Here’s a cool trick for you…
Many musician’s already know or have heard of “relative’ major and minor scales. “Relative” simply means that the two scales share the same notes… BUT NOT THE SAME TONIC!
Just like you share DNA with your sister Suzie, but were born at different times, and are called related… so are scales.
Classically trained musicians are used to the idea that C major and A minor share the same exact notes and key signatures (No sharps or flats). It is said that, to find a key’s relative minor, we just need to either go up to the 6th degree of the major scale to find the minor’s tonic, or, a little simpler, just go down 3 notes, or a step and a half, from major’s tonic. What many do not realize is…
Sorry I missed this one Nat! Bb would be the “tonic” of the “key” (the concept of all the notes in the scale combined). A Bb “chord” would be 3 notes together that harmonize nicely: Bb Db and F in the case of Bb minor scale.
When playing B-flat minor is B-flat the “tonic” or the chord or both. Can’t get my head around that… Playing a piece called Ballad in B-flat that is built around B-flat as you might expect…
Thanks
Nat Helms