CHORD PROGRESSIONS (6)

The Relative Minor – vi (Six)

In popular music chord progressions, after I, IV and V (One, Four and Five), the chord you are most likely to come across is vi (‘Six’) – the relative minor chord.

The root (name-note) of the relative minor is three semitones below the root of the major I (One) chord. The relative minor (vi) chords of common keys are

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Finding the new chord

At any time, you can use the Keyboard Chord Generator to find chords. The Keyboard Chord Generator uses the circle/square/triangle symbols to show you the chords with the three possible chord tones at the top.

For A minor, the Keyboard Chord Generator will show you this:

Often, the easiest way to learn something new is to compare it to something you already know well – like the C chord.

There is only one note difference between C and A minor chords – the note G goes up a step to note A.

Using the Keyboard Chord Generator charts for C major and A minor, find the closest inversions of I and vi:

Play:

The roots (name-notes) of the chords are arrowed in the music – use this to help you find the notes, whether you read music well or hardly at all.

Look at the voice movement diagrams between the chords. These voice movement diagrams show you which notes stay the same and which change, and whether the changing voices (notes) move up or down.

You will see that in each pair of I and vi, two lines in the voice movement diagrams are horizontal – only one note changes.

The notes C and E occur in both the C major and A minor chords. Only the note G in the C chord changes. It moves upwards one step to A.

In fact, we can make this a rule for all keys, and say:

The fifth (5) of I (chord One) goes up one scale step to become the root (R) of vi.

Read that through a few times and let it sink in! Remembering that will make it easier to find and remember any relative minor (vi) chord.

Going it alone

This is what you have to do.

Starting from C root position, fit the ‘closest inversion’ of A minor into the I-IV-V (C-F-G) chord progression of Lesson Five to make a C-Am-F-G (I-vi-IV-V) chord progression.

Only the vi (A minor) chord is new.

(If at any point you think going it alone isn't right for you right now, jump down to the guided version of this lesson using this link.)

Here’s a ‘lead sheet’ (pronounced “leed sheet”) with symbols of the chords and inversions you have to find.

Use the Keyboard Chord Generator to find the right inversions, or just work straight out of your own knowledge.

If you’ve found the right chords, your performance will sound like the audio clip. Use the voice movement diagrams to help you remember the changes.

Next, play each set of I, vi, IV and V inversions once as just now, then once using the ‘next inversion of V up’ to climb up through the four sets of inversions (as in Lesson Five also). Here’s the lead sheet version:

That’s it – congratulations! Now click down and rejoin the lesson where the riffs start.

The guided lesson

Here are keyboards of the three groups of closest inversions, as in the previous lessons. Find each group and check your performance against the audio clip. Use the fingering from the written-out music. Use the voice movement diagrams to help your hand anticipate the changes.

THE FIRST GROUP OF INVERSIONS

THE SECOND GROUP OF INVERSIONS

Notice that only one note changes between the A minor (vi) and F (IV) chords. The E always goes up a step to F.

Go back and revise the first group of inversions before going on.

THE THIRD GROUP OF INVERSIONS

Playing all the groups together

Joining the groups of inversions up

Play each set of I, vi, IV and V closest inversions once (as just now), then once substituting the next inversion of the G chord (V) up at the end to climb up to the next group of inversions. (See diagram following.) Repeat that to cover all four groups of inversions.

Here’s the lead sheet diagram of that:

You should aim to be able to play this from memory.

Now it’s time for some riffs using I, vi, IV and V.

Riff One

Here’s a riff with a build-up, using just the first pair of I-vi chords. Read the instructions before attempting to play it. The instructions refer to the little italic bar numbers above the music.

1. Set up a steady rhythm counting a slow four and playing two chords per bar, with the root as bass note (bars 1 and 2)

2. Break up the second chord in the bar into bottom, middle and top notes (B, M, T) on counts “3 & 4” (bars 3 and 4)

3. Pull that broken BMT chord forward one quaver onto counts “& 3 &”. Check the together/left/right (TLR) analysis – the middle note of the right hand chord now comes with the second bass note in the bar (bars 5 and 6)

4. Pull the first chord of the bar forward over the bar line onto the last quaver of the previous bar. Your hands actually only play together (T) once now. You might want to slow it right down or toss the rhythm out completely to get the T/L/R happening the way you want.

The audio clip gives the whole build-up in one go at a reasonable practice speed.

5. Now develop the rhythm in the left hand. This is the bass line you’ll be learning to play:

Accenting the first, fourth and seventh quavers in a bar of 4/4 is a very useful thing to do in modern popular music. You should be able to do this in either hand, but here it’s the bass/left hand with the 1-4-7 rhythm.

