Dag-blamed minor keys

Greg Vincent · From: Folsom, CA USA

Hi folks,

Here in L.A. from time to time I get roped into, let's say... "non country" projects, which is actually fine with me. Inevitably, though, it means I end up having to play on songs in minor keys, which I don't do regularly.
I know that I can approach the key from its relative major, but the PSG just seems so geared to major key licks that I feel kinda limited in a minor key.

OK here's another thing that really bugs me about minor keys:

When learning a song I find that making a number chart and having it handy during the session is an invaluable tool. I CAN make a number chart for a minor key song, but the stinkin' thing just doesn't have the same meaning and usefulness to me that a number chart in a good ol' major key would. If I write down "4" I have to remember that it is a minor chord --I guess I could write "4m" but I'm used to treating that as a device to get back to the 1 in a major key and blah blah blah the list goes on. So I end up just writing out the chord names and having alphabet soup for a chart. Yech! I wanna use a number chart!

Am I alone in finding this frustrating?

Any tips out there for dealing with these dag-blamed minor keys? Any favorite licks or recordings? Any tricky chord-leading ways to go from, say, the 1m to the 4m and such? Will I sound too classical if I make the 5 chord major?

Why do song writers have to be so melodramatic? Major keys should be good enough, right?

--Pissing & moaning in L.A.

[This message was edited by Greg Vincent on 30 June 2004 at 10:10 AM.]

[This message was edited by Greg Vincent on 30 June 2004 at 10:11 AM.]

John Daugherty · From: Rolla, Missouri, USA

Greg, I don't know if this helps at all but I'll throw it in and you can throw it out. It is just a passing thought.
Am can be thought of as C6. If using E9 tuning you hold pedals A&B with the bar in the 3rd fret to get C6. Am is found there in the 3rd fret also by picking strings 5,6,7.
Am = C6 (without the G). Add the G you have Am7.

Ricky Littleton · From: Steely-Eyed Missile Man from Cocoa Beach, Florida USA

I know E-X-A-C-T-L-Y how you feel Greg. I'm doing more "non-country stuff" now and the shift into more minor key work has kept my head spinning. It's a hell of a change, but I'm finding myself in places on the neck and the pedals/levers I never ventured and loving it. I got a long way to go, but it's worth the ride to get there. (wherever "there" may be!!!)

Ricky...

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Emmons LeGrande - 8x4
Session 400 Ltd
Dan-Echo, E-Bow, Ibanez Distortion, Boss Comp./Sustain, Ibanez Auto-Wah, PX4 Pandoras Box

Greg Vincent · From: Folsom, CA USA

Thanks guys for the replies. They are helpful.

Hey Ricky do you find yourself using E's lowered with the A pedal? I lower E's on LKR. THAT sure is a real comfortable combination!

Sheesh.

Robert Porri · From: Windsor, Connecticut, USA

I know (or think I know) that pentatonics are not the most popular thing to play on a PSG, but given my 6 string Rock and Blues background I find it comfortable to fool around with them. Mostly I find myself in minor, but I realize that it's just an "attitude adjustment" away to change the note you think of as the root to be in major also. I'm not sure if this is at all what you're looking for, but playing 2 frets below the open major chord position (like A chord on the 5th fret)-so play on the 3rd fret holding down the B pedal and working the A pedal as you "hear it" seems to get me started playing against Blues stuff for instance. That would be for stuff in A minor. If in C minor you could use the 6th fret with the B pedal down etc. I am admittedly just a new "hack" on PSG, but thought this might give you something to try if you don't use it already. (This is basically compliments of Doug Beaumier instruction.)

Bob P.

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

It doesn't hurt at all to learn your chords by their letter names. Sometimes I think that steel players tend to use the number system as a crutch.

I gotta get one of those asbestos suits.

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Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Sierra Session 12 (E9), Sierra Olympic 12 (C6add9),
Sierra Laptop 8 (E6add9), Fender Stringmaster (E13, A6)

Bob Blair · From: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

I did the bulk of my gigging in my first few years as a steel player, and when I got in a situation involving minor keys I was out of my comfort zone for sure - I tended to fall back on a handful of licks and also a fair bit of single string stuff. Hopefully I was managing to make some pretty sounds, but I was really faking it big time. Now that I don't do a lot of bar gigs, and am playing on my own a lot, I've learned a lot more about working in minor keys. I had to, because I was getting too darn bored with the stuff I was playing. I made a point of thinking of a bunch of songs I'd like to play that would force me to learn to play melodically in minor keys, and that opened up a whole new world for me. I don't think it is so much that the E9th tuning is geared towards playing in major keys - rather that tends to be the way we learn it at first.

