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Chords in the Natural Minor scale

Hello. In this lecture, we're going to be looking at minor chords. So previously, we used a pattern to work out the major chords which was major minor, minor, major, major, minor diminished major. So this allowed us to work out which chords we play in the major scale. So for example, the first note will be a major, the sixth note will be a minor and so on and so forth. But we also have a pattern to work out a minor scale. This is the pattern. So the pattern is minor diminished major minor, minor major major, then it repeats and that's basically a similar kind of thing for major scale. So if we're starting on C minor, the first one will be ac minor, then it will be D diminished and E flat major, F minor G minor, a flat major and then B flat major and C minor. Remember before to work out a major scale. It's five semitones from the root to the third and then four semitones from the third to the fifth to work out a minor cord. It's four T semitones from the root to the third and five semit...

ones from the third to the fifth and to work out a diminished chord, it's four semitones from the root to the third. And there are four semitones from the third to the fifth. So we can just write out some of these right now. Let's go into Ableton life. So the first one is C minor. So we have to use this pattern which is tone semitone tone tone semitone tone tone. So let's use this to write out the notes of C minor. So it's Town semitone tone, semitone tone tone, semitone tone tone. So it's tone the first one, semitone tone tone, semitone tone tone. And these are the notes of C minor. Sometimes Ableton Live or other digital audio workstations will write sharps instead of flats. C minor. Really, it's an E flat, an A flat and a B flat, but it's the same kind of thing really. If it's a sharper or flat, it's just written differently. But in music theory terms, a traditional music theory person would generally want this written as flats. But if it says sharps, if it sounds the same, it's pretty much the same. So these are the notes that we're going to use. So the first one is ac so it starts in this note here, we can work it out like I said before by using this pattern minor, diminish major minor, minor, major, major minor, or we can just go through the chords and just work out really the route the third and the fifth. And we can a lot of the time, see if it's a major chord by the spaces or a minor chord or diminished chord by the gaps between the root, the third and the fifth. But I'll show you on here also. So the first one was ac minus. So route. So 23. So this is the 3rd 45, this is the fifth, if we count up here, 123412345. So that's four and five, the distance. So that means it's ac minor. Next one's this note here. So it's 123, this note here. 45. This note here, you can instantly see this is diminished because the gaps are smaller, you can also count 12341234. So this one is ad diminished. Next one is this note here is ad shop or an E flat. Don't worry too much. If you're getting confused about shops and flats, they both basically mean the same thing. They're just different names for the notes. 123. So it's this one here. You can see now that this gaps bigger. So this must be a major or augmented. You never know augmented is five and five, but it's not, it's a major. So it's 345, this one here. So it's 123451234. So this one is a Dsharp or an E flat major. Next is this F so it's one 23. So this note here, G sharp or a flat then four or five. Just this one here, you can see now that's quite small. That's quite big. So it's 123412345. So that's F minor. Next is a G, 123. This note here, we can just continue this passing up here. So to write that in, I went quite fast, I just used the pattern tone semi tone tone tone, semitone tone tone. And that's how you can write in a minor scale. When you start doing this a lot, it'll just become second nature. You won't even need to think about it. You just write in the scales right in the chords and you just instantly know, for example, the fifth chord of C minor is a G minor if you're in a minor scale, but in a major scale, the fifth chord of C major is G major, but you'll just understand after a while, it just come a little bit faster and you'll get a bit quicker every single time. But it does take practice and you do have to kind of go in and do it the long hard way to start with. And eventually it will just become easier like any skill, any sport, any art, anything like that. The first few times you try, it's quite difficult. But after a while, become easier and easier. And once you've done it a lot of times it just becomes second nature. Really? Ok. So the fifth of the G, so it's 12345 is this D here and this is a minor, we can tell by the gaps. 123412345. So at the moment, we've got C minor de diminished E flat, major, F minor and G minor. Ok. Let's try this E flat. Uh Sorry, a flat. So it's one. So it's three here for five here. That doesn't look quite right. One starts on this note here. G that one is sorry, one, tell you phrase as I say 45. So I knew that wasn't right because it created a diminished shape which is four and four semitones. So the root to the third is four semitones, third to the fifth, it's four semitones. And I know there's only one diminished chord in a major scale. So I knew instantly just by looking at the shape without hearing it that that wasn't right. So a lot of the time you will make mistakes like that, but just work it out. Go back to this, go back to this pattern. You can just work out a flat. OK. So that is a major. So that needs to be a major shape. And now it's a major shape, you can tell by the larger space there. And finally, the last one, is this a sharp or B flat. It's quite hard to match up when it's this far away. Sometimes you might make a mistake. But the good thing is when