relative minor explained, and modes

[George Biner]

The concept of relative minor came up recently. Here is a brief posting on it.

There are two main "versions" of each of the 12 keys -- major and minor. A C major scale has all natural notes, no sharps and flats, and it starts on note C. If you start on the A below, same notes, that scale is called A minor. The scales are the same, just the starting note is different. So the A minor scale is the relative minor of C major -- the relative minor is 3 frets below the major. So, a key point is that any place you can play a major scale on a steel, you can also use the same notes and play the relative minor scale also. This is two for one.

For chords, there is a parallel situation -- if you play an A minor chord, in the key of C that would be a C6 -- if you play a C major, in the relative minor key of Am that is an Am7 chord.

Recall the relative minor is 3 frets below the major -- so that minor is named for the 6th degree of the original scale (the 6th degree of the C maj scale is A). You can also start on any other degree -- that's how you get "modes". Start on 1st degree = Ionic mode (major scale); start on 6th degree, Aeolian mode (minor, subject of this post); start on 2nd degree, Dorian mode ("Drunken Sailor"); start on 3rd degree, Phrygian ("Things We Said Today"); 7th degree, Locrian (some Metallica and Slayer).

Every musician might look into knowing theory -- it helps to understand the music and communicate between musicians. Here is a decent article on it: https://appliedguitartheory.com/lessons ... or-scales/

[Samuel Phillippe]

George, thanks for this post. It sure enlightned me (unknowledgeable music theory) to better understand the different scales and their relationship.

Hope it helps others.

Sam

[Thom Gustafson]

Ummm...an Am6 chord uses the pitches A-C-E-F#. A m6 chord is a minor triad with a Major 6th added. It occurs naturally as a ii chord in a major key, so Am6 could occur as a ii chord in the key of G, or any ii-V change when a song changes key (and lots of other ways). A C chord in the key of Am could be used as a substitute for Am7 (A-C-E-G).

[George Biner]

Hey Thom -- thanks for the note -- I edited my reply.

[Bill Terry]

Good stuff!

They say even a blind hog finds an acorn once in a while, and the relative minor thing was something I stumbled onto when I was first learning pedal steel (although I didn't know that's what it was). I have very little formal theory knowledge but I like to think I have a pretty good ear and can 'hear' when something works or not. As many beginners (or at least this one) found, playing/fnding a minor chord on the E neck was a bit of a gotcha when I first started. I started experimenting, and what I basically 'heard' was that if I was playing an A chord no-pedals at the 5th fret, and moved back two frets and played an AB pedals down C chord, voila, I could play that across A minor and it 'worked'. I could now find a minor in a hurry under the gun, it was huge. Much later someone explained the concept of a relative minor.. my response? "Oh, is that what that is?" LOL..

[Chris Brooks]

When I ordered my Carter Extended E9, I had them put a 0-pedal to the left of ABC which flats the G#.

That way I can get a minor on the same fret as a major and don't have to think, "Hmmm, OK, two frets down . . . mash the AB pedals"

[Daniel Bailey]

Aha, see that's the kind of thing I would call "wisdom and insight!" Now I know what the 0 pedal is for and why you'd want one. Feels like it should be in a FAQ somewhere.

[Bobby D. Jones]

Chris if you have a rather standard E9th tuning. Example, If you are at 3rd Fret with bar, Major G chord.

Shove the A pedal down by itself, Em.

If you are at the 10th fret with bar and A&B pedals down G, And need an Em. Let up A & B pedals move foot over depress B & C pedals, Another Em.

Let up on A & B pedals, As you back bar up to 8th fret, While Engaging knee lever that lowers 4 & 8 strings that is another Em. This will give you an E minor 3 ways in 12 frets, And repeats in next octave.

The first 2 acorns I found in about 1970 by myself, Found the Knee lever lower minor acorn about 1999 When I went to a guitar with knee levers.

Another move is, Bar at 3rd fret G, Slide Bar up 3 frets while engaging the A pedal G minor. It has a place in some song endings.

Was about 2004 before I got to verify what I had found, When a friend gave me a Mel Bay E9th Chord chart and there it was, The 3 ways to get an Em I had found and was using.

[Samuel Phillippe]

Bobby.it's amazing how we non music knowledgable players find things through our ears.
guess those ears do more than hold the space together between them.

I am learning more about music on this forum than other sites. Can't read it but am starting to understand what some of you guys are saying regarding the theory. In the mean time I will continue to listen to my ears.

Sam

[Fred Treece]

The C major chord in the key of Am is still a C major chord.
An A minor chord in the key of C is still an A minor chord.

You can imply anything you want when you superimpose one chord triad over another, such as C over Am (= Am7) or Am over C (= C6), but the chord formed by the notes C-E-G is called C major in any and every key.


If you want to really confuse the masses over relative minors and majors, you could say in any major key (C, for example...), the 6th tone in the scale would represent the keynote of the “relative” minor key: C D E F G A B.

