Transposing Music From A Major To A Minor Key -- Can This Be Done?
Recently, I heard someone ask how to transpose from the key of C to the key of Em
. This is a problem. One does not transpose music from a major to a minor key. Transposition of keys are done major to major, or minor to minor. Major to minor relationships are a separate thing altogether.
The question now becomes one of trying to figure out which problem this person was trying to solve. What this person meant to ask was how to transpose from Am to Em and not C to Em.
The reality is that minor keys actually come from major keys -- just from a different starting point.
First,you need to understand the keys that you are dealing with in their natural state. Let's start with the key of C. I'm just going to sketch these examples out for now as key theory is a big subject.
Here is the the C major scale where the key of C starts from:
C D E F G A B C
The natural chords in this key are:
C Dm Em F G Am
The A note is the 6th tone of the C major scale, and Am is the vi (6) chord is the key of C. This 6th (or 6) is called the relative minor. So Am, is the relative minor of C in the key of C.
You can also say the reverse is true. The C chord is the relative major of Am in the key of C.
Further, you can find the relative, naturally occurring major of any minor chord by counting up 3 half-steps up from that chord. For example, the naturally occurring relative major of Em is G because G is 3 half-steps up from E. Note I said E not Em because the color of the chord (major or minor) does not matter. I already know it's minor. I just want to find the relative major.
And even further, a major key has the same key signature as its relative minor by definition. In music notation, the key of C will look like the key of Am in the key signature. The actual chords of the song will tell you which key you are actually in.
This is where the confusion came in for the questioner. He thought he was dealing with the key of C, but was actually dealing with the key of Am.
Once this is cleared up,the transposition becomes straight forward by using the Chromatic Scale.
To begin, create a chromatic scale starting from the first chord of the original key (Am):
A A#/Bb B C C#/Db D D#/Eb E F F#/Gb G G#/Ab A
The chord progression to transpose was:
Am F G Am
But we want this to be in the key of Em so we need a chromatic scale starting from the letter E
E F F#/Gb G G#/Ab A A#/Bb B C C#/Db D D#/Eb E
Now all we have to do is a direct top to bottom substitution between these two chromatic scales and we will have the chords in the key of Em:
Em C D Em
This solved his problem.
The point to remember here is that when transposing music, you must transpose major to major, or minor to minor. You cannot mix and match. This example needed to convert C to Am so that a direct compare could be done with the key of Am.
It may also have come to pass that he needed to convert the key of Em to its relative major -- G (1 and 1/2 steps up from E). In this case we would have been comparing the key of C with the key of G. It would have depended on the chord progression. Because I saw a minor progression, I knew I needed a minor to minor comparison.
by: James Emery Vigh
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