Minor Keys

[AllanAllen]

Don't worry youve missed nothing of important. Thread got diverted and Kong left his brain somewhere whilst trying to figure out how to play an Am9.

m9 is easy drop the 3rd of a regular blues 9 chord

A is a pain in the but to write being at double digit frets so I’m just going to do D9 to Dm9 and you can slide it up to the 12th fret.

D9 = x5455x
Dm9 = x5355x

[rintincop]

Unlike the major key, the minor key isn't defined by 7 diatonic chords. Minor tune progressions are made up of chords from multiple minor scales.

My favorite post, simple and to the point.
When somebody says let’s play in C minor my default is based on my experience with The Great American Songbook.
||: C-6 A-7b5 | D-7b5 G7b9 :|| as in “Softly As In A Morning Sunrise”

[Gabor]

...not quoting... but I have doubts that cm7 chord fits anywhere in cm tonality. (...but also I am keeping in mind in jazz we are more free to change chord qualities. )

It is true, that minor tonality could have more flavors of mood than major, still there is no need to overthink the method how we got the chords. We always talk about theory versus ear, but probably this is where theory become interestingly useless... because in theory cm key is an *abstraction*, however in real life there are no floating cm keys in the vacuum, instead we have tunes.

The composer of the tune/piece/opus layed out the ground rules with the melody, so you got his/her intention. It is a feel. In case this is not guiding enough, we still can look for something more explicit (than feel) we can see what notes the melody sing over for example the dominant, or the tonic (or over any chord in the progression)

[Christian Miller]

Classical rule of the octave if anyone’s interested- chords with a scale bass. Rather than being a theoretical thing like building triads or seventh chords on each bass or root, these are meant to be chord progressions that sound good with scale bass.

going up
Cm G7/D Cm/Eb Fm6 G F/A G7/B Cm

going down
Cm Gm/Bb Ab7(#11) G G7/F Cm/Eb G7/D Cm

bloody gorgeous imo. Outer voices in tenths works well for the voice leading.

there’s a squillion variations but those are the basic ones - notice melodic minor bass ascending

(you could go Cm Bbm7 Eb7/Bb Abmaj7 Ab7#11 Cm/G G/F Cm/Eb Dm7b5 G7/D Cm or something, which takes in a digression to Ab major)

You can easily make a jazz version of this type of thing. Stepwise basses always sound good.

[Christian Miller]

And of course various forms of the lamento (descending chromatic bass) that mix up the minor scales and allow a chromatic descent to the V

1 7 b7 6 b6 5

Simple Baroque style
Cm G/B Gm/Bb F/A Fm/Ab G7
There’s a few jazz tunes that do this sort of thing. no moon at all springs to mind.

Obvious jazz version
Cm Cmmaj7/B Cm7/Bb Cm6/A Abmaj7 G7
loads of jazz tunes do this - CESH or a line cliche as it’s known.

the chromatic line is often used in melody to create lines over minor chords; so it’s a ‘mixed minor’; you see this to large extent in jazz lines.

Again there’s crazy variations in both classical and jazz repertoire (How Insensitive is one, based on Chopin) but I want to keep it to just the minor key.

[JCat]

Major or minor? You'll learn on a need-to-know basis.

Example 1:
The key of F-major (b) contains one flat, a Bb
The key of D-minor (b) also contains one flat, a Bb
The score got one flat, but you won't know if it's F-major or D-minor until you have closer look.
A musician sight reads and plays the notes as written and for this purpose one flat just means one flat, no more no less.

Example 2:
A song composed in C-minor (bbb). The score got three flats and starts with a Cm-chord.
Harmonically the music is actually closer to C-major than Eb-major (bbb) and therefore may be approached as a composition in C, meaning major or minor is of secondary importance.
A musician analyzes Miles Davis' "Solar" and soon realizes that the changes have more to do with C-major than the opening chord CMm7. The fact that the chart got three flats (bbb) is a statement that the composer/arranger wants you to observe the aspect of C-minor. It doesn't mean that the song is written in Eb-major (bbb).

