Minor Diatonic Chords

Now that we've covered Major Diatonics extensively, let's figure out how Diatonic Chords work in a Minor Context!

First, the good news! It's easy to figure out Minor Diatonics, if we're comfortable with Major Diatonics and Relative Keys.

Why? Well, let's consider the A Minor Scale for today's example. It's the easiest Minor Scale to discuss, since it contains no sharps or flats, just like C Major.

If we compare the C Major and A Minor scales, we can in fact see that they contain the same notes, only we start from A:

C Major: C-D-E-F-G-A-B

A Minor: A-B-C-D-E-F-G

In just the same way, the C Major and A Minor Scales also contain the same Diatonic Chords, only we start from A!

C Major: C-Dm-Em-F-G-A-Bdim

A Minor: A-Bdim-C-Dm-Em-F-G

So then, the order of chord quality for the Minor Scale is as follows:

Minor, Diminished, Major, Minor, Minor, Major, Major.

If we're in A Minor, that's:

A Minor, B Diminished, C Major, D Minor, E Minor, F Major, G Major.

Lastly, as 7th chords, that's:

Am7, Bdim7, Cmaj7, Dm7, Em7, Fmaj7, G7.

Okay, that was relatively straightforward so far. But, it's time for the bad news! Songs in a Minor Key are much less likely to stay Diatonic than songs in a Major Key. Most commonly, we will dip into the Harmonic Minor Scale.

If you're ready to look into that, CLICK HERE to learn about Common Minor Chord Progressions.

There we will go over all these chords in more detail, look at how they're typically used, and look at when it is most common to step outside the scale. See you there!