Songwriting Basics – Using Minor Chords in Your Songs

Sometimes beginning songwriters get stuck in what I call the “3-chord stage.” Once you discover that you can write a complete-sounding song using just A, D, and E (or maybe C, F, and G), it’s tempting to just write lots of verses and choruses using those three major chords in familiar sequences like A-A-D-A or A-D-A-E. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! Lots of great songs really do have only three chords, or even fewer!

But what I want to convey here is how easy it is to move beyond this stage by adding appropriate minor chords into your songs. Hmm, you might say, and just which minor chords are “appropriate” for my song? Well, I’m glad you asked!

It’s All Relative

Musical theory tells us that for each major chord, there is particular minor chord, called the “relative minor,” that is musically related to it. The relative minor of C, for example, is Am. This means that any C chord in your major-chords-only song is a candidate to be replaced by an Am chord. (You will only know which is better by playing it both ways.)

I will provide a chart at the end of this article listing all of the relative major and relative minor pairs, although you can work it out for yourself by remembering that the relative minor is on the sixth step of the root chord’s major scale. The major scale for C is C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, in which you see that A is the sixth step. Voila! Am must be the relative minor of C.

Replacing major chords with their relative minors here and there in your chord patterns will make them much more interesting. Minor chords have that “sad” sort of feeling to them, which is a nice contrast to the cheery-sounding major chords. Also, patterns using minor chords can support really great melodies and specifically are great to solo over on guitar or keyboard!

Trying It Out

Let’s try the substitution approach on the two chord sequences I mentioned at the beginning of this article, starting with A-A-D-A. Let me clarify that this notation refers to a four-measure line in the song, with each measure having four (or possibly three) beats. A sequence like this might be repeated several times or alternated with some other four-measure sequence to form a verse.

The relative minor of A is F#m, and the relative minor of D is Bm. Using selective substitution within just this one simple-minded sequence can yield a surprising number of interesting variations! Such as:

F#m-F#m-D-A

A-F#m-D-A

A-F#m-Bm-F#m

and so on, and so on. Similarly, the somewhat fancier sequence A-D-A-E could be transformed as follows:

A-D-F#m-E

F#m-Bm-A-E

F#m-D-F#m-E

(I wasn’t quite brave enough to substitute a C#m for its relative major E in these sequences, but doing so could form a great transition to a following line starting with an A chord.)

I’ll bet that if you just play through some of these patterns to see what I’m talking about, you’ll write at least one new song in the process! Somehow having those minor chords in there, even just a few of them, really makes things snap. One specific pattern you might consider is to use quite a few minor chords in the verses but then have the chorus be all major chords, setting up a nice contrast between the two song segments.

Making A List, Checking It Twice

Here is a list showing the relative minor chord for each major chord. List entries are in the form Major Chord: Relative Minor. Note that I use # for some “black key” chords and b (i.e. a flat sign) for others to accommodate the “common names” for some of the chords.

C: Am

C#: Bbm

D: Bm

Eb: Cm

E: C#m

F: Dm

F#: Ebm

G: Em

G#: Fm

A: F#m

Bb: Gm

B: G#m