transposing to minor key. - PG Music Forums

If i have a song, like say a blues in C major, is there a way i can transpose it so for example in Cm the 1 4 and 5 chords automatically become Cm, Fm, G7?

Welcome to the forums.

Because major and minor are two independent musical key modes, it's not possible to transpose from one to the other.

That said, it's possible to use "Edit | Chords | Search Replace chords" to change all the chords.

For example, first use the function to search for C and replace it with Cm. Then repeat it with F/Fm. The G7 should be common to both major and minor modes.

Regards,
Noel

Yes, type out your chords and then select which key you want to transpose to by selecting the key box near the tempo button. You should see a drop down menu there and simply select the new key and the chords will automatically transpose.

Trax

Originally Posted By: Muzic Trax

Yes, type out your chords and then select which key you want to transpose to by selecting the key box near the tempo button. You should see a drop down menu there and simply select the new key and the chords will automatically transpose.

Trax

That only works if you are changing from a major key to another major key, or a minor key to another minor key.

As Noel pointed out it won't change a C major blues progression to a C minor blues progression which is what the OP wants to do .

thanks everyone for your replies. so basically you have to do it manually, which is what i ended up doing. It seems strange to me, that you can't just select a mode or scale from a list, and biab changes the chords and melody etc
appropriately.

Yes it needs that, like RapidComposer has, it will match the chords for the new scale.

Attached picture RC_Chord_Scale.png

I do NOT have any formal music training.

I just typed the chords: C F G Am F G Am C and then transposed from C to Cm. These are the chords that were transposed: Eb Ab Bb Cm Ab Bb Cm Eb? Are these chords NOT in Cm key?

Trax

Hi Trax,

Yes and no. The song was technically transposed to Eb, which is the relative major key to Cm. Eb and Cm contain the same chords, but have a different tonic (root).

When you change the key of a song to a minor key, Band-in-a-Box technically transposes to its relative major, so it just has to move the notes up or down a certain number of semitones and avoid changing your chord structure.

I'm more of an audio/MIDI guy than a musical theory expert, so someone else may be able to explain that a bit better.

Thanks
Kent
PG Music

You're going to run into a lot of problems with BIAB without a basic knowledge of harmony/music theory. The net is full of elementary harmony sites.

And we're back to key signature versus song key. While similar, they are not the same.

When you transpose in BIAB, you are merely transposing to a new key signature. If a chord was minor to start with, it stays minor on the new transposed chord.

There is a recent thread discussing this. This is what I previously posted:

Quote:

The key signature is there for notation purposes and is not actually required. You can apply sharps, flats and naturals to individual notes within notation to your heart's content. By using a key signature, you have a predefined shorthand so you don't have accidental strewn about your notation and is much easier to read. There is no separate major or minor key signature. The key signature encompasses both the major key and its relative minor (G major and E minor both use one sharp, so only one key signature is required to represent both of them). You can't look at the key signature to determine the key of the song (as Matt said, you've got a 50/50 chance of getting it right). So you instead need to look at the notes or chords of the song to determine the key. So the key determines how the song sounds to your ear; the key signature determines what the song looks like on the musical staff.

Thank you for splainin it

Trax

Wishlist item?

Originally Posted By: Muzic Trax

Thank you for splainin it

Trax

Wishlist item?

Done! +++ Wishlist Request +++

its interesting in that BIAB seems to understand chord functions in the way is can use roman numerals/nashville notation, yet this doesn't transfer over when going from major to minor keys.