The Difference Between Major and Minor Video Lecture - The Ultimate Guitar

we live in a world of opposing forces
where there is good there will always be
evil where there is lightness there will
be darkness where there is a
sophisticated well-mannered gentleman
there will always be a drummer now major
and minor are also opposites by the
dictionary definition of them major
being important minor being not
important but musically it's not quite
as simple as that so I wanted to talk
about the differences between major and
minor now it's not as simple in black
and white as that because we have to
know if we're talking about a chord or a
scale so for instance like an E major
chord looks like that mean minor chord
looks like that now there's very little
differences just one note in fact you
might think just by looking at the shape
but you're just taking something away to
go from major to minor but what you're
really doing is you're just changing
part of the chord so the the quick
definition is mine area is really just
major with a flat third but if talk
about scales it goes a little bit beyond
that I'm sure you know or maybe you
don't know but the major scale right now
I'm just playing G major
now guitarists have a kind of unique
advantage to some other instruments
because we can learn with shapes so the
major scale looks like a shape like you
see here so the notes would be G a B C D
F sharp and then another G now if we to
play minor the shape would change G
minor affair gonna G but what's really
happening you can see these as two
completely different shapes but
musically it's more that minor is an
altered version of a shape so if you
look at this G major chord again
and g-minor you notice if they actually
share a lot of common tones here the G
is the same no matter what shape you use
and the a is also the same so these are
all intervals and once you kind of get a
grasp on the intervals then you'll have
a better understanding of how you can
use them and what the difference is
between them so let's actually put write
this out so the intervals again and
interval just being a space between two
notes music intervals are measured in
two ways whole steps or half steps a
whole step being two frets a half step
being one fret so if you read up in
Delta G major g a b c d e f-sharp G we
can see there are spaces between some of
these notes for example between G and a
there's a G sharp we're not even going
to play that we're going to jump a whole
step so there's a pattern that we can
use it whole whole half whole half
okay so whole whole half whole whole
whole half it's kind of a mouthful but
it's really important actually uh if we
look at the minor scale notes of this
here I'll just play the G minor shape
again we've got a G and a an a sharp B
flat so I could be a B flat C D E flat
and F and then another G now this has a
different set of intervals that goes
with it so let's just look at the set
here whole half whole half whole now
looking at these two there's actually a
way that you can make these to line up
to say the same thing and that's where
can be kind of confusing between what's
the difference we made your minor
because minor is actually the major
scale just starting on a different
interval so let's actually do something
with a little bit easier notes to talk
about so the C major scale it's just C D
F
we see there's the shape and here's the
interval kind of showing you the notes
again the way you get those notes is is
you starting to see it go whole step
whole step half step whole step whole
step whole step half step now if we were
to start on the 6th note of that 1 2 3 4
5 6 you'd see an A now if we did the the
minor scale interval we talked about in
the G minor scale but started on a it it
would give you an a B C a so as you can
see the notes in C major and the notes
in a mine are the exact same notes we're
just starting on a different one so the
minor scale is actually inside of the
major scale now the difference is if you
play a minor or you play it starting on
a see you even though you're playing the
same notes if you kind of sound
different C major kind of has like a
happier sound a minor has kind of a
sadder sound that's why you might just
be like ok if you try to describe it C
major sounds happier and a minor sound
sad I mean as accurate as that is you
know people can kind of interpret sounds
differently but the difference between
major and minor is that same thing so if
we look at again we're going to stick in
C it's a C major if we were to make a
chord out of this we would take the 1st
3rd and the 5th notes of that course so
C and G and if we put it into a shape
you end up with that C shape now if we
were to take the minor scale and take
the first third and fifth notes of that
look at a minor 135 that will give us
this shape a minor now another way we
could look at that is just think of it
pretend that you were in a major so you
have the 1st 3rd and 5th of an a major
a c-sharp they'll give you a a major
core now if you wanted to make that
minor you just flatten the third which
means you would take that c-sharp and
turn it into a C so shape wise core
shape wise go from a major flattening
the third to a minor and that that
really changes how the chord sounds it
also changes what key that's why and a
lot of songs you won't see the same note
have a major or a minor chord both of
them in the same song if it's in the
same key now there are exceptions to
that or maybe some song with credit it
doesn't necessarily sound bad having
them in there but you are kind of making
a key change and you're fundamentally
changing the notes of the song so the
difference between major and minor in a
chord is a chord that is minor has a
flat third two of the three notes are
the same but the one in the middle the
three is flattened because you're using
the minor scale in a scale the different
food major minor is minor is the major
scale but you're starting it on the six
no so hopefully that's helpful