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Double Bass Learning (and remembering) Relative Minors

#21
Going up a major 6th to find the relative minor seems like an extra step. When I learned this (35 years ago) I pictured my left hand on the bass. 1st finger on the major, 4th finger down one string on the minor.
But, that worked for me and you'll figure it out.
 
#22
A hurdle that players of fretted instruments struggle with after a certain point is that they learn music as a series of repeating physical patterns. This really accelerates facility on their instrument, but can be a limitation when you step away (as you describe). Most people learn to play guitar chords by shape and not how to build chords with intervals, based on the chord qualities. If you ask a reasonably good self taught guitar player to play a C7 chord, they can. If you ask them what notes make up a C7 chord, they have to go to their guitar, finger the chord shape and then count up from the open strings to identify the notes.

I suspect this may be some part of your problem. "up a 6th or down and minor 3rd", is plenty descriptive for a lot of people.

What I suggest is start looking at what notes make up the scales in these keys. Key of C - C Major chord, no sharps or flats, all the naturals starting on C. All the white keys on a piano. If you played a minor scale using only those same notes, what would it be? It would be A minor. All the white keys on the piano, starting with A are the same notes as C major. That's WHY it is it's relative minor.

The key of F has one flat (Bb), so does the D natural minor scale.
The key of B Flat has 2 flats, one at Bb and one at Eb, so does the G natural minor scale.

Maybe working through how these scales are built and how they relate to one another will give you a different anchor. Maybe it's best to work through this away from your instrument to do it without the crutch.

Just another set of ideas.

For me, all the "modes" were just too much to memorize. Once it made sense to me musically, it was way easier for me than all of that.
 
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#23
Deriving it and applying it are two different things. I would not confuse the two.

Up a 6th/down a 3rd or being able to create the scale as Troy describes is how to derive it. Flash cards, or hearing it is, IMO, the correct way to apply it. You need to be able to do both, the latter being more important.
 
#24
jasonrp said:
I've gone through the searches on the cycle of fifths just to try and find the answer before posting but I've got nothing. Does anybody have a good way to learn the relative minors? I can find them easily on my bass but I was looking for a way to retain the note names by memory. For example, if I had my bass I could just slide down from G to e but if you asked me without my bass I would have to think before I answered.

ANY ideas would be welcome because repetition just isn't helping make them stick for some reason
Click to expand...
I'm just getting back into playing after taking some years off and am going over this right now. I never really learned the Circle of Fifths before, but here's what helped me with the relative minors. Let's take C as an example. If you go up to the next note from C in the Circle, you see it's G. G is a fifth away from C, so if you then go up a whole step from G you get A. A is the relative minor because it's a Sixth away from C.
So basically, go to the next note in the circle and add a whole step and that is your relative minor for the previous note in the Circle. Hope this makes sense and helps.
 
#25
Play it and say it. There are three cycles of Major 6: (C-A-F#-D#(Eb)-C), (Db-Bb-G-E-C#(Db)) and (B-G#(Ab)-F-D-B) - Only four notes each! Pick one to work on and say the notes as you play them. Once you've got the Major 6 interval in your head get away from playing them in a pattern. Challenge yourself further by limiting yourself to one or two strings and occasionally playing the next note at a lower pitch instead of higher.
 
#26
In the end, I'm learning them the same way I do everything else; with bullheaded repetition and saying the notes while I play them. If I play a C scale, for example, I'll mention the relative note while I'm playing: C D E F G A relative B C. Sounds strange but it works for me. If I'm playing a minor scale, I call the root minor also: A minor B C D E F G A minor. Probably the harder way, but for me it works.

HIJACK TIME!!!:

This is totally unrelated but it's my thread and I hate starting new ones for questions that may be answered quickly

The song, "Runaround Sue" has a fairly simple I V bass line to it so I wrote a walking line that I like better (still simple) When I put it to paper, the main chords are D, B minor, G, and A. For theory practice, I'm putting roman numerals down under the chords and if the song is in D, I'm getting I, VI, IV, V. Am I doing that correctly or am I in the sweet spot of having just enough knowledge to confuse myself?
 
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