Key of Minor Songs – Relative Minor Keys

Today we are going to learn how to find the key of minor songs.

Click on this link to watch this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-vccsEnAsA&feature=youtu.be

Good morning. This is Duane. We’ve been doing a series called Good Stuff You Really Ought to Know About Music. Recently I covered the order of the flats and how to find the key when you have flats. In other words, when you have 1 flat, how do you know what key you’re in? When you have 2 flats, how do you know what key you’re in? Then we covered sharps. How do you know what key you’re in when you have sharps?

Today I’d like to take up the subject of how to know what key you’re in when the song is obviously minor. In other words, when you hear a song and it’s minor, how do you know whether it’s in the key of C, or some other key? Well, it’s really easy.

If you’re looking at a piece of sheet music, and you see a key signature with no sharps or flats, you’re probably 95% certain, or 80% certain anyway, that you’re in the key of C, because it’s based on the scale of C, which has no sharps or flats. If, on the other hand, you see a song that has 1 flat in it, you’re 80% certain that it’s in the key of F, because it’s based on the scale of F. If you see a song with 1 sharp, you know it’s in the key of G, and so on, because of what we talked about earlier.

But what if you look at a key signature, at a piece of sheet music, and it has no sharps or flats, but it sounds minor. Well, what you have to do is look at the first chord and the last chord, and if either one of them are A minor, it’s probably in the key of A minor instead of C major. Now, what links the key of C major and C minor? Why are they related? Because they key of A minor uses exactly the same notes as the scale of C. Here’s what the scale of C uses, those notes. Here’s what the scale of A minor uses, those same notes. It’s not that it can’t use others, but that’s indigenous, or organic, to the key of A minor.

What you do is you find any relative minor key by going down a step and a half from the major key. In other words, if you think you’re in the key of C, but you might be in the key of a minor, you go down a step and a half from C, and that’s the relative minor key. If you see a key signature that tells you you’re in the key of F, but it sounds minor, check the first and last chords, and if it’s in a minor key, it’s in D minor. Why? Because that’s the relative minor key. It uses the same notes as the scale of F to base that song on.

If you have, say, 2 sharps, you would normally think you’re in the key of D, right? But it might be in the key of what? B minor. Go down a step and a half from the major key, and that is the relevant minor key. You know what a step and a half is. There’s a whole step, and there’s a half step. A whole step always skips a key, and a half a step skips nothing, except the crack.

Let’s say that you have 3 flats. You would normally know you’re in the key of E flat. Right? So you’d playing in the key of E flat. Right? But it might be in the key of what? Might be in the key of A minor. It’s really easy once you understand. It’s kind of confusing at first. I understand that. But you simply, to find the relative minor key of any major key, go down a step and a half, and that’s its relative minor.

That’s it for today. If you enjoy these little tips, come on over to PlayPiano.com and sign up for our free series of tips. Hope to see you there. Until then I’ll say goodbye.

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Here’s a great little book on chords and chord progressions on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Piano-Chords-Chord-Progressions-Exciting-ebook/dp/B0076OUGDE/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404158669&sr=1-1&keywords=piano+chords+duane+shinn

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