Q abt C Major & relative A minor

[flippya2000]

Hi,

Just wondering if someone could clear this up for me: My piano teacher told me that both C-Major & its relative A-minor both share the same key signature. Fair enough.

I then proceed to play both scales, but am told that I played A-minor wrong - My teacher said that it has a G# in it & that the VII tone of every relative minor scale is raised by 1semitone/sharpened. My teacher then repeated that although C-Major/A-minor have the same key signature, that they contain different notes..

..This is really confusing me, what's the point of having a key signature if it doesn't tell you that the VII tone is sharpened? Is it just to confuse me!!? (I have a hard enough time playing as it is, without these curve balls being thrown at me!)

I was wondering if anyone can confirm if the info given to me is correct? Thanks for reading, & any help on this

[sloworm]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_fifths

maybe?

[flippya2000]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_fifths

maybe?

Cheers for the reply

Looking here:
http://www.looknohands.com/chordhouse/piano/
At the A Harmonic minor - it does say there's a G# in it - but I still don't understand why it shares the same key sig as C-Major..

[VicDiesel]

At the A Harmonic minor - it does say there's a G# in it - but I still don't understand why it shares the same key sig as C-Major..

Because A minor has a 3rd that's in the scale of C.

Minor is a really tricky issue. There are 3 minor scales. Harmonic, which has F and G#, and then melodic up and down, which have F#-G# and G-F respectively. Any piece you'll play in A minor will likely have both Gs and G#s in it. Depending on the time period (1600: simple, 1750, Bach: very complicated) you can have any amount of chromaticism in it.

Victor.

[jancivil]

your theory teacher is being dogmatic.

MINOR means one thing unequivocally: the third is a minor third.

To use the terms tells us nothing, automatically, about the seventh degree.

If the type of minor she means automatically or strictly contains a raised seventh, maybe it should be in the key sig. One sharp, g#, in 'a minor'...

EG., one of the Bach-era minor scales, called melodic minor, has raised 6 and 7 degrees on ascension and lowered versions as you descend. Arguably, this correlates to the practice period she means when she claims 'g# is the correct note'.

She isn't actually correct, in other words.

G# is the correct note for the normal 'dominant' chord in A minor, E major: *V*.
This is an alteration from natural minor and occurs as an accidental.

[nuffink]

Key signatures indicate the key of the diatonic (or major) scale. That the piece is in a relative minor* is implied by accidentals.


* Or, indeed, any other mode or scale.

[jancivil]

uh, not actually.

A (relative to C major) minor might be implied by accidentals, particularly raising (f and/or) g.
In a practice period where it applies.

Aeolian mode on A, aka natural minor, uses no accidentals, is 'relative to' AND 'self-same as' C major. With a difference of tonic note only.

[nuffink]

uh, not actually.

A (relative to C major) minor might be implied by accidentals, particularly raising (f and/or) g.
In a practice period where it applies.

Aeolian mode on A, aka natural minor, uses no accidentals, is 'relative to' AND 'self-same as' C major. With a difference of tonic note only.

There are no key signatures specifically for minor scales or the modes of the major scale. The key signature is the same as for the relative major.

As wiki puts it...

For a given musical mode the key signature defines the diatonic scale that a piece of music uses. Most scales require that some notes be consistently sharpened or flattened. For example, in the key of G major, the leading-note is F sharp. So the key signature associated with G major is the one-sharp key signature. However, there is no causal connection; a piece with a one-sharp key signature is not necessarily in the key of G major. Many other factors determine the key of a piece. This is particularly true of minor keys. The famous "Dorian" Toccata and Fugue by Bach is so named because, although it is in D minor, there is no key signature, implying that it is in the key of C. Instead, the B flats necessary for D minor are written as accidentals as and when necessary.

Which is a more long winded way of writing exactly what I wrote in the above post.

[jancivil]

uh, not actually.

A (relative to C major) minor might be implied by accidentals, particularly raising (f and/or) g.
In a practice period where it applies.

