The relative major and minor concept is really useful to learn and understand.
Basically, every major chord has a relative minor chord. The Relative minor chord is the 6th chord in the scale of chords (see the major scale and how to buiild chords). This can incredibly easily be found when playing bar chords by simply playing a major chord, then playing the same form of bar chord, but this time moving it down 3 frets and making it minor. You now have the relative minor and major pair.
For instance:
Example 1. Play an Emajor chord by barring the 7th fret and playing an Amajor bar chord shape. Then simply move down three frets to the 4th fret and play an Aminor bar chord shape. You have just played C#minor, which is relative to Emajor.
Example 2. Play a C shape by playing an Amajor bar chord on the 3rd fret. Then move down 3 frets and play and Aminor shape. You should just be playing an open Aminor chord, which is relative to Cmajor. This works and you should be able to hear it when swapping between playing a normal Cmajor chord and an Aminor.
Example 3. Play an Amajor chord by use of an Emajor shape on the 5th fret. Then slide down 3 frets to the 2nd fret and play an Eminor chord. This is an F#minor, which is relative to Amajor.
Example 4. Play a G with an Emajor bar chord on the 3rd fret. Slide down 3 frets and you have Eminor. So you can switch between G (open or barred) and Em and you will have a relative major and minor pair.
This works for any major chord and it's relative minor that can be found 3 frets down.
The minor chord relative to a major chord will always be the 6th step up the major scale.
If you ever wish to know what chords are part of a particular minor key, they are exactly the same chords as it's relative major!! Now that really does simplify things a little.
What does this all mean? Well amongst many other things:
1. You can be playing in a major key and effortlessly switch to it's relative minor key to change the feeling of the song.
2. You can also remain in the major key and change the melody or lead break that you are playing between the major and it's relative minor to switch between a happy / bluesy type feel.
3. You can be playing a major scale or major pentatonic scale and switch between playing over the major chord (or using the major note as the root note) and the minor chord (or using the 6th degree of the major scale as your root note).
Have fun!!!
This article can serve as an introduction to modal playing, an in depth article on this subject will follow. But there are already clues all over this site as to what modal playing is. See the major scale for more hints!
Back to Stages of Mastering the Guitar
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