Songs That Toggle Between Major & Minor Keys

Good morning. This is Duane and today I’d like to take a look at songs that use both major & minor keys in the same song. They kind of toggle back and forth between major and minor. There are several, well more than several. There’s Lots of songs that do that. They are written in minor keys, but you will hear then change from major to minor and then back to minor. I think the reason for that is what we discussed yesterday. The primary chords in a minor key are 1, 4 and 5, but the secondary chords are different. The only useful secondary chord in a minor key is the 2 chord. The others are either augmented or diminished trais which don’t really function too well as the home based chords for a given key.

We looked at the scale of F which had the one flat in it, B flat. When we play in the key of F we’re basing our playing on that scale of F and the primary chords are 1, 4 and 5. The F chord, the B flat and the C chord, right?

Then we looked at the key of D minor which is relative to F major. What makes it relative? It’s a relative because it uses the same scale. The primary chords in the key of D minor are D minor, 1 chord, the 4 chord, G minor and the 5 chord, A. In minor the one chord in a minor key, the 1 chord is minor. The 4 chord is minor, but the 5 chord is major. Whereas in a major key they’re all major aren’t they? One, four and five. They are all major ones.

Let’s take a look at a song. I think you’ll recognize it. [Piano playing] That’s in D minor. The first chord and the last chord is D minor and it’s obviously in the key of D minor. We’re going to use the three primary chords in the key of D minor aren’t we? D minor, G minor and A 7th and we did that as we played through it, but did you notice it switched to F major somewhere along the line.

I’ll take it slow this time. We start out at D minor. [Piano playing] D minor, A 7th or I’ll just call it the A chord, D minor. D minor, D minor, A, D minor. D minor, now what’s that? That’s a C chord which is a member in the key of F. The one chord in F. B flat which is the four chord in the key of F. A, D minor. We’ve toggled from D minor to F major and back to D minor all in the verse.

Now we come to the chorus. C, F, B flat, F, F, B flat. Now we go back to what? D minor, C, F, B flat, G minor, A and back to D minor, B flat and ends in F. It starts out in D minor and ends in F major so we clearly have many points in the song where it toggles back and forth between the two keys. As you play various songs in minor keys I want you to look out for that. You’ll find that happens quite a bit. Like I said my suspicion is it’s due to the fact that there aren’t too many useful secondary chords in minor keys so composers choose to go to the relative major key for a while and then back to the minor and so on. That was clearly the case there.

I’m going to play it once more now that you know what the form is. You watch out for it. [Piano playing] Just a good example of songs that go back and forth between major and minor.

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