Playing Songs In The Key of A Minor On The Piano

Good morning. This is Duane and today I’d like to take a look at the key of A Minor. We’re doing a series of short little videos about various keys that are popular for people to play in and the last two videos we took up the key of F based on the scale of F and then on its relative minor scale, the key of D. We talked about the three kinds of minor scales so I won’t go into that again.

The key of A Minor is based on the A Minor scale which goes like this. That’s the A natural minor scale. However, as we said there’s a harmonic minor scale which goes like this. You see that step and half in between the sixth degree and the seventh degree of the scale? That’s what gives it that distinct flavor.

Bear in mind there’s two possibilities here and I think I’ll give you an example of both. “Summertime,” that’s in the key of A Minor based on the harmonic minor scale. How do I know that? Because when it came to the five chord, it was major not minor. It would be minor, the five chord would be minor if it was based on the natural minor scale. Let me do it again. There’s an A Minor chord, E chord, A Minor, E, and there’s a four chord. Okay, let’s come back to the scale of A Minor. The one chord is A Minor, the four chord is D Minor and the five chord is E Major. Why? Because we’re using that harmonic minor scale. That’s why in “Summertime” and lots of minor songs you have the five chord being major. In most minor keys, the one chord is minor, the four chord is minor, but the five chord is major.

In classical music that’s true. Here’s Chopin’s “Prelude to C Minor.” See that’s minor. It’s in C Minor so that’s the one chord, that’s the four chord which is minor, that’s the five chord and back to the one chord. That’s very, very common.

Let’s come back to the scale of A Minor again. A natural minor scale. A harmonic minor scale. We said the three primary chords in any minor key are the one chord, so we’ll build a chord on one, A, C, and E. We’ll build a chord on four, that would be D Minor. We’ll build a chord on five, that would be E Major because of that raised seven. That’s how most minor songs are formed, using the harmonic minor scale to form a major five chord.

Now listen to this. That’s based on the natural minor scale. That’s A Minor and now we come to the four chord, back to the one chord. It’s clearly based on the natural minor scale because it has as minor one chord, a minor four chord, and a minor five chord. Why? Because it’s based on that natural minor scale. I know it’s a little confusing but get used to that. You’re going to face that in music all the time, that there’s two possibilities that you’re going to run into in minor songs. It could be based on the harmonic minor scale with a raised seven or the natural minor scale based on the natural seven.

Now the key of A Minor is relative to the key of C. Why? Because they use the same scale. You see if I play the C scale from C to C and I play the A scale from A to A, I’m using the very same notes aren’t I? That’s what makes it relative. That’s true on other minor scales. For example, if I play the C minor scale I’m not using the same notes. If the played the B Minor scale I’m not using the same … If I played the B Flat Minor scale I’m not using the same notes and so on. That’s what makes A Minor relative to C Major.

That’s it for today. If you enjoy this kind of stuff, come on over to Play Piano and sign up for our free tip newsletter, a lot of stuff having to do with piano and music theory and so on so see you there. Bye-bye for now.

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