you move your pencil tool or your cursor tool, it will tell you on the side of Ableton live. Anyway, what notes you're actually hovering over. So it's one, 23, that's 45 tell instantly this is a major. So this is a B flat or a sharp major. So just by looking at this, we can tell mor diminished major, minor, minor, major, minor. Let's check. Minor, diminished major, minor, minor, major, major. Let's just have a listen to this. Let's move these arrows here creates a different sound to a major progression. A lot of the time you wouldn't really use a diminished chord, you can use it as a passing chord. So if you've got a sequence of chords you can play in the diminish really quickly or if you're making say really purposely angry or disturbing music. So if you're writing music for TV, or a film, there's maybe a horror sequence or some kind of dramatic scene going on, maybe you could use some minor chords, but generally, especially in a lot of dance music, you just wanna stick with major and minor chords. But using these core progressions for a minor scale, you can create a different sound, generally more moody, darker can create more kind of depth to your music. A lot of the time I do like to write in major, major scales and minor scales, but it's worth experimenting with both and just seeing which you like. But to start with, I'd recommend writing all of this out, working out the chores just so you know what the chords are where they are and getting used to these patterns. So if we look at this pattern here of working out a minor scale, it's actually the same as a major scale pattern but shifted along. So ignore these last ones. This is where the pattern repeats. So we know there's only one diminished chord in the whole of these patterns. So we can just work it out from the diminished chords. So if we look here, it starts minor diminished major, minor, minor, major major, this is the minor scale, minor, diminish major, minor, minor major major. So what we can do it's just count up and we can find it here. So this is the first note. So we can just count up 123456. So the sixth note of a major scale is the minor scale. So this is also how we can work out the relative minor. So each major scale has a relative minor, it's basically the minor equivalent of the major scale. So if we count up six notes in C major CD efg A, this is a minor and the relative major of C major, relative minor of C major is a minor. So basically, I'm just saying if you count up six notes in the major scale, this will be your relative minor. That's the easiest way to do it. Really? 123456 or count back 3123. I prefer to count up six but some people I know count back three. So if we look at C count up 6123456 because remember C major is just the white notes. When you explore different keys, there will be different black notes. But for C major, it's just the white notes. 123456, it's a minor or count back 3123. And that's how we can work out our relative minor. So we can work out this as well. And that's basically what a relative minor is. I will go into more detail about this. But it's good to know that the patterns are the same. They're just in different orders. So major, mind of mind and major major, mind diminish major, you can work out here as well. So if you look at this major minor, minor, major, major, minor diminished back again, M major. So the minor pattern also repeats. So it's just good to know that these aren't completely different. They are quite similar. There is a relative major and a relative minor for each pattern. And that is basically how you can work out minor core progressions. It's quite a deep, detailed subject this maybe you might want to go back or even screenshot a few of these just so you can work out what's actually going on. So this is the major pattern and here is the minor pattern. Like I said, we will go into more detail about the relative minor and the relative major for the minor scale. But just know for now, every major scale has a relative minor and every minor scale has a relative major. So we can interlock these and we can do something called modulation, which is where we can change keys. And there's a certain technique and pattern we can use when changing keys. So it doesn't sound too weird, we can change keys. So it's nice and smooth, but don't worry about this for now, we'll be looking at this later on. But like I said earlier, I do recommend learning how to write minor scales as well as major scales. Once you've learned how to do the scales, you can work out which chords go with this. And this is really useful. So you can create a lot more interesting music, really major scales are great. There's a lot of fantastic music made just of major scales, but using the tone semitone tone tone semitone tone tone pattern to work out minor scales, then you can work out what chords go of the minor scale. So it's minor diminished major, minor, minor major major. And that's how you can work out a minor scale and all the chords you can use in this diatonic minor scale. So diatonic means you can play the chords right in key. Of course, when you get a bit more advanced, you don't have to stick to the key, you don't have to stick to the chords. You can basically put what you want, but you can't break the rules until you know the rules. Cos you're not even gonna know what rules you're breaking or if you are breaking any rules. So a good thing I would say is learn all this as best. You can memorize it and internalize it, do it hundreds of times. And then once you know what you're doing, once you know what the rules are, then feel free to break them. But to start with, if you're new to music theory, just follow these rules. Tone semi tone tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone minor, diminish major, minor, minor, major, major, minor to work out a minor scale. And which caused you can use to stay in key with your minor scale.