After working though Chloe’s piano materials and tucking her into bed, I came back down here to the piano to work on a couple things I’ve started. I’ve been working on one song in G minor. Written music has two major categories, major and minor. Major and minor refer to the key in which the song is in and that in turn dictates the scale and chords upon which the song is built. The strange thing is that each major key has a relative minor. For example the relative minor of the key of C major is A minor. The notes for the keys of C major and A minor are the same. The only difference is where the scale starts.
For example:
The notes of the C major scale:
C D E F G A B C
The notes of the A minor scale:
A B C D E F G A
Notice that the minor scale has the same notes but starts on the sixth tone of the major scale.
When I was first exposed to this concept I was baffled. What’s the difference? How can you tell a song written in A minor from one written in C major?! Pop music frequently is written in major keys and is constructed entirely of major chords. All major construction yields an optimistic feel, especially when the song is “resolved” on a major chord. In other words it ends on a major chord. That’s also a very common musical mechanism within sacred music. Open up a hymnal and you can usually tell what key a song is in by looking at the last note.
When you hear a song in a minor key it does indeed sound “minor”. It has a different sound than a song written in its relative major key. Remember the funny line from Spinal Tap “D minor, it’s really the saddest key”. But D minor is really just F major with the notes rearranged, so what makes it sad?
Here’s the reason. The combination of notes is called a chord. A C major triad is C, E and G but an A minor triad is A, C and E. Although the notes are basically from the same scale simply playing them in a different order or from a different starting point, called “voicing”, completely changes the character of the song. Here’s the thing though, the best songs employ both things, major and minor chords.
The blues, for example, is almost always written in a major key and is built around three main chords, the 1 chord, the 5 chord and the 4 chord. So a blues in the key of C would be built around the C, G and F major chords…boring. So what makes it bluesy? Well, the inclusion of a minor chord, that’s what. The blues has a “turn” on a minor chord.
It’s up to the composer. Play notes in “standard” order and you have a happy major. Take the same notes and simply play them in a different order and you’ve got a sad minor. Most meaningful music though, be it in a major key or a minor key employs both things.
