Scale Tone Chords of Minor Keys

Back in February this year, I wrote an article titled How to Work Out The Chords In Any Major Key. So now I thought I would write the second part to that article and write about the scale tone chords of minor keys. Hope you will find it useful.

As with major keys, in any piece in a minor key, you will find certain chords that are used often. For example, in a piece in D minor, you will regularly come across chords D minor, G minor and A. The reason for this is that each minor key has its own set of chords.

The Minor Scale Interval Pattern

Below is the natural minor scale in A. It is based upon the following tone and semitone interval pattern:

The Chords in the key of A Minor

If you use each of the A minor scale degrees (i.e. notes of the scale), you create the following chords:

Note: In all minor keys, chords i and iv are minor chords. Chords III, V, VI and VII are major chords. In addition, chord ii° is a diminished chord.

The method used for working out the chords of the key of A minor can be applied to any other minor scale. Let’s now work the chords of the key of C minor.

Below is the C natural minor scale.

Note: The C natural minor scale features notes Eb (E flat), Ab and Bb. These notes were flatted in order to create the required pattern order of semitones and tones.

The Chords in the key of C Minor

From the above C minor scale we create the following chords:

Note again that chords i and iv are minor chords. Chords III, V, VI and VII are major chords and chord ii° is a diminished chord.

Below is a summary of all minor keys and their scale tone chords.

Understanding how chords are constructed is an important part of learning how scale tone chords are formed. To explore chord theory further, watch this helpful video.