The flip side, the relative major keynote in the natural minor scale (A minor, for example ) is the third note: A B C D E F G

And further muddying the waters, these are also references to modes that are found in any major key. The mode beginning with C in the key of C major is called the Ionian, the one beginning with A is called Aeolian. Every note in every key is the first note of its associated mode.

And totally wigging out, there are three basic types of minor scales. Won’t go there for now, but ——

Every major chord in every major key has a relative minor chord with it’s associated minor mode. Still in the key of C here, starting with notes that represent roots of the major IV and V chords, with the 6th tone up in bold:
F G A B C D E
G A B C D E F

Then there are scales based on altered chords...

Hopefully I didn’t just start a music theory nerd war...[/b]

[Thom Gustafson]

When you are playing by yourself C is C and Am is Am, but when you are playing in a combo the bass note your chord is played against is going to determine its overall tonality. A C chord played against an A bass note is going to combine with it to sound like an Am7 chord. An Am chord played against a C bass note is going to sound like a C6 chord. A Bm chord played against a G bass is going to sound like Gmaj7. That is the nature of a chord substitution where a chord that doesn't contain all the tones of a chord can still be used as an effective voicing.

[Fred Treece]

And so it begins

[Roger Rettig]

I was fortunate to live in a period when pop music was in love with the 1, 6m, 4, 5 sequence (Paul Anka's 'Diana' is a prime example), and assimilating the theory behind it taught me about relative minors when I was just starting out (1957, to be exact).

Shortly after that came Ketty Lester's 'Love Letters'. The chords stopped me in my tracks and, even as a beginner, I wanted desperately to understand the changes.

That taught me about the m7b5 or half-diminished. It was a good era. It was before self-taught musicians (the early '60s British pop) ruled the roost. Recording sessions and arranging were still in the hands of schooled professional musicians - stodgy and uncool at times, certainly - but I'm lucky that was the case. I turned pro with a basic but solid grasp of theory.

[Pete McAvity]

Fred! Thank you so much for supplying an Objectivism A is A approach. I go nuts trying to keep theory straight as new dimensions are introduced & reason fractals. When I was a kid, I had an Algebra teacher who would occasionally make errors at the board as I was just learning a mathematical concept. While attempting to build foundational knowledge, it got to the point where I just couldn't trust what I was being taught and my brain revolted, refusing to make the necessary associations. That's how I am with music theory. If you try to tell me that a root, third & fitth are called one thing in one environment, and another in a different environment, I question the source and throw my hands in the air.

NOW- I get that paired with a note from another instrument (presumably the bass supplying a root note), you THEN get a different chord BETWEEN TWO INSTRUMENTS, but you gotta let me memorize my multiplication tables before you whip out quadratic equations. A chord is a chord is a chord. When those caveates such as alien notes from outside of your instrument are invoked, you gotta talk to me like a third grader to highlight extenuating circumstances.

I'm lining up behind Fred in this brawl he didn't mean to start.

[Pete McAvity]

I should add that the above is not a rebuttal toward Thom- he elucidated his point plainly & reminded me why theory makes me berzerker sometimes. It's a language w/ shifty connotations at times.

[Ken Morgan]

It really gets fun when factoring in enharmonics, ghost notes, and the player picking a dyad and the brain interpreting a full triad…

If it sounds right, it probably is

[Thom Gustafson]

No brawl. Sound always precedes theory. The OP was stating how he learned a C chord could substitute for an Am chord and vice versa and what the overall chord would be in that situation. There are plenty of things musicians do simply because they sound good without necessarily breaking down what they are actually doing. If you understand a bit more theory it can open doors to new sounds and perhaps give you insights how to better understand and play against more complicated chord progressions. It really comes down to trying to be the best overall musician you can be.

[Tucker Jackson]

If you try to tell me that a root, third & fifth are called one thing in one environment, and another in a different environment, I question the source and throw my hands in the air.

Maybe a real-world example on your steel would help?

Let's say you have 4 notes. What chord is that?

Answer: it depends. It could be called several different things. Which one it is would be is 100% dependent on which note you call the root. That then becomes the fixed point -- and all the other tones you're playing are measured relative to that, and that spells out the recipe for a specific chord.

Luckily, you don't have to guess what the root is -- this info is dictated to you by the context. It's dictated by the chord the songwriter specified. If the band is playing C6, the 'C' note is the root. If the band goes to Am7, the 'A' note is the root.

Interestingly, those two chords contain the same batch of four notes. In music theory, you would just mentally stick the root (dictated by the songwriter) at the bottom of the stack, then order the rest of the notes you're playing above it, low-to-high. You would then measure how far each tone was from the root (major 3rd? minor 3rd? 5th? 7th?) to learn what chord that spelled (Major? Minor? 7th?) But either way, even with different roots, both C6 and Am7 at least draw from the the same batch of four notes.

