Lesson 77 Video

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Lesson 77

Lesson 77 - Relative Minor

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Relative Minor

Lesson Goals:

♦ Learn the concept of Relative Minor
♦ Learn how Relative Minor is used in guitar
♦ Be able to identify the Relative Minor of any major chord

 

Although this may border on "music theory" (ugh!), the understanding of the Relative Minor concept is one that is not only easy to grasp, but also very important to be aware of in terms of playing guitar.

We could get into a deep music theory discussion here, be we're not! We just want to cover the parts of the relative minor topic that we need to know to apply to our guitar playing.

Every major scale, and major chord has what's known as a "Relative Minor". As you might guess, the relative minor is related to the major scale or chord.

They are related because the notes in a major scale, and, its relative minor are identical. The only difference is that the relative minor scale starts on a different root note, but the notes that comprise the two scales are the same.

For example, let's take a look at the notes of the C major scale, and its relative minor, the Am (A minor) scale.

C D E F G A B C

A B C D E F G A

Notice how both of these scales are built from the same notes. This is what makes them related to each other.

In terms of playing guitar, there are a couple of things we can take away from this.

First, you can now assume that the notes you are playing in a solo in the key of C major, are the same notes you would play if you are doing a solo in the key of A minor. We will cover this in more detail later.

The second thing is that every major chord has a relative minor chord.

Because the major chord, and its relative minor, have a closely related, yet slightly different sound, it is extremely common to see them come up in songs. You will encounter many songs that incorporate a major chord moving to its relative minor chord in the chord progression.

As a result, it is important to be able to identify the relative minor chord of any major chord. There is a simple way to do this and we will go over two ways that you can quickly locate any relative minor chord.

77 major scale pattern

 

One method is to use the pattern of the major scale. Remember back in Lesson 53? If so, you may recall that we used the steps in the "pattern" of the major scale to identify the first, fourth and fifth steps, which gave us our root notes for a I, IV, V chord progression.

We can do the same thing to find the relative minor chord of any major chord. Just remember this; the root note of the relative minor chord is always on the 6th step of the related major scale pattern.

Using the earlier example - if we wanted to figure out the relative minor of the C major chord, we could just count up the C major scale to the 6th step. That note is the root note of the relative minor chord that is related to the C major chord.

C D E F G A B C

Looking at the above example, if you start on the C and count up to 6, you land on the A. So in the case of a C major, you now know that the relative minor of C is A minor.

As with other guitar concepts we have worked on, you do not have to memorize all the notes in every scale to do this. Just by remembering the major scale "pattern" and applying the root note of that pattern where needed, you can use that to identify any relative minor root note.

It's as simple playing the notes of the major scale pattern starting on the desired root note, then counting your steps until you reach the 6th step. That's the root note of the relative minor of the major chord you started with!

 

 

77 neck pic

 

 

Another, and much easier, way to identify the relative minor chord of any major chord is to just start on the root note of the major chord, and count down 3 frets. This will always place you on the root note of its relative minor.

 

Let's take an A major scale for another example (on right) - If you play a A note on the 5th fret of the 6th string, and then count down 3 frets from there, you wind up on the 2th fret of the 6th string which is an F# (or Gb) note. This tells you that the relative minor of A major is F# minor! (or Gb minor)

 

This works for any major chord on the guitar. In another example - if you wanted to find the relative minor of a G major chord, you would start on a G note, on the 3rd fret of the 6th string, and go down 3 frets. This would put you on the open 6th string which we know is an E note. This tells us that the relative minor of G major, is E minor. Easy!

 

 

 

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Jam Tip!

The notes in the major scale and its relative minor scale are exactly the same. This means that when you are playing a lead in, for example, the key of C, and you are playing a C major scale - those are the exact same notes you could use if you were playing a lead in the key of A minor!