stephane b asked 8 years ago
Jon,
In module 5, lesson ‘Recapitulation Transition’, about 5′ in the lesson, you said “Closely related keys in minor have to do more with how many notes are shared between the scale and not the chords of the minor scale”. What does that mean?
Jon Brantingham Staff answered 8 years ago
If you look at the key signatures for closely related keys, you’ll notice that they are all only 1 accidental different. For instance:
C minor – 3 Flats
Closely related keys
Eb major – 3 Flats
F minor – 4 flats
Ab major – 4 flats
G minor – 2 flats
Bb major – 2 flats
What is critical here, is that G minor, and not G major. G major is the V chord that we use, but it is actually a chromatically inflected chord. We raise the 7th to give us the leading tone. This creates that pull to tonic.
But the closely related key is G minor, which is part of the natural minor scale.