Parallel key
major and minor scales with the same tonic
In music theory, a major scale and a minor scale that have the same starting note (tonic) are called parallel keys and are said to be in a parallel relationship. For example, G major and G minor have the same tonic (G) but have different modes, so G minor is the parallel minor of G major. This relationship is different from that of relative keys, a pair of major and minor scales that share the same notes but start on different tonics (e.g., G major and E minor).
A major scale can be transformed to its parallel minor by lowering the third, sixth, and seventh scale degrees, and a minor scale can be transformed to its parallel major by raising those same scale degrees.
In the early nineteenth century, composers began to experiment with freely borrowing chords from the parallel key.
In rock and popular music, examples of songs that emphasize parallel keys include Grass Roots' "Temptation Eyes", The Police's "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic", Lipps Inc's "Funkytown", The Beatles' "Norwegian Wood," and Dusty Springfield's "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me".
“Parallel key” enters the record as major and minor scales with the same tonic. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Parallel, major and minor can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Parallel key” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.