The Minor Scale

What you’ll learn

Play the white keys from A up to the next A and you get a minor scale: A minor. It uses exactly the notes of C major, but its home note is A, so the steps fall differently:

whole, half, whole, whole, half, whole, whole

Compare that with the major scale: whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. Starting the same notes from a different home moves the half steps, and the scale sounds darker.

A minor is C major’s relative minor: same notes, same key signature, different home. Every major key has one. To find the relative minor, go to the major scale’s 6th note, or count three half steps down from its home note:

Major key	Relative minor	Key signature
C major	A minor	none
G major	E minor	one sharp (F♯)
F major	D minor	one flat (B♭)

The relative minor guide has all 15 major keys with their relative minors, and three ways to find them.

So a key signature fits two keys. To tell which one a tune is in, look for its home note, usually where it ends. One sharp and ending on G is G major; ending on E, it’s E minor.

This lesson uses the natural minor scale. Real music often raises the 7th note (the harmonic minor) or the 6th and 7th going up (the melodic minor); those come later.

How the lesson works

The keyboard reaches up to A, so A minor fits. There are three tasks:

1. Build it. Build A minor, E minor and D minor a key at a time, following the minor pattern. For the last one the pattern is hidden, until a wrong key brings it back.
2. Relative keys. “What is G major’s relative minor?” Tap its home note. Six right.
3. Major or minor? A short tune with a key signature: is it in the major key or its relative minor? Look at the note it ends on. Eight right.

To play the minor scales at the piano, with fingering and each one’s relative major, print the free piano minor scales chart.