Once you know where your minor chords are, and know where the root is, you can start running scales from "pocket" positions just like you do for the major scales. But it is also useful (and to me more fun)to just play a lot of melodies. There's a lot of tunes that are great to play - Bach's G minor organ fugue (the few lines I remember from my failed attempts to play it on the organ years ago), an old Anglican Hymn called "let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence", Wayfaring Stranger", and on and on - I just started trying to play them and eventually I didn't have to fumble so much for the right notes. Today I was trying to figure out Mozart's Symphony in G Minor - gonna have to pull it out and listen to it, because I've lost a bit of the melody. And now I suspect that I would not feel as at sea with minors as I did back when I was gigging.

Chris Lasher · From: Blacksburg, VA

This is why I asked this question. I think this change could be one of the most important in a diversified pedal steeler's repertoire.

Bob Hoffnar · From: Austin, Tx

Learn just a little theory. Major and minor are basicly the same thing. An easy minor pocket to play in goes like this:
In C go down 2 frets from the no pedals C position (8th fret to the 6th fret)

With your A and B pedals down play strings 7,6 and 5.
Your root note is on the 7th and 1st string and you can use the A and B pedals to play the minor scale. Add strings 8 or 4 and you have a minor 7th chord.

If you have an understanding of how major scales work it is a very simple process to play minor scales. And there really is no need for more pedals or levers.

Bob

[This message was edited by Bob Hoffnar on 30 June 2004 at 06:49 PM.]

Burton Lee · From: Denton, Texas, USA

I am a theory whiz, and I know exactly how you feel. Minor keys make me instantly uncomfortable (not that I ever feel really solid).

It helped me to get comfortable playing the minor version of my three major positions: A without the F lever, 1/2A+B (or AB+LKV), and I lower my 6th string a half step by pulling my RKL half way in the open position (that's awkward and I need to do something about it).

I noticed other guys talk about using different strings, and that's smart. I just learned to play around in it using the same string combos and the altered pulls. I'm a rank amateur, so this might be the dumb way to do it.

Also, b0b is dead-on about the crutch.

[This message was edited by Burton Lee on 01 July 2004 at 06:49 AM.]

Erv Niehaus · From: Litchfield, MN, USA

Just the use of the A pedal (Emmons setup) will give you a minor. For instance, on the 6th fret, if you mash your A pedal, strings 4, 5 & 6 will give you a G minor and so on.
Erv

Terry Sneed · From: Arkansas,

Somethin else to remember is, you don't actually have to hit a minor chord to get a minor sound. strings 3 and 5 will give you a minor sound. for instance, when playin Am on 8th fret go up 2 frets pedals down, and hit strings 3 and 5 that gives you an Am sound. play an Em on 3rd fret, go up 2 frets hit 3 and 5 pedals down, you have an Em sound. that helps me when playin minors also.

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84 SKH Emmons Legrand D10
session 400'rd Steelin for my Lord.

[This message was edited by Terry Sneed on 01 July 2004 at 09:20 AM.]

Al Marcus · From: Cedar Springs,MI USA (deceased)

Bobby Lee made a good point.Knowing the name of the chords helps a lot.

Flatting the E's on the usual knee lever gives another minor, G# minor in the open position.

So by the numbers if you want Aminor , Amajor is on the 5th fret and pedals down open, so just hit the Eb knee lever and drop down 4 frets to the 1st fret. That is Aminor or use the Eb knee lever and go up one fret from pedals down, I would imagine that most of you already know that....al

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My Website..... www.cmedic.net/~almarcus/

Leslie Ehrlich · From: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

I use the third pedal ('c' pedal) to get a minor chord on the E9th neck. The pedal raises the E and B (fourth and fifth strings) by a whole tone.

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

You need to understand that when you go to the V7 chord in a minor key, the scale changes. Not only that, often it changes to something that isn't even a legit key signature!

For example, take the key of Cm. There are 3 flats in the key signature: Bb, Eb, Ab. It looks like the key of Eb. But when you go to the G7 chord, suddenly the Bb is replaced with a B natural. The Ab might also become an A natural (depending on the song). According to "music theory", there is no key signature with one flat that's an Eb, or with two flats as Eb and Ab. So, over the G7 you play play a hybrid scale that's sort of half major and half minor.

This is what's strange about minor keys, and what makes them challenging to play. Everything seems totally relative to a major key until you hit that darned V7 chord.