Example on your steel guitar... of how the same 4-note grip and bar position can be called two different things at different points in a chord progression:
Let's say the song calls for C6 followed by Am7

You could play the C6 in the third fret, AB pedals down, on strings 7-6-5-4

You could then move to an Am7 by... changing nothing. Same fret, same pedals, same grip (but the bass player would change from "C" to "A" and that's what would make it sound like a chord change). This 'not changing anything' on your part is possible because that chord just so happens to contain the same four notes as the first one. The only difference is in which tone you are considering, or 'hearing' as the root note.

What do I mean by 'hearing?' Try playing the above on your steel.
But before hitting the C6 chord, hit string 6B alone... mimic the bass player to get the 'C' tone in your ear and establish it as the root. Then play all 4 tones of the chord. You'll hear those tones as a C6.
Yes... you may have noticed that your lowest note in your grip is not a "C"." That's OK, it's still a C6 chord. The lowest note you're playing doesn't make it the root, the band determines the root. What you're playing here is an inversion (notes out of order). It's legal to scramble the notes of any chord in any order. They still spell out the same chord name if you mentally put them in order, low to high, above a given root note, and then measure them against that root note. Bottom line: the chord name we assign to a stack of tones is relative to what the root note is -- and that note is dictated by the songwriter, regardless of what the lowest tone is in your grip at the moment.

Now hit string 7 alone, to establish the 'A' tone in your ear as the new root. Then play all four strings, and you'll suddenly hear that same batch of notes as an Am7. Our ear and brain do the 'math' of notes-played-against-a-root and understand what kind of specific chord it feels like subconsciously. The purpose of music theory is to bring the "why" of all of this up into the conscious brain so we can hopefully use it in musical decision-making down the road.

[Pete McAvity]

Tucker! Yes! Third grade descriptors. I get a lot of mileage out of that explanation. Thank you so much!

[Jerry Overstreet]

[selected portions clipped from Pete's post]

That's how I am with music theory. If you try to tell me that a root, third & fitth are called one thing in one environment, and another in a different environment, I question the source and throw my hands in the air....you gotta let me memorize my multiplication tables before you whip out quadratic equations. A chord is a chord is a chord. When those caveates such as alien notes from outside of your instrument are invoked, you gotta talk to me like a third grader to highlight extenuating circumstances.

Wow Pete! That's what I try to stress on people who try to force players to cram a lifetime of study into one lesson.

Theory is a lifetime of study. It's many aspects are not something you can grasp all at once.

I always teach players to start slowly. Get to know the basic rules of melody and chord building on your instrument.

Learn the intervals that create major, minor, 7ths, augmented, diminished chords one at a time. If you can form these chords, you can play most music. Music is math and the basic rules of chord building are pretty simple.

When you start throwing the bass etc. into the equation, using how a chord can be called by different names in different situations etc...trying to explain all that and how it changes things, people just trying to get into learning just say it's too confusing and too much trouble, throw up their hands and quit, just like you said.

Just learn the basics of music theory as I stated above and work all the other aspects into it as you go along. It's just too much to take in all at once.

I've actually been called a theory hater, not true at all. It's such a massive undertaking that I think it needs to be learned in stages. It's called theory for a reason.

[Thom Gustafson]

If anyone is interested I made my "Theory Primer for Guitar" available for viewing/download free at this address: http://www.schoolofguitar.com/guitartheory.htm
It is written for my guitar students but can be applied to any instrument.

[Ned McIntosh]

Fun fact:-

There is a nonsense sentence which helps you remember the names of the seven modes (Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian), and it goes thus:-

"I own the door to the fridge, but Lydia mixed up all the locks!"

Just like 1,4 5 major chord progression, the 1st, 4th and 5th modes are major modes, the 2nd 3rd and 6th are minor modes, and the 7th (Locrian) is a half-diminished mode.

I think of modes as scales which give you seven notes to play instead of the five available in the pentatonic scale, multiplying melodic possibilities.

[Fred Treece]

Music theory informs you of what you are playing. In that way, it can make you a better player. Understanding is a good thing. But it is not a substitute for having a good ear and a soul and a ton of technique.

Having a good yack about it is kinda fun I guess, but I don’t believe this forum or any other social media type virtual hangout is the best way to learn music theory. There is a ton of disinformation online on just about everything under the sun, including music theory. Get a book or visit a website dedicated to the process of educating people on the subject.

[Daniel Bailey]

Fred, you're sure right that a forum is not the best way to learn music theory.

But I'm in a different boat. I know the music theory from years of piano lessons. From this (and similar) threads I'm learning how to apply the music theory I already know to a new instrument (E9 PSG). It gives me something new to try on PSG just about every day so that yes, some day I will hopefully have developed the technique I currently lack.

[Fred Treece]

There are books and apps for applying theory to pedal steel.

John Sohn’s Steel Sidekick is a great little app.

I also have Joe Wright’s “My Approach” book collection on PDF, which is chocked full of technique building exercises as well as more music theory than you’ll ever be able to apply to pedal steel.

I’m sure there are others. The Forum’s Beginners Page is not a bad place to look.