Minor Key Chords

 Minor Key Chords

When introducing the chords of the minor key, we must approach it from two different perspectives. One is the use of the major key chord relationship commonly used in the Taiwanese pop music industry to describe the minor key, and the other is the minor key center system used by Berklee in the United States. However, what remains unchanged is that the distance between the notes of the minor key is fixed, which is:

Whole - Half - Whole - Whole - Half - Whole - Whole

Below we introduce these two different perspectives.

Major key perspective: That is, the minor key is the chord starting from the sixth degree of the major key. The chord notation using numbers is as follows:

6m7 7m7-5 1maj7 2m7 3m7 4maj7 57

The advantage of this perspective is that it is more intuitive when searching for songs. After all, thinking in major keys is the simplest and most direct idea. When you hear a song that starts or ends with 6m, you can guess that it is probably in a minor key.

Minor Key Center Perspective: This method regards the first chord of the minor key as the tonic, and uses Roman numerals instead of Arabic numerals, which is commonly used in Berklee.

Im7 IIm7-5 bIIImaj7 IVm7 Vm7 bVImaj7 bVII7

As you can see, this system includes bIII, bIV, and bVII chords, which is necessary to maintain the whole-half-whole-whole-half-whole-whole distance relationship in a minor key. The advantage of this approach is that it provides a clearer understanding of chord borrowing within a key.

For example, in David Tao's song "Regular Friends," the second chord is IVm, which borrows the fourth chord from the minor key. bIII, bVI, and bVII are also very common chords, which are quoted from the natural minor key.

In addition, we can often find that when playing the V chord (in major key perspective, it is 3), it is often played as V7 (37) instead of Vm7 (3m7). Why is that? Because V7 provides a stronger tension, which pulls back to the tonic Im7 (6m7), so it often appears in songs to create a more tense atmosphere. Regarding the origin of the V7 chord in minor keys, we need to introduce the other two minor keys, which are harmonic minor and melodic minor.

In general, the major key perspective can handle most songs in terms of song searching and improvisation. The minor key center perspective is more like an analytical tool for analyzing songs.

by < Daniel Chen >

- Guitar Teacher of Fusian Music

- Graduated from Berklee College of Music

- See more in Fusian Music Website