[Christian Miller]

Major or minor? You'll learn on a need-to-know basis.

Example 1:
The key of F-major (b) contains one flat, a Bb
The key of D-minor (b) also contains one flat, a Bb
The score got one flat, but you won't know if it's F-major or D-minor until you have closer look.
A musician sight reads and plays the notes as written and for this purpose one flat just means one flat, no more no less.

Example 2:
A song composed in C-minor (bbb). The score got three flats and starts with a Cm-chord.
Harmonically the music is actually closer to C-major than Eb-major (bbb) and therefore may be approached as a composition in C, meaning major or minor is of secondary importance.
A musician analyzes Miles Davis' "Solar" and soon realizes that the changes have more to do with C-major than the opening chord CMm7. The fact that the chart got three flats (bbb) is a statement that the composer/arranger wants you to observe the aspect of C-minor. It doesn't mean that the song is written in Eb-major (bbb).

OOH that sneaky modal interchange.

but to be honest I disagree. That Fmaj7 chord is unusual for Cm, but the other chords are not unusual. The tonicisations (ii V moves) to Eb and Db are reasonably common for a minor key tune; being the relative minor and bII or ‘Neapolitan’ tonality that often comes up in minor tunes (think Blue Bossa.) We quite often see

Dbmaj7 Dm7b5 G7b9

(In ATTYA it’s used as a smooth way of getting from Ab/F natural minor to C major again via modal interchange.)

you could even think Db as a modal interchange to the C phrygian if you are into that sort of thing; yet another minor scale.

More importantly, the melody itself is squarely minor key give or take a few alterations like the blues Gb. Definitely not major, loads of Ebs!

in practice you have to play the changes… so….. doesn’t matter that much?

[JCat]

OOH that sneaky modal interchange.

but to be honest I disagree. That Fmaj7 chord is unusual for Cm, but the other chords are not unusual. The tonicisations (ii V moves) to Eb and Db are reasonably common for a minor key tune; being the relative minor and bII or ‘Neapolitan’ tonality that often comes up in minor tunes (think Blue Bossa.) you could even think Db as a modal interchange to the C phrygian if you are into that sort of thing; yet another minor scale.

in practice you have to play the changes… so….. doesn’t matter that much?

The composition "Sunny" by guitarist Chuck Wayne got the same changes apart from the opening chord. Miles "borrowed" the song and very clever changed the opening chord from C7M to CmM7.

Arguably, major or minor is of secondary importance. I hope you agree that the song is not written in the key of Eb-major.

[Mick Wright]

re. 'sneaky', I always liked the Beatles' Michelle' for that: while the song's chords are from the harmonised F minor scale(s), the tonic chord is major, most of the time - lots to talk about there!

All the best
MW

[Christian Miller]

The composition "Sunny" by guitarist Chuck Wayne got the same changes apart from the opening chord. Miles "borrowed" the song and very clever changed the opening chord from C7M to CmM7.

Arguably, major or minor is of secondary importance. I hope you agree that the song is not written in the key of Eb-major.

yeah for me the clincher is the key of the melody, it’s Cm. You know the bit we guitar players forget to think about haha.

haha no not Eb

but the definition of what exactly is a key is surprisingly slippery. When is it a temporary tonicisation and when is it a modulation?, for example. In terms of changes playing we usually track most of the temporary key changes… at least we do these days…

[Christian Miller]

re. 'sneaky', I always liked the Beatles' Michelle' for that: while the song's chords are from the harmonised F minor scale(s), the tonic chord is major, most of the time - lots to talk about there!

All the best
MW

I once read a (classical) harmony text that suggested that we shouldn’t think of the major and parallel minor tonalities as separate things at all given the amount of borrowing that goes on.