The Power of Relative Minor Video Lecture | Guitar: Become a Pro (English) - Music

relative minor it's more than what you
can call your teenage girlfriend if
you're living in the deep south it's
actually a really helpful piece of music
theory that is simple to understand and
has really an infinite amount of ways to
utilize so this is also going to kind of
double as how to find out what Kier and
if you don't know the chords but
basically the simple answer of what
relative minor means is it's the minor
scale that goes along with kind of like
a partnered major scale so what that
means is let's just say we're in the key
of C right we know we're in the key of C
if we need to know where the relative
minor is there are two very easy ways to
find out if you know what the quote or
what the notes are in the key of C c d e
f G a B you can always look at the six
note so in any major scale the six note
is going to be that scales of that Keys
relative minor so C major and a minor
partner-up very well together now all
that means is the minor scale is located
within a key on that six note now
especially for guitar a really easy way
to figure this out is let's say you know
it doesn't even matter what what key
Rimbaud let's state and see for just a
second here so if we know that the
eighth fret on the low E string is a C
you can count through the major scale
one two three four five six and find out
that this is the relative minor being a
or an easier way to do it I think is
just take whatever root note you're on
and back it up three frets and that's
going to be the best way the quickest
way to find out what the relative minor
is until you start to get all the stuff
in your head and you can just recall it
instantly so if you're in the key of C
you just back up one two three frets and
there's where the minor scale exists
right if you're in the key of a you
don't even have to know you're in the
key of a if you just know that this is
your root note for whatever key ring you
just back it up three frets so the
relative minor of a is f sharp the
relative minor of D 1 2 3 is B now how
does this help us out so we're going to
talk a little bit about the minor scale
and specifically the minor pentatonic
scale and this is going to be the best
way to find out what key you're in in my
opinion this is how I do it the best way
to find out what key you're in if you
don't know the chords right so let's
just look at the minor scale real quick
right let's just keep it in a minor so
we've got five seven eight five seven
eight five seven nine five seven five
six eight five seven now if you don't
know how to get that I can link to
another video but let's just assume you
know how to make the minor scale and
let's actually simplify it even more
let's make the minor pentatonic scale
all the only difference between minor
scale and the minor pentatonic scale you
can think of the minor pentatonic scale
is being kind of like the minor scale
light it's only two notes per string
instead of how sometimes the minor scale
have three so the a minor pentatonic
shape is a it's really like the first
scale shape I ever learned it's probably
the most popular scale shape looks like
this five eight five seven five seven
five seven five eight five so basically
this is taking kind of like like the
highlights of the a minor scale and just
kind of condensing them into two notes
per string right now minor pentatonic is
valuable for a lot of reasons and in
fact kind of like a credo of soloing
that I stand by is when in doubt minor
pentatonic now the reason that is is
because it sounds good or passable over
chords that aren't even minor chords
right so for instance any progression in
the key of C major we could play that a
minor pentatonic over and it was sound
good but besides that you could even
play the minor scale or the minor
pentatonic scale over like a you can
play a C minor pentatonic over a C major
chord for instance you let me just loop
with the C major chord real quick
right so there's a C right naturally you
want to play the a minor pentatonic
scale that's kind of where is going to
fit the best but you can actually play a
C minor pentatonic scale over that so
the strangest thing is it actually
doesn't sound too bad and I'm kind of
playing the opposite of maybe what I
intended to so when in doubt minor
pentatonic so again everything we've
talked about so far is assuming we know
what the chords are and what key you're
in right but eventually there's going to
be time in your life where you're
playing guitar with some hippie and he's
playing the chords and you're like hey
bro what key are you in
he's like Keys man I'm playing in the
key of love you're like whatever that's
not helping me at all so let's say you
just have a chord progression and you
need to find out where you would play a
solo over it and you don't even know the
chords maybe you can look at his hands
but maybe zan we're tuning whatever so
I'm just going to kind of lay down a
chord progression and show you how how
you can use that relative minor minor
pentatonic thing to use your ears to
find out so I'm not even gonna tell you
the chorus here I'm just going to do a
quick little loop and we're going to
show you how you can use the minor
pentatonic scale to find out what key
you're in and where to put the shapes
and everything like that okay so his
loop
okay so we have that kind of going over
and over again and now the way that I
like to think of it I like to kind of
cycle through different minor pentatonic
shapes until I kind of find the one that
sounds the best and sounds the most
right okay so what I'm going to do is
I'm going to play the loop and I'm going
to cycle through just a little three
note kind of part of the minor
pentatonic scale alright so again if we
just take the bottom three strings of
the minor pentatonic I'm gonna simplify
even more I'm just gonna cut it down to
these three notes the index finger on
each of them I'm gonna play backwards
now you can kind of think of this as an
arpeggio for a minor chord right if like
this is a minor chord voice you just
play the bottom three strings so I'm
going to cycle through every single fret
until I find the one that fits the best
okay so here's the loop that's not it
I sounded okay but I'm gonna keep going
that was close it sounded right but
and then I get here then okay maybe I
can try the whole shape so once I got to
this shape right here which is the need
minor pentatonic shape it sounded the
most correct in my opinion now also too
there are two sections it sounded okay
too and that was on the a and the B R
now basically I thought that the one
that sounded most right was the one here
on the E right so a kind of reverse
engineering what we already talked about
if I just go forward three frets one two
three from the minor pentatonic that I
was just playing I end up on a G so I
can discern that I'm in the key of G
major because ii minor pentatonic
sounded the most correct now a minor
pentatonic and b minor pentatonic didn't
sound bad at all
because those would be representative of
minor scale modes in the key of G so my
advice to kind of like to start playing
with your ears a little more is this to
kind of pick out a pattern like again
for me the one that helped me out the
most was just taking it and playing
those three notes backwards and I kind
of just developed a sense for where that
fit in the best spot and for me that was
the best way to find out what key I'm in
and that all came from the power of
relative minor