Major keys are easy to understand, at least in classical music, because a major key and a major scale are coextensive. Minor keys are harder, because you can’t just equate them to particular minor scales. To understand how chords work in minor keys, I’m going to walk you through a standard progression that happens throughout the final movement of Bach’s Violin Partita No. 2 in D minor, the famous Chaconne.
Here’s the complete performance by Viktoria Mullova, with MIDI visualization in Ableton Live created by me:
Read more about the Chaconne and hear the Afro-Funk remix. There’s a lot there to dig into! But right now, I’m just going to talk about the first few measures. The opening phrase is four chords: Dm, Eø7 with its 7th in the bass, A7 with its 3rd in the bass, and Dm again.
Together, the chords form a ii-V-i in D minor. In the remainder of this post, I’m going to talk through these three chords and their associated scales in detail. Try them for yourself on the aQWERTYon.
Continue reading “Learning minor key harmony from the Bach Chaconne”