Relative minors?

Hello all!


I´ve got a question about relative minors.
When in.. let´s say.. G major- relative mior is Eminor right?
If the chord progression is G-M->C-M->E-m->D-M Gmajor Cmajor Eminor Dmajor.

GM and Em are only one note apart, so are you suposed to emphasize the E note?


II don´t really see the pont with them realative minors if it is just the one note why not just call it a blues note or something?

Any feeback is appreciated.

I forgot to ask.. with the other chords. The major ones, do they have relative minors? and what to do over a minor chord?

the relative minor is a Minor 3rd below the relative major. and Chords themselves dont have relative minors, just keys. But yes G majors relative minor is E minor.

Well, its not that simple. Because you first of all in you Eminor have an E note in your base you will hear it more as an E-chord. Secondly, looking at the intervals, if you are in the tonality of Eminor, then the a Gmajor chord will include following intervals from your E as a starting point: G (minor third), B (fifth), D (Minor 7th). If you look at an Eminor chord from a Gmajor tonality, you have the notes and corresponding intervals from the root note G: E(Major sixth), G (root), B ( Major 3rd). So this may be quite a way ahead of your knowledge, but it is connected with intervals why those two chords are not the same. You all have to look at it relatively from the point of perspective.

If you are improvising, you could stress the E a bit more, to emphasize the underlying chord, but you dont have to. As said They are relative minor, because their scales (Eminor and G Major) contain the SAME notes. However, if you play the E minor scale and compare it to a G major scale (both started on their root notes) you will hear them as 2 totally different scales. However, play an Eminor scale over a Gmajor chord. You will clearly hear a G major scale. Its all got to do with modes, etc. This is a quite huge topic you stumbled on!

A blues note is something very different to what we are talking about.

Hope I could help. But probably this post only asked more questions than it probably answered for you..aaahhhh

yep, a 'Blue' note is a flatted 5th I believe(b5) and is found in the "blues" scale (Pentatonic w/ b5).
Just like Admiral said, this topic is massive dude. There's far too much too explain since it usually comes down to what SOUNDS good rather than what would be technically correct on paper(so to speak).
Just because it says E Minor doesn't even mean you "should" play the E Minor mode over it; instead think of it as "could"(unless you wanted to, nothing wrong there). What I'm saying is that there aren't any solid rules to this.

Knowing this stuff is ultra important, don't think otherwise, it's very good to know what you are doing rather than try to figure it out with no prior knowledge on the subject. BUT with that being said, you are free to break all the rules you can possibly imagine with this.

Thanks allot, everyone. I´ve found a video on youtube about relative minors with Marty Friedman that explains it quite well.

Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8NXf0dw5QE