Skip to content
Tomus

Key reference

The key of A minor

no sharps or flats · A – B – C – D – E – F – G

A minor has no sharps or flats. A piece in this key draws on A, B, C, D, E, F, G and treats A as home.

The seven chords below are the ones built from those notes alone, which is why they sound like they belong together.

The key signature

𝄞
The key signature of A minor, which is empty.

Order of sharps

  1. F♯
  2. C♯
  3. G♯
  4. D♯
  5. A♯
  6. E♯
  7. B♯

This key signature has no sharps or flats.

The notes of the key

These are the notes of the natural minor scale on this tonic. Pieces in a minor key routinely raise the seventh, and sometimes the sixth, without changing the signature. See the A minor scale for the degrees and step pattern.

A – B – C – D – E – F – G

The seven diatonic chords

Build a triad on each degree using only notes from the key and the qualities fall into a fixed pattern. That pattern is the same in every minor key, which is why progressions transpose so cleanly.

DegreeRomanChordNotesFunction
1iAmA – C – ETonic
2ii°BdimB – D – FPredominant
3IIICC – E – GTonic
4ivDmD – F – APredominant
5vEmE – G – BDominant
6VIFF – A – CTonic
7VIIGG – B – DSubtonic

Adding sevenths

Stack one more third on each and you get the seventh chords of the key.

RomanChordNotes
iAm7A – C – E – G
ii°Bm7♭5B – D – F – A
IIICmaj7C – E – G – B
ivDm7D – F – A – C
vEm7E – G – B – D
VIFmaj7F – A – C – E
VII7G7G – B – D – F

Common progressions in A minor

These are the same shapes you meet in every minor key, written with this key’s chords.

One caveat: the chords below are the strictly diatonic ones. In practice the chord on the fifth degree is usually raised to major (borrowing the leading tone from harmonic minor), because the natural minor’s minor v has no leading tone and so does not pull back to the tonic.

i – VI – III – VII

  1. AmiTonic
  2. FVITonic
  3. CIIITonic
  4. GVIISubtonic

i – iv – v – i

  1. AmiTonic
  2. DmivPredominant
  3. EmvDominant
  4. AmiTonic

i – VII – VI – V

  1. AmiTonic
  2. GVIISubtonic
  3. FVITonic
  4. EmvDominant

Related keys

RelationshipKeySignature
Relative majorC majorSame signature
Parallel majorA major3 sharps
One step sharpwardsE minorOne more sharp
One step flatwardsD minorOne more flat
Neighbouring keys on the circle of fifths share six of their seven notes.

Related

All minor keys