What does relative minor mean and why does it matter?

Every musician should familiarize himself or herself with the term relative minor. So what does the term mean? What is the relative minor, and why is it important?

To understand relative minor, start with the major scale

I’ve talked about the major scale in various articles, including Understanding the major scale is foundational music theory. If you haven’t mastered your understanding of the major scale, then stop now and go read that article. You won’t get far in this discussion without understanding that one.

Now, because I know you’re in a hurry and might not want to go read that article, I’ll summarize it here for you. But really…go read that one!

The major scale uses specific notes from the chromatic scale to form a familiar pattern. Sing the familiar Do, Re, Mi all the way back to Do and you’re singing the major scale.

Everything in western music springs from the major scale. You have to understand that in order to really understand the rest.

The major scale follows a pattern, no matter what key you’re in. The pattern looks like this, where “W” stands for a whole step, and “H” stands for a half step:

W-W-H-W-W-W-H

The C major scale gives us the simplest example because it contains no sharp or flat notes. Only natural notes appear in the C major scale. Those notes are C, D, E, F, G, A, B and then back to C one octave higher.

And just so you know; that’s all the white keys on a piano keyboard.

Grasp the concept of key signatures

As stated above, no sharps or flats exist in the key of C major. So, the key signature of C major contains no sharps or flats.

As you move to different major keys, you add one or more sharp or one or more flat. For instance, the key of G major has one sharp. The key of F major has one flat.

We don’t need to get into deep detail about all of this here, but it’s important for you to understand the concept of key signatures. The signature of C major is no sharps or flats. G major’s signature is one sharp. The signature of F major is one flat. And every other major key has a different number of sharps or flats.

You have to understand scale degrees

Another of my articles introduces the concept of scale degrees. You should also understand that concept, so you might want to take a few minutes to read that article before you continue.

But again, I’ll sum it up here for you. Every major scale contains seven notes. As I listed above, the C major scale has the notes C, D, E, F, G, A, B.

Each of the notes in the scale occupies a scale degree. For instance in C major, C is the first degree, F is the fourth degree, and B is the seventh degree.

The concept of degrees comes up time and time again throughout all of music, so you really need to understand it in order to speak about music.

And every major key has the same scale degrees. However, each scale has different notes that occupy each degree. That’s what defines different keys.

For instance, the notes of the D major scale are D, E, F#, G, A , B, C#. So in this case, D is the first degree, G is the fourth degree, and C# is the seventh degree.

The concept may not be complicated, but it’s important to understand!

The pivotal sixth degree

The sixth degree of the major scale–regardless of the key–holds a special place of honor. It’s there, in the sixth degree, that we find the relative minor.

The note A occupies the sixth degree of the C major. Thus C major’s relative minor must be A minor, and indeed it is.

I listed out the notes of the D major scale above, so you can refer to that in order to see that B occupies the sixth scale degree in D major. Thus, B minor is the relative minor of D major.

Fine, but what exactly is the relative minor?

OK, so I’ve explained how you can find the relative minor of any major key, but that still doesn’t tell you what a relative minor is.

Well, remember the formula I listed above for the major scale? The minor scale (and here we’re talking about the natural minor scale) also follows a formula. That formula is:

W-H-W-W-H-W-W

So the C minor scale contains the notes C, D, Eb, F, G, Ab, Bb. You could go through all of the root notes and use that formula to find all of the natural minor scales and their notes.

If you did that, then you’d find something interesting happens when you reach the A minor scale. You find these notes in the A minor scale: A, B, C, D, E, F, G.

What do you notice about those notes? They are all natural notes. In other words, the key of A minor contains no sharps or flats. Again, it’s all the white keys on the piano.

And what does that remind you of? Of course! It’s just like the C major scale. And there lies the relationship between the key of C major and its relative minor, A minor.

Because C major and A minor share exactly the same key signature (no sharps or flats), the two keys are said to be relatives.

If you’re playing a piece of music and you don’t use any sharps or flats, you could be playing in C major. But then, you could be playing in A minor.

As I said earlier, every major key has a relative minor key. To find the relative minor of any major key, find the sixth degree of the major scale. That’s your relative minor.

Then what’s the difference between a major scale and its relative minor?

A really good question! After all, if the two scales share the same exact notes, they must sound exactly the same. So why complicate things by calling it C major one time and A minor the next?

It all has to do with the root note. The scale’s tonic, or first degree.

When you’re playing a song, everything wants to resolve to the tonic. That’s home base. Music doesn’t feel comfortable if it doesn’t get you back to the tonal center–the root note or chord.

And which note you choose to treat as the root note will change the character of the music you play.

If you target C as your root note and play no sharps or flats, then your song will feel like it’s in a major key. C major, to be exact. And thus it’ll feel lighter, happier, and maybe peppier.

On the other hand, if you target A as your root and construct a melody using that same set of notes, the piece will feel like it’s in the key of A minor. It’ll feel heavier, darker, sadder.

It’s a fascinating quality of music that the exact same notes can sound and feel so completely different just by the choice you make of which note or chord to treat as your root.

Why is the concept of relative minor important?

Well, I already mentioned the difference in feel between a major key as opposed to its relative minor key. So that’s one really important reason to understand the concept. You can use the same notes but create a completely different vibe or feel.

It’s also useful to understand the concept when you’re writing songs because to add interest to a song you can use modulation, also known as a key change.

And one of the easiest and most natural modulations takes you from a major key to its relative minor. It’s an easy key change to make because you don’t need to introduce any new notes. You simply change the note you’re targeting as the root note.

Oh, and by the way, just so I’m clear, it works the other direction too. If A minor is the relative minor of C major, then C major is the relative major of A minor.

Conclusion

The concept of the relative minor comes up time and time again in music. You should understand the concept not only to expand your musical knowledge, but also to take advantage of everything that this understanding offers you.

You need to master the major scale and understand the concepts of scale degrees and key signatures in order to grasp relative minor. Once you do, you can easily find the relative minor of any major scale.

Knowing the relative minor key of any major key makes it easy to modulate during your song as you move from one to the other simply by targeting a different root note.

Once you understand this concept, you have even more musical power than you did before.