NOTE Mostly, we count a bar of 4/4 by its four crotchet beats (1, 2, 3, 4) with ‘ands’ for the in-between quavers beats, if they are used (1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &). Sometimes though – especially when working out complicated rhythms – we count the eight quaver beats in the bar straight through with numbers 1 to 8:

“If you can say it, you can play it!”

Say the used beats out loud with some force – “one, four, seven” in the quaver count or “one, and, four” on the crotchets – and whisper the unused counts.

Even better is tapping your foot as well. Drummers mainly use the left foot (on the bass drum) for the simple beat. We can do the same – tap the four crotchet beats with the left foot while we count the quaver beats one to eight out loud and tap on 1, 4 and 7 with either the left hand or the right hand.

6. Now add the syncopated bass to the last version of our riff.

Practice economically – do one thing at a time!

• Rehearse the sequence of left, right, together events first without any beat, just tapping on your desktop. Notice that, after the first bar, there is one ‘together’ event.
• Then count aloud to your Left-Right-Together tapping and try to get the rhythm going.
• Then play the notes.

  7. Finish off by squeezing the next C chord up in, and add an F and a G chord with the same rhythm and Bottom-Middle-Top texture. The chords are:

The audio performance isn’t of the chords exactly as written – it’s a performance based on these chords. Listen to work out exactly how you use the second C chord (broken, bottom-middle-top), and get that going. Then listen to the chord sequence – work out how many times and what of. Listen finally for what’s different in the G bar.

NOTE If you accidentally ‘discover’ another riff while you’re playing, seize on it and keep at it until you’ve mastered it. Don’t stop once you’ve got it right once. You need to go away from your keyboard with at least one good riff nailed down tight every time, so that next time, you start where you left off, and not back at square one.

Riff Two

The first is a staple of early rock’n’roll ballads. It uses our first group of inversions, starting with C root position.

Notice that you get a build-up to the full bass line. The first I-vi-IV-V run-through has just roots, the second has a repeated bass note to get the rhythm going and the third has all the traditional in-between notes.

This pattern, repeated, is enough on its own to make a whole song, if you add a lyric. Apprentice singer-songwriters might try singing or speaking a four-line lyric (even if it’s total gibberish) as a way of getting used to playing and singing at the same time.

Riff Three

The top part is usually played with two hands an octave apart. The right hand will play the following music an octave higher than written. The fingering is for the right hand – the left hand fingering is the exact opposite.

Riff Four - Re-harmonisation

Here's a I-IV-V chord sequence which includes a slash-bass C-over-G I chord. Use all the clues and all your resourced to find the chords and play the riff in the audio/MIDI performance clips.

The gaps between the chords are filled up with bottom, middle and top notes (B, M T in the music). The chords in the written music with ties leading nowhere are the ones that have been anticipated - dragged forward ahead of their proper beats (a useful 'musical shorthand' technique.) Read the music as you listen to the audio clip - you'll soon see what this means.

Now, here's the same 'top line' reharmonised using the vi (A minor) chord extensively:

Notice that this riff doesn’t start on the major I – the chord sequence is mainly vi-IV-I-V, starting on the relative minor, which the I, IV, V and vi group of chords sound a lot more modern.

Lastly, here's a version using a mix of options.

Which version do you prefer? Listeners don't generally know exactly what it is in the harmony that makes a piece of music or a song interesting. but songwriters and composers know that alternative harmonisations keep the sound fresh and the interest up.

You can make your own version and write it down using just chord symbol and the circle/square/triangle system of symbols.

Harmonising the major scale with I, IV, V and vi

In this Chord Progressions lesson you have added the relative minor chord vi to your I, IV and V chords. You have seen how any scale tone can be harmonised with an inversion of I, IV, V or vi., and have played some classic and some contemporary I, IV, V and vi keyboard riffs.

Listen out for I, IV, V and now the relative minor vi chord in popular music. If you think you hear them in a fairly simple popular piece, try using your electronic keyboard’s ‘transpose’ facility to play along using your C position I, IV, V and vi chords.

Lesson Eight (in preparation) introduces another minor chord – ii (‘Two’ - D minor in key C) and opens the door to vi-ii-V-I, or…

!! THE CIRCLE OF FIFTHS !!

- wellspring of harmony and the heart of jazz. (This is the one you’ve got to know...!)

In the meantime, keep going back through the lessons, practicing all the riffs in this series until they’re ready at your fingertips.. They are all useful material, and the more you play them, the more you will hear the chords in use in popular music and come to understand how simple the harmony of most popular music is.

Remember to go to the Musicarta Chords portal page from time to time to see what else there is to interest you, or click onto the Pyramids Variations home page to refresh your memory or start our flagship series of free online piano lessons. The Musicarta home page will give you an overview of the whole site.

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