Your on the right track.
There are a few considerations with the minor key though.
Simply harmonizing your relative minor scale will yeild the following chords (as triads)
Emin – ( i )
F#dim – you had this as a minor chord, close. But the 5th is a diminished interval. ( ii )
GMaj – you had minor, the 3rd ‘B’ is a major interval. (III)
Amin – ( iv )
Bmin – ( v )
CMaj – ( VI )
Dmaj – ( VII )
You may notice these are all the same chords from your G major key. That’s because they are 😉 Relative minor keys will initially contain all the same chords as the Relative major.
If we want to harmonize this scale into 7th chord’s or construct a progression there are a few things we can do. Ill give an example.
Firstly. Ill add the 7th degree to every chord.This part is easy.
Emin7 – ( i )
Fm7b5 – ( ii ) the 7th becomes a m7 interval. Transforming a diminished triad into a half diminished.
GMaj7 – (III)
Amin7 – ( iv )
Bmin7- ( v )
CMaj7 – ( VI )
Dmaj7 – ( VII )
Now lets say we wanted to build a simple progression. the 2 5 1 allwasy makes a good example.
Fm7b5 – Bm7 – Em7 // Try play this one. You might notice it sounds funny. Somehow its not doing the job a 2 5 1 in a major key would ???
The reason for this is that your 5chord is minor and its trying to resolve. Unfortunately though, minor chords are not great tools for resolution. What we want is a Dominant 7.
Fm7b5 – B7 – Em7 // Much better…..
But how can we just turn a minor chord into a dominant chord you ask ??
Magic!!
No really. This is a common device used by composers when playing in minor keys. We know that chord 5 sounds best with a strong tension and desire to resolve. So we alter it. Bm becomes Bmaj . Bm7 becomes B7.
So how do we do it??
Lets return to our harmonized minor scale….
Emin – ( i )
F#dim – ( ii )
GMaj – (III)
Amin – ( iv )
Bmin – ( v )
CMaj – ( VI )
Dmaj – ( VII )
So we want Bm (v) to be a Bmaj(V) right?? OK. so think about it… what is the difference between Bm and Bmaj? The answer is the 3rd. One has a major third and one a minor third, I’m sure you can guess which is which 😉
If we take this interval of a minor 3rd ( the note is D ) and turn it into a major 3rd we wind up with a D# in the chord. And our scale.
Having said this. We will need to be fair and give every chord the same attention we just gave our Bm.
So lets go back to the harmonized scale and look at all the chords that will be affected by this D#
Emin – ( i ) E G B D.
This chord had a D natural. Now we are going to have to change it since D is now D#. The 7th will have to be a major interval now. This leaves us with a min-Maj chord. Chord i is now EminMAj7. Alternatively We can play Em6, which is a very nice tonic voicing in minor keys.
F#dim7 – ( ii ) F# A C E (un changed)
GMaj7 – (III) G B D F#
The 5th of this chord is now being raised. We wind up with a Gmaj7#5
Amin7 – ( iv ) A C E G ( un changed )
Bmin7 – ( v ) B D F# A
The 3rd is raised. We covered this chord though. New voicing is B7
CMaj7 – ( VI ) C E G B ( un changed )
Dmaj7 – ( VII ) D F# A C
The root is raised on our Dmaj7 chord. Leaving us with a D#dim7.
edit; I almost forgot to mention the most interesting thing about all this. The E relative minor scale with our D# alteration actually leaves us with E Harmonic minor. So what your looking at now is the Harmonized Harm.Minor scale. So, you now know that you can play E harmonic minor over all of these chords and sound just fine.
Alright. Ill leave it at that for now. There is much to be said on harmonized scales and many things we can learn from them. Far too much for this post indeed.
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