Relative minor/major

In music, the relative minor of a particular major key (or the relative major of a minor key) is the key which has the same key signature but a different tonic, as opposed to parallel minor/major. For example, G major and E minor both have a single sharp in their key signature; so we say that E minor is the relative minor of G major. The relative minor of a major key always has a tonic a minor third lower.

A complete list of relative minor/major pairs is:

• C major - A minor
• C sharp/D flat major - A sharp/B flat minor
• D major - B minor
• E flat major - C minor
• E major - C sharp minor
• F major - D minor
• F sharp/G flat major - D sharp/E flat minor
• G major - E minor
• A flat major - F minor
• A major - F sharp minor
• B flat major - G minor
• B/C flat major - G sharp/A flat minor

Together with moves to the dominant (fifth scale degree) or sub-dominant (fourth scale degree), modulation to the relative minor or major are the most common in tonal music.