Chords of key

[SBassman]

Ok, I'll expose my ignorance on this:

Many books will describe the *chords* of a major key:

i.e. The chords of G major are
G, Am, Bm, C, D7, Em, F#m7-5

What are the chords for G minor?

[phxlbrmpf]

G minor, A dimished, Bb major, C minor, D minor, Eb major, F major(b7).

It's easy when you know the pattern.

[tim99]

You just write down the scale and take the triads moving up the scale.

If you number the notes in a typical eight note (seven different notes) scale:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

The chords are:

1 3 5

2 4 6

3 5 7

4 6 1

5 7 2

6 1 3

7 2 4

If you do this for four note chords (seventh chords) you just start with 1 3 5 7, and move up with four note chords.

If you write out the scale, and pick the chords moving up the scale, you will have figured out the scale chords.

But, darn, much of western major/minor music has a very important V (dominant five chord, in jazz typically the dominant seventh chord) to I (tonic or root chord) chord progression movement. The tension of the five seventh chord to the release of the tonic chord. But when you do the above to figure out the minor scale chords, the five chord is not a dominant seventh chord.

So...in some music we simply alter the scale. This is where the other minor scales come from.

Look at this thread:

Please explain the minor scales for me

[steveb98]

Do you understand the term "Relative Minor Key" all major keys have a Relative minor key. This is because they share the same notes, so they have to same chords if you harmonize the scales. The Relative Minor is based on the 6th degree of the Major scale. So in C Major its Relative Minor is A Minor.
In your question G Minor is the Relative Minor of Bb Major. You will hear the reverse too. The Relative Major of G Minor is Bb Major. It you know the Minor key then go up a minor 3rd interval to find the Relative Major.

To prove this to yourself write out the C Major scale and then the harmonized C Major scale. Now write out A Minor scale and compare the notes. Now harmonized the A Minor scale and compare to C Major scale. All the same. Easiest to learn how to figure out the Relative Minor of a Major scale and Relative Major of a Minor key. Easier than learning a another set of isolated info.

Always look for relationships and patterns when learning something. That way you can take a little information and get a lot out of it.

[slybass3000]

Even if you can use the relative minor of a key like G min. for Bb maj,it is important to notice that you need a dominant V chord (D7 here) in the key of Gmin. Something you don't have in the minor natural scale. So,in minor keys,we often use more then one scale because of the different extensions we can use on the chords. There are a lot of altered chords in minor keys. So, one scale that is used a lot in minor is the minor harmonic scale (G minor harmonic here).

G-A-Bb-C-D-Eb-F#

So,now you can build a D7b9 on the V7 degree which leads smoothly to G min.

Hope this will help,

SB