Why the Chord Progressions changes when you switch from Major to minor?

Hello friends,

My question is:

Why the Chord Progressions changes when you switch from Major to minor?

for instance, you have the basic chord progression: [ I -> V -> vi -> IV ] in the key of C Major

then I switch to C minor and get this chord progression: [ III -> VII -> i -> VI] (Same colors Red, Blue, Purple, Green, but different grades)

Sorry for beginner question :smile:
Thank you

When switching from major to minor, your tab switches to the relative minor, not the parallel minor (i.e., C major goes to A minor, not C minor). Your tab stays the same, but the chords are labeled differently to reflect their positions within the new mode - the chords C, G, Am, F were represented as [ I -> V -> vi -> IV ] in C major, but in A minor they are [ III -> VII -> i -> VI ].

The problem comes when you then switch from A minor to C minor, as this does change the chords, transposing them into the new key. You still have [ III -> VII -> i -> VI ], but now instead of C, G, Am, F the chords are Eb, Bb, Cm, Ab.

Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to change to a parallel mode while keeping chords the same (as far as I know).

I’d like to expand/clarify frangarola’s question.

When entering a chord progression such as scale degrees 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 5th and 1st in a major C major, then move on the key wheel to G major, I see the G major chords for scale degrees 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 5th and 1st.

When I change to a different mode, I am trying to hear what that progression (1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 5th and 1st) sounds like in the new mode say, I go from C major to A minor, then I expect to see the minor chords for scale degrees 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 5th and 1st. What I get is 3rd, 6th,1st, 7th, and 3rd scale degrees. Based on the notes listed below the scale degrees, it appears to be an attempt to replicate the C Major chord tones.

If this is HookPad’s intent, in what musical application would one want to hear the equivalent tones in a different mode? Is there a workaround?

My intent is twofold, 1) to learn to hear the tonal differences of the various modes, and 2) try out a song among different modes to see which one best accomplishes my goal.

In the case of that one should manually transcribe the chords between modes. The modal selector is purely to permute the tonic chord while retaining the same enharmonic tones.

E.G. I > IV > vi > V in a Major mode vs. i > iv > (b)VI > v (or V) in a minor mode.

Hi all,

Yes, as @jtullis explains, Hookpad currently uses relative transposition to move between modes. However, as is evident in this and other threads, the ability to do a parallel mode transposition seems like it would be useful (and cool). Originally we stuck to relative transpositions so that songs in minor that were analyzed using vi as a home base instead of i could be viewed from either a major or minor perspective without changing the playback. But it’s becoming clear that changing the playback to a different mode might be a fun thing to do.

Perhaps the best way to reconcile this is to have a setting whereby users can specify whether they want transpositions to be relative or parallel (judging by the comments, parallel might be more desirable)