Theory Made Easy 2

What is a Relative Minor ?

Any Major chord has a Relative Minor chord - conversely any Minor chord has a relative Major.

To find the Relative Minor of any major chord you simply play the chord as a barre then drop down the neck four frets counting the one you're on.

You then 'Minor' the chord - i.e. play the minor version of that chord.

I have put a soundfile of this starting on a C Major at the 8th fret ending up on A Minor at the 5th fret. See the tab also.

The Tab shows the moves to find the relative minor of a Cmajor chord

A Minor is the relative minor of C Major.

D Minor is the relative minor of F Major.

E Minor is the relative minor of G Major.

The three chords pictured below are the relative minors of the three chord trick in the key of C Major.

They all belong in the key structure of C Major.

Note that the root notes of the three minors follow the same pattern as the three majors - i.e. straight across then up 2 frets (follow the red dots).

We now have Six chords in the Key Structure of C Major - three majors and three minors.

Exercise

Work out the six chords for as many other keys as you can. You will find that to drop down four frets from , say , F# at the 2nd fret is impossible.
If your guitar can be played at fret 14 work it out from there - if not find F# rooted on the 5th string at fret 9 and work it out from there.