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Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Sierra Session 12 (E9), Sierra Olympic 12 (C6add9),
Sierra Laptop 8 (E6add9), Fender Stringmaster (E13, A6)

Charles Turpin · From: Mexico, Missouri, USA

Greg here is something that is way different that what people think and you realy dont have to learn a lot of scales. When i attack a minor key thing, the way i do it is to think of the 1,5,7 chords of your minor like am-dm-em. Now when you play the chords you can invert the chords to where any melodie is on top in the middle or on the bottom of the chord. simply by thinking like you would a major chord system. example( am-em-dm-em-dm-em-dm-am now if you aline the notes on these inversions you can play the aeolian scale.(a-b-c-d-e-f-g-a) on a single string just like when you started to play major scales, you can do the same thing there. But if you want to jazz your scale up a bit you can change the F# and G# or the fifth notes of the 4th and 5th chords in this to make the root minor stand out more.This works well over all the keys But of course your scale would be an altered scale (a -b-c-d-e-F#-G#-a or this sounds good just raising the 5th note making the scale (a-b-c-d-e-f-G#-a) but by doing this all you have to do is to think chords instead of learning a bunch of flatting and sharping degrees of the notes., and i find it works good for me this way.

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John Steele · From: Renfrew, Ontario, Canada

quote:

Everything seems totally relative to a major key until you hit that darned V7 chord.

Agreed ! I think that thought is worthy of a thread on it's own. To me, b0b, it's the 9th tone that gives you a problem. (In your example of G7 V chord in a C minor tune, the A note). From what I can discern, either a flat 9th or a sharp 9th are preferable to a natural ninth.
For either chord you could use a variety of scales...you could use a diminished scale (G, Ab, Bb, B, Db, D, etc.) or an altered scale (from Ab melodic minor) (G, Ab, Bb, B, Db, Eb, F, G)
The same phenomenon occurs when you play a tune in a major key that includes a III chord. (Like, say, the second chord of "All of me".) You trip over that natural ninth, and you're cooked.
I know there are people on here that can explain it better than I can. I believe they're called "secondary dominant chords"...but don't hold me to that.

Any of you edumacated people out there, feel free to chime in, I'd like to know more about that.
-John

Charles Turpin · From: Mexico, Missouri, USA

John i totally agree with what you doing on this. I had to sit and analyze a minute to see what you where doing though but after that it was easy to figure out. By secondary domanant 7th chords this is easy to figure out.In your example on bothe of your scales the dim actually, you are playing the same scale with out the root note. But i cant figure out what that they mean by minor keys . I thought all minors had a relative Key and where wrote from that key.. On your example the Cminor is a relative to the Eb scale. But in order to add tension the 7th chords are applied.The Eb--Ab-Bb notes are all in the relative key which is Eb except for the Db this is what makes this a dominant scale of Eb. Now if you in corperate the G-B-F-G you are adding a second dom.7th chord to the scale minusing the D note . So this is what makes this work so well over the change.I am not very edgumakated as you call it but i love to think out theory. This is a good thing to think out over a millions of combinations in doing this. I hope this gives you an answer to the theory part i could think out of why it works.

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Terry Sneed · From: Arkansas,

LOST AS A GOOSE!!

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84 SKH Emmons Legrand D10
session 400'rd Steelin for my Lord.

Lincoln Goertzen · From: Taylor, British Columbia, Canada

I didn't think that minor keys were THAT bad. I played in a contemporary Christian group last summer for 4 months, and learning whole songs in a minor key were par for the course. The way I did it was to learn every chord by its letter name, and always play it in the same place on the neck for that song, so I didn't get lost.

For any of you gospel steel players out there, you really need to try playing the lead, with two harmony notes to "El Shaddai." You'd think it was written for steel.

Lincoln
PS. Almost a month ago, I was in a jamboree, sitting in with a band, playing dobro. The tune was "Wayfaring Stranger", and I kicked it off, and did the first lead. Then the mandolinist took his lead, and the frontman gave the nod to the steel player (Quite an experienced player). I was kind of surprised when he just said, "No", but I filled in for him without skipping anything at all. He played the first half of the chorus, which is a major key, and I took the last half, which returns to a minor key. I could never figure out why he would do that, until now.

Tracy Sheehan · From: Fort Worth, Texas, USA

b0b is absolutely correct about learn the chords.Say for instance b0b was playing the Foggy Mountian breakdown on his banjo in the key of G and didn't know how to make the E minor what would he do?
Seriously.If you learn the minor chords and where they are at like you did your major ones you will get used to them after a while with practice and play a minor with out thinking about it.This is true because at times you may then play a minor, and say the guitar player ask you what minor was that? You will probably have to stop and think about it and /or look at the neck.Tracy

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

Stephen Gregory · Posted 7 Jul 2004 6:20 pm

It's all relative.

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