Music Composition DUMmIES

It is useful to note that when you are writing something in a particular major

key and you want to change the mood a little (maybe make it a little sadder

or darker), you can use the relative minor scale of the key. For example, if

your original melody was in G major, you could change to E minor for the sad

parts. Doing this makes it unnecessary to change the key signature, though

you may have to use a few accidentals here and there. Figure 6-5 shows you

at a glance which major keys coordinate with which minor keys.

Another common practice in composition is to write the darker, sadder bits

in the minor key of the original major. In other words, go from a G major scale

to a G minor. As you can see from the Circle of Fifths chart in Figure 6-5, the

parts written in G major would be written with the key signature for G, which

has a single sharp (F sharp). The parts in G minor, then, would require the

C G D A E B

F

B

E

A

D

G /F

g

d

a e b f c g

e /d

b

f

c

Figure 6-5:

The Circle of

Fifths shows

the relation

between

major keys

and their

relative

minors.

58 Part II: Melody and Development