Major or Minor? Why Not Use Both?

by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website:

You can spend a lot of time wondering if the song you’re writing works better in a major or minor key. So why not use both? Having a song that uses chords from a major key, then abuptly switching to minor (or vice versa), can add a wonderful sense of variety and interest to your song.

As you likely know, choosing a major key means that certain chords are going to be used more than others. And hopefully you know that there are many ways to extend that chord “palette” – by using altered chords (such as secondary dominant or modal mixture chords), or by adding non-chord-tones to your melody and/or accompaniment.

But songwriters often miss one of the more obvious choice to adding a new sound to your song… slip into the “opposite mode.” If your melody is harmonized by using chords from a major key, try harmonizing some of it in minor.

There are at least three ways this can work. One is to use chords from the parallel minor. Parallel minor means that your key will be the same letter name, but the opposite mode. So the parallel minor of F major is F minor. Using the parallel minor means that your melody will use many of the same pitches, but will alter the 3rd of the key (and sometimes the 6th) to be lower.

The second way is to move everything into the relative minor. This means that your melody will move down a 3rd, pitching everything a bit lower. Your chords will be the equivalent chordes from the minor key. If your melody is in F major, and the first chords are F  Bb  C, you’ll transpose everything a minor 3rd lower, and your chords will be Dm  Gm  A. (If you know all about Roman numerals and chords, you’ll notice that the Roman numerals will all stay the same when transposing into the relative minor.)

The third way is to keep the melody at its original starting pitch, keeping the same major-key notes in the melody, but harmonizing it using chords from the relative minor.

Want to know what that sounds like? Check out the following examples:

1) Example 1 is an 8-bar melody using mainly I, IV and V chords as harmony. The first 4 bars are in F major, and the next 4 bars are in F minor. You’ll hear that the result is quite abrupt, but if you’re looking for something a bit startling, it may have a use in your song. [LISTEN]
2) Example 2 is the 8-bar melody, with the first 4 bars in F major, and the next 4 bars transposed into D minor (the relative minor). This kind of relative minor transposition results in a smoother transition, quite useful in many song treatments. [LISTEN]
3) Example 3 is the 8-bar melody, with the first 4 bars in F major, and the next 4 bars featuring the melody still in F major, but with harmonies from D minor. This probably provides the smoothest transition of all possibilities, since the melody stays exactly the same. [LISTEN]

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If you want some chord progressions that demonstrate easy ways to move from major to minor and back again, Gary’s newest e-book, “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting- Chord Progression Formulas” is being offered for free when you purchase any other of his songwriting e-books. Read more..