Hello PG Music forums,

A song writing topic I wanted to share was the concept of Relative Keys. Knowing so many of these can really help with your composition when it comes that little extra to your song to maintain interest.

There is a full article on Wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_key

There's also this handy article from Music stack exchange here: https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/64196/combining-chords-from-relative-keys

What are your thoughts on relative keys? How often do you use them?

Quite often.

I tend to use the 6th minor often in various keys. It fits well and relative keys have the same key signature. In the relative minor, the opposite is also true... you can use the major 3rd with ease.

I don't think I have jumped from relative minor to major in my writing.... or vice versa.

I've used them a lot, including many times before I knew that's what I was doing. Primarily, I move from one to another to differentiate sections (A, B, C) so that a verse, say, may be in C, but the chorus in Am. But just to borrow a chord from the relative major/minor key works musically even without changing the tonal center. It depends on how long you hang there.

Oh using a 6th minor is interesting! I wonder if using wider intervals would have unique effects too, such as a minor 9th

Thats strategic! I would imagine that makes for fairly smooth transitions between sections.