Tonics & relative minors

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VTgreen81

VTgreen81

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If a song is in the key of Am which is the relative minor of C can C be used as if it were Tonic?
 
VTgreen81 said:
If a song is in the key of Am which is the relative minor of C can C be used as if it were Tonic?

I prefer to use C as Ginger Ale. ;)
 
VTgreen81 said:
If a song is in the key of Am which is the relative minor of C can C be used as if it were Tonic?

Are you talking about playing lead guitar over the Am chord progression starting on the C note (Root/Tonic) of the Cmaj scale?
 
Gorty said:
Are you talking about playing lead guitar over the Am chord progression starting on the C note (Root/Tonic) of the Cmaj scale?


Nope. I try to follow as a rule....."End the song on the Tonic"...........and with the tune I'm working on now I'm tempted to end on C.

as of now the Verse is

Am Am7 G

The chorus is

C CMaj7 Em7 G7

And it seems to work better to come back to the C to end after the G7 than to work my way back to the Am


Wait a minute, Did I change keys from Am in the verse to C for the chorus?
 
Last edited:
VTgreen81 said:
Nope. I try to follow as a rule....."End the song on the Tonic"...........and with the tune I'm working on now I'm tempted to end on C.


First of all, stop that. It gets to be more than a bit boring.




VTgreen81 said:
Wait a minute, Did I change keys from Am in the verse to C for the chorus?



Yup.





Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
scrubs said:
Don't think too much...play what sounds right to you.


Vtgreen81,


As scrubs stated "play what sounds right to you". Sometimes a song needs to resolve itself by means of finishing the song with the Tonic, however this can also produce the feeling that the song is going to carry on. Music has its theory but the rules are wide open. (Originality)
If the song sounds good finishing on the C chord, finish it on the C chord.

Sorry for not fully understanding your original post.
 
Here I thought you were serving drinks to underaged drinkers....

This conversation is way over my head. I just hit notes until I get it to sound like it belongs there.
 
VTgreen81 said:
If a song is in the key of Am which is the relative minor of C can C be used as if it were Tonic?

Light answered your question about modulation, which you did. However, on your original question, no you can't use C as the tonic of Am because A is the tonic.

It's typical to end minor key songs not only on the tonic, but also a major chord. But don't do that either, it also gets pretty boring.
 
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