How to Depict a Minor Key

If you hear a song that has a sad, melancholy, gritty or sultry sound to it, chances are that the song is in a minor key. The element that makes a key major or minor is its pattern of notes. A minor key has the following pattern between its notes: whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. If you are writing the chords to a song on a sheet of music, you will need to be able to depict a minor key so that musicians know how to properly play the song.

Things You'll Need

• Sheet music or chord sheet

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Instructions

1. • 1

     Write the letter name of the chord using a capital letter. For example, if the chord is an A minor chord, you would first write, "A."

   • 2

     Write the letter "m" using a lowercase letter to indicate that the chord is a minor chord. In this example, you would write A minor as follows: Am.

   • 3

     Add any other distinctions to the chord after the lowercase "m." For example, if you have an A minor seventh chord, you would write, "Am7."