the F# note.

The key of F# minor provides us with the F# minor scale, which is as follows:

The notes for F# minor are identical to the notes of A major, and that is what makes them relative to each other. Here’s the A major scale:

So you see, the relative keys always have the same notes - they’re just presented with a different starting point. Probably doesn’t seem like a big deal, but that little shift of the root note (tonic note) completely changes the vibe of the song.

The shift of three semitones changes the positions of the intervals that make up the scale. That then shifts the emotional effect of the scale, changing the overall tone of the scale. We go from a happy emotion with the A major scale, to a sad emotion with F# minor.

Let's look at the harmonic progression for F# minor:

We’ll start looking at the chords in depth tomorrow. Time to go kick off the week. Have a great one!

 

Peace~

Dave