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A pair of major and minor scales sharing the same key signature are said to be in a relative relationship. [1] [2] The relative minor of a particular major key, or the relative major of a minor key, is the key which has the same key signature but a different tonic. (This is as opposed to parallel minor or major, which shares the same tonic.)
Its relative minor is E-flat minor (or enharmonically D-sharp minor). Its parallel minor, G-flat minor, is usually replaced by F-sharp minor, since G-flat minor's two double-flats make it generally impractical to use. Its direct enharmonic equivalent, F-sharp major, contains six sharps. The G-flat major scale is:
In the key of C major, these would be: D minor, E minor, F major, G major, A minor, and C minor. Despite being three sharps or flats away from the original key in the circle of fifths, parallel keys are also considered as closely related keys as the tonal center is the same, and this makes this key have an affinity with the original key.
The circle diagram shows the number of sharps or flats in each key signature, with the major key indicated by a capital letter and the minor key indicated by a lower-case letter. Major and minor keys that have the same key signature are referred to as relative major and relative minor of one another.
When a musical key or key signature is referred to in a language other than English, that language may use the usual notation used in English (namely the letters A to G, along with translations of the words sharp, flat, major and minor in that language): languages which use the English system include Irish, Welsh, Hindi, Japanese (based on katakana in iroha order), Korean (based on hangul in ...
However, in common guitar tabs notation, a minor key is designated with a lowercase "m". For example, A-minor is "Am" and D-sharp minor is "D ♯ m"). The small interval between equivalent notes, such as F-sharp and G-flat, is the Pythagorean comma .
Another convention of G minor symphonies observed in Mozart's No. 25 and Mozart's No. 40 was the choice of E-flat major, the subdominant of the relative major B ♭, for the slow movement, with other examples including Joseph Haydn's No. 39 and Johann Baptist Wanhal's G minor symphony from before 1771. [3]
Going counter-clockwise from C results in lowering the fourth scale degree with each successive key (starting on F requires a B ♭ to form a major scale). Each major key has a relative minor key that shares the same key signature. The relative minor is always a minor third lower than its relative major.