Aeolian mode on A, aka natural minor, uses no accidentals, is 'relative to' AND 'self-same as' C major. With a difference of tonic note only.

There are no key signatures specifically for minor scales or the modes of the major scale. The key signature is the same as for the relative major.

As wiki puts it...

some information that doesn't add anything to the discussion and would confuse a newcomer to this

Which is a more long winded way of writing exactly what I wrote in the above post.

and which i already said in what you just quoted me as having said.

your point? you said something vague about accidentals and modes, modes versus the appropriate 'key signature' uses no accidentals. I clarified it for the benefit of a neophyte.

[nuffink]

You didn't clarify anything. You took a specific instance (the relative Aolian) which has no accidentals and used it to attempt to show I was wrong. You could have picked the relative Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, or Locrian to the same end since they also have no accidentals.
There are also a whole slew of hexatonic scales and their modes which fit the bill. They mostly have no name but I'll list their Forte number if you wish. And there is, of course, the parallel major pentatonic scale and its modes which also have no accidentals when notated with a diatonic key signature.

I'm sure that clarified things even more for the neophyte. Maybe not eh? So I'll have another go...

Flipya,
In general key signatures indicate the key of the diatonic (or major) scale. That the piece is in a relative minor is implied by accidentals. In those instances where the scale or mode of the piece has no accidentals you'll have to use harmonic analysis to determine the scale or mode.

There you go. I'll bet you're glad you asked.

[nuffink]

Damn, I missed one. In the interest of simplification I should have added the parallel Dominant Pentatonic and its modes.

Double damn, there are a ton of pitch class sets I've missed which aren't locally diatonic.

Flipya, you're on your own mate.

[JumpingJackFlash]

Hi,

Just wondering if someone could clear this up for me: My piano teacher told me that both C-Major & its relative A-minor both share the same key signature. Fair enough.

I then proceed to play both scales, but am told that I played A-minor wrong - My teacher said that it has a G# in it & that the VII tone of every relative minor scale is raised by 1semitone/sharpened. My teacher then repeated that although C-Major/A-minor have the same key signature, that they contain different notes..

..This is really confusing me, what's the point of having a key signature if it doesn't tell you that the VII tone is sharpened? Is it just to confuse me!!? (I have a hard enough time playing as it is, without these curve balls being thrown at me!)

I was wondering if anyone can confirm if the info given to me is correct? Thanks for reading, & any help on this

If you have been helped by the above short, but complicated information, then great.
If you would like more detail assuming little or no existing knowledge, you may find some useful information in some or all of the following posts:

An Introduction to Music Theory
An Introduction to Key-Signatures (You might have to scroll down a bit to the section on Key Signatures)
Sharps, Flats and how to work out Keys
Scales, Modes and Chords

In short, it's important not to mix up key signatures with accidentals (both words in my Glossary.

[mr]

Oh... I'm so glad all my songs are in C major.

[Marc Schonbrun]

If you have an E7 or a G# Diminished, then you're in A minor.
If you have a G7, or B diminished, you're in C major.

It's overly simple, but that's really how you should deal with it

[flippya2000]

Thanks for the replies every1,

Looking more at the link I posted above, it appears that my teacher was right AFAICT. All the harmonic minors (aka relative minors, again AFAICT) have a sharpened VII. Eg, A-minor has G#, E-minor has 3 sharps (2 sharps used in its relative major (D-Major) & a raised 7th), F#minor has 4 sharps (3 sharps that are also in A-Major + a raised 7th), etc, etc

I still don't really understand how the relative minors can share their relative majors' key signatures when they have a sharpened 7th. Looking at F#minor it looks like the reason is due to enharmonic note naming, (it starts with F#, so it's VII can't be F-natural <coz a scale can't have 2 notes with the same letter in it (F#,F) - the entire universe would blow up if this ever happened> thus the F-natural is renamed to, the infintitely more confusing, E#!)

Anyways, thanks again for replies!