Major or Minor?

[Mr. Jelly]

When a song uses major and minor chords what makes either a major or a minor key?

[stanron]

The scale the melody uses.

In a Major key the melody is based on a Major scale. And in a Minor key it uses a Minor scale. Starting from the Key note a Major scale is;

Tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone.

A Minor scale is;

tone, semitone, tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Mr. Jelly

When a song uses major and minor chords what makes either a major or a minor key?

Hi Mr J
Root chord and the chordal progressions.

Most songs are obvious as to whether they are major or minor, not ambiguous.

[mr. beaumont]

Right, so to expand on the posts above, you're looking at a question of harmony here.

Let's take the C major scale, for example:

CDEFGAB

If we stack those notes in the intervals of thirds, we get chords. That sounds confusing, but it's not...it's simply taking every other note.

So...

CEG is C major
DFA is D minor
EGB is E minor
FAC is F major
GBD is G major
ACE is A minor
BDF is B diminished (not used as often)

So now you have all of the chords in the key of C major, which includes 3 minor chords.

You can also harmonize a minor scale, but it's a little bit more complicated. We can get into that if you want to, but for the sake of keeping this digestable I won't right now...

There's always exceptions...you might encounter a chord in a song that's not from the key. That's ok, chords can be borrowed. Melody is boss.

So, now that you know that, though, how can you tell if a tune is major or minor?

Easiest way which works probably 90-95% of the time is what chord feels like home, or sounds appropriate to end the song on. That's almost always your answer.

[tbirdman]

There are three different minor scales. Natural, harmonic and melodic.

As far as chords for the minor scales, you stack the triads like major scales. Like the major scales chords, you take the 1st 3rd and 5th note of the scale to get the 1 chord. For the 2nd chord you stack the 2nd, 4th and 6th and so on.

[rllink]

I think it is just where it starts.

C major scale C D E A G A B C
A minor scale A B C D E F G A

Same scale, but starting with the A magically changes it. I don't know, I have a tenuous grasp of it myself. The intervals between notes change. Sort of fascinating actually.

[mr. beaumont]

Originally Posted by rllink

I think it is just where it starts.

C major scale C D E A G A B C
A minor scale A B C D E F G A

Same scale, but starting with the A magically changes it. I don't know, I have a tenuous grasp of it myself. The intervals between notes change. Sort of fascinating actually.

Well, the intervals between the notes themselves haven't changed, but between the scale degrees, definitely...

Here is why minor is a more complex entity...if you harmonize this, you get the same exact chords as C major, just in a different order.

But you'll often see an E major (E7 really) chord in songs in A minor. If you play the chords Am and Em and then Am and Emaj back to back you'll hear why--much stronger sense of tension and resolution.

That's where the harmonic minor gets involved...

A harmonic minor ABCDEFG#

So what does that do? Well, it changes the chords... When you get to E, you get E G# B. It changes any of the other chords that have a G in them too, but a lot of folks don't go that route, they simply borrow the E7 from it and add it into their song in A minor.

So yeah, minor can be a bit more complicated.

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by ljguitar

Root chord and the chordal progressions.

Most songs are obvious as to whether they are major or minor, not ambiguous.

Songs that are pentatonic/blues-based aren't what I'd call "ambiguous."

[TBman]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

Right, so to expand on the posts above, you're looking at a question of harmony here.

Let's take the C major scale, for example:

CDEFGAB

If we stack those notes in the intervals of thirds, we get chords. That sounds confusing, but it's not...it's simply taking every other note.

So...

DFA is D minor
EGB is E minor
ACE is A minor

BDF is B diminished (not used as often)

So now you have all of the chords in the key of C major, which includes 3 minor chords.

And the minor triads are minor because of the flatted 3rd? That's when things get confusing.

[JackC1]

Originally Posted by Mr. Jelly

When a song uses major and minor chords what makes either a major or a minor key?

The song will likely establish its tonal center early on so you know what key it is on. Then its chord progressions (or melody, but since you mentioned chords) will tell you whether it's minor or major.

[mr. beaumont]

Originally Posted by TBman

And the minor triads are minor because of the flatted 3rd? That's when things get confusing.

Right. Its the space between the notes that matters.

So E to G is 1 1/2 steps, thats a minor 3rd

E to G# is 2 steps, tgats a major 3rd.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Brent Hahn

Songs that are pentatonic/blues-based aren't what I'd call "ambiguous."

Hi brent
Exactly right. I didn't say they were, nor mean to imply it (sorry if you thought I was saying/implying ambiguity).

I meant that listening usually informs one whether a piece is major or minor.

[DCCougar]

Originally Posted by Mr. Jelly

When a song uses major and minor chords what makes either a major or a minor key?

I immediately think of one of the most common chord progressions in the history of the world -- C-Am-F-G. It's in the key of C major, but there's a minor chord in there; regardless, it's in the key of C major!

[rick-slo]

Songs often start on the dominate chord and and even more frequently end on the dominant chord. Usually you can feel what is a major or minor
key before long from the sequence of chords within different phrases in the piece. Some songs may shift keys within the song.

[tbirdman]

Originally Posted by rllink

I think it is just where it starts.

C major scale C D E A G A B C
A minor scale A B C D E F G A

Same scale, but starting with the A magically changes it. I don't know, I have a tenuous grasp of it myself. The intervals between notes change. Sort of fascinating actually.

So A minor is considered the relative minor of C Major. C major is the relative major of A minor. Confused yet? LOL

So when you stack the notes of a Major scale you get the chords in this quality. Major, minor, minor, Major, Major, minor and diminished. When you stack the notes of the relative natural minor scale you get minor, diminish, major, minor, minor, major major. If you stack the harmonic minor scale you get minor, diminished, augmented, minor, major, Major, diminished. Some of the chords are changed on a harmonic minor because the 7th note of the scale is sharped.

I took music theory class, but everything became clearer when I took piano class. Music theory is much easier to see on a keyboard because of the repetitive linear nature of a keyboard. It's much harder to see on fretboard.

Also if you learn to read music, you can begin to pick out the stacked chords. Even the inversion of chords have a certain shape of notes. For example a root position of a triad will have the notes stacked upon each other like a snowman.

The first inversion of a triad will look like two notes stacked, but the top note will have a space between that note and the two stacked notes. A 2nd inversion chord will have a note by itself on the bottom with a space between the two top notes stacked.