The following question came over email and I thought others would benefit from it.
First of all id like to thank you very much for making music theory that is actually readable(!)
However, I’m abit confused. My plans is to make dance music and eurodance especially. I’ve noticed the genre use Minor Scale as its stardard. But with the theory about each chords meaning, where it fits etc that you website contains only applies to the major scale i suppose?
How do i figure the cadence chords in this scale? Or in general, how do i apply your major scale theory to minor scale? When i try applying the same rules to minor, it sounds aweful haha!
We will have a formal discussion of the minor mode and cadence chords in Hooktheory II, but in the meantime, here are some pointers:
First of all, you can always compose music in the major mode, but center your song around the vi chord. This is exactly the same as using the minor mode. Then you can use all the relations that you know and love from the major scale. When writing music in this way (using vi as your “home base”), the best cadence chords are: V/vi, V, ii, and IV
When you switch to the minor mode, these chords are the same, but they change names. The vi chord is now the i chord, the ii chord is now the iv chord etc.
Here are the common minor cadence chords written in the major mode:
And here are their equivalents in the minor mode:
You can easily switch between the major and minor modes using the mode selector.
