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Minor

Chord

All

Minor

Chords

Other Minor Chords

In the Major scale, the IV chord and the V chord are Major chords. But in a minor scale, the IV chord and V chord can be either Major or minor chords depending on which mode of minor scale you've chosen to work with: the natural minor scale, the harmonic minor scale or the melodic minor scale. This is because the 6th and 7th notes of a minor scale are not the same among the three different types of minor scales.

For example, let's take a look at the c natural minor scale:

To build our iv chord, we simply construct a triad starting on the 4th note of the scale, the F:

We have just built an f minor chord. And as you can see, the 3rd of the chord is an Ab. That's because the key signature of c minor contains an Ab.

But now let's look at the c melodic minor scale:

Here, the Ab has been replaced with an A natural. Therefore our IV chord looks like this:

As you can see, our IV chord is an F Major chord.

Likewise, our V chord can either be a minor chord or a major chord. Look at the v chord in the c natural minor scale:

Here, the v chord is a g minor chord.

Now let's look at the V chord in the c melodic minor scale.

Here, the V chord is a G Major chord.

In any minor key you choose, you can use a Major IV or a minor iv chord, and a Major V or minor v chord. As a composer, you will make your chord choices based on how they sound and not based on theory rules. Music theory simply helps us to understand musical forms and to communicate with a common musical language.