Music Theory for Guitar II | 6 | V of vi
Added 2025-02-17 18:00:08 +0000 UTCWhere to Start • Lesson Archive • Recommended Lesson Plan • Book a Private Lesson
Hi Everyone!
In this lesson, the fictional story continues in order to explain why the major key stole a chord from harmonic minor.
Check out the PDF for helpful homework and chord charts.
If you’re not familiar with Major Scales, Minor Scales, Intervals, the Circle of Fifths, and Triads - you should watch Music Theory for Guitar I first!
Use this Community Forum thread to post homework and discuss the series. Have a question? Ask on the weekly live Q&A, called Office Hours. Also, check out Practice Thoughts if you need help figuring out how to practice.
How to Join the community forum.
Once you’re done with this lesson, move on to the next in the series - I'll post the next one soon!
Music Theory for Guitar II | 1 | Chords in a Key
Music Theory for Guitar II | 2 | Roman Numerals
Music Theory for Guitar II | 3 | 7th Chords
Music Theory for Guitar II | 4 | Chords in a Minor Key
Music Theory for Guitar II | 5 | Harmonic Minor
Music Theory for Guitar II | 6 | The V of vi Chord (current lesson)
Music Theory for Guitar II | 7 | Melodic Minor
Music Theory for Guitar II | 8 | The V of V Chord
Music Theory for Guitar II | 9 | What's Next?
Comments
the diatonic (unaltered) major and minor key chords are basically the "normal" chords, with secondary dominants and harmonic/melodic minor giving extra, optional chords. You don't have to commit to a note always being sharp for the whole song. Within a song in A Minor, you might find an E Minor chord AND an E Major or E7 chord, or a Dm and a D7
Scott Paul Johnson
2025-07-14 21:34:47 +0000 UTCSo are you saying in a minor key you always have the option to identify as harmonic by sharping VII so you can utilize a dominant V? Alternately in a major key, you can use the state of the relative minor as harmonic to borrow its dominant V as a secondary dominant. Can you also still use the natural minor non dominant V?
Erin
2025-07-14 19:21:47 +0000 UTCI'm benj watching this course as I exhaustively went through MTM and I have to say what a great thing to do as you fill in a lot of holes that I didn't really get before. This lesson is an "ah ha moment" in that the alteration of a Natural Minor to Harmonic Minor FORCES the alternation of its Relative Major and thus the creation of the V/vi. When Harmonic Minor sharps that 7th note, the Relative Major "has no choice" but to get alterned too otherwise it is NOT a relative major anymore. I would never have seen that if you didn't make this video. Wow!
Mark Fletcher
2025-02-25 20:08:21 +0000 UTCHey Phil. Thanks for the notes. I might cover this in Office Hours tomorrow or make a video about it, because these are great questions.
Scott Paul Johnson
2025-02-19 21:08:22 +0000 UTCHi Scott. I’m sure you’ve heard of the saying “less is more”? I’ve been a member for around 4 years and I think you’ve done an amazing job of creating a really educational platform for people like me who want to understand as opposed to just copy. I’ve also seen your technology improve and what you have at your finger tips is so incredibly helpful to effectively mind map what you’re saying. However, this my point - I think you’ve got to the stage where there is too much information most of which is irrelevant of the topic and makes following what you’re saying more difficult. I’ll give you some examples so it’s helpful for you to understand the confusion it causes me. Example 1 In this lesson as with every other one you have the whole of the fretboard lit up with green circles showing the notes in the key when in reality you’re more of often than not only using the first 3 to 5 frets. So, every thing else is superfluous and a distraction. Example 2 The circular tool showing the notes in the key also show every note of the key lit up and although you highlight the element you’re talking about it isn’t obvious because it’s masked by all the others that are lit up. If it possible just permanently showing the Root and the have the element you focusing on would make it easier to follow. (Also why not always have the root note at 12 o’clock that way you get used to where the 3rd,5th and 7th are etc as opposed to first having to think “where is the starting point”. Example 3 It’s often difficult to see on any online guitar tuition which fingers are being deployed as it’s a helicopter view. You circle the green note in white however, it’s a thin white line around a green dot with dozens of other green dot displayed and beneath the overlay are your fingers - all making it difficult to see instantly and therefore needing to rewind and watch again. Could you either make the note being fretted a solid and very different colour to the green dots or/and make them expand as you fret the notes- the same as when you type on your phone/ the letters become momentarily larger so you know you hitting the letters. If you think I make valid points in my feedback, I realise that it would potentially be a massive job to re-edit your videos and may not be feasible - but you might try it on a new one you create and ask for feedback. By the way as I said I think you’re doing an excellent job in executing a difficult task online so please don’t take its negative criticism, hopefully it’s constructive observation. I would also like to say how useful it is to use examples of you playing well known songs to demonstrate the theory. It brings it all together. I know you have being use this on occasions in the past but perhaps having a part of every relevant lesson would be incredibly beneficial for those on the receiving end. In fact an idea for an extension to what you already have would be a series devoted to deconstructing well known songs and explaining it from a theoretical standpoint. This may not be the best place to leave general feedback but it was the easiest for me and I probably wouldn’t have left it where you expect this kind feedback. So, I understand that you may want to remove it from this thread. Thanks for everything Phil
Phil howes
2025-02-18 11:25:31 +0000 UTC
