How do you change a major melody into a minor one?

In music at school I have a melody and I want to make it minor. I'm not sure how to do this. Some people say play it a note lower and some say just change the key. can anyone help me?How do you change a major melody into a minor one?
How many ways are there to skin a cat ?



If for instance you are in C , and the melodic fragment /section you wish to put in the minor begins nd ends on the tonic or the submediant you could harmonise it in am....however you might want to use a perfect cadence in am before you introduce this section. You would then have to consider the modality of your theme. Are you going to sharpen the 6th %26amp; %26amp; 7th notes of the scale as the theme rises?



Or are you going to cast it in the tonic minor by adding 3 flats to the key signature?



It comes to this a melody or scale may be considered to be in a minor mode if there exists a minor 3rd above the tonic





You will also need to consider the harmonic implicationsHow do you change a major melody into a minor one?
Play the notes on the page, but add three flats/remove three sharps from the key signature. In other words, if you are in the key of E Major, (4 sharps) play the notes as written, but your only sharp note would be F#. The rest are all natural. If you were in a key with 2 sharps, you would instead play in a key with one flat. If you are in a key with 1 flat, you would instead play it with 4 flats, and so on.



Another way to look at it, if you know your key signatures well enough, is to just play in the key signature 3 half steps up. In other words, if you are in the key of G major, just play the same notes, but in the key of Bb major. If you are in the key of C major, just play in the key of Eb major.
It's simple: suppose the melody is in A major (so there will be three sharps in the key f#, c#, g#). Find the minor scale with the same name, in this case A minor (no flats or sharps in the key), and rewrite the melody there.

Another way: keep the same key and move all your notes a minor third interval down. Example: if the melody is c,d,e,g,e,d,c in C major move the notes to a,b,c,e,c,b,a (practically you are moving to A minor).
In changing Major to Minor, you have 3 scales to consider; Natural, Harmonic, or Melodic.



In the Natural Minor, you transpose the melody from Scale step 1(Tonic/Doh) to Scale step 6(Sub-Mediant/La). In doing this you have moved from the Major key, into the Relative Minor.



The natural minor gets its name because you don't raise or lower any notes.

-%26gt; Example: in A minor (relative minor of C Major) you have A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A.



The harmonic minor is just like the natural minor, but with a raised 7th(Leading Note[tone]/ Ti)

-%26gt; Example if you wrote in A minor (the relative minor of C Major), the scale would be A, B, C, D, E, F, G#, A

G# Being the Raised 7th.



The melodic minor is more complicated then the other two. You take the natural minor, and raise the 6th(Sub-Mediant/La) and 7th(Leading note/Ti) on the way up (Ascending) and lower them on the way down(Descending)

-%26gt; Example

A, B, C, D, E, F#, G#, A ----Ascending

A, B, C, D, E, F(natural), G(natural), A.

--------------------------------------?br>


This may be more information than you needed.



Stick with the Natural minor as a general rule if you are unfamiliar with the more complicated minors.



A good starting example would be Twinkle twinkle.



The main melody is C C G G A A G... F F E E D D C

In the natural minor this is A A E E F F E... D D C C B B A



The quick way to find the Relative minor from a major key.. is to count down 3 semitones..



E.g. 1: C -%26gt; A = B, Bb, A .... the note you land on the 3rd semitone should be your Relative Minor.



E.g. 2: G = F#, F, E .... E minor is the relative minor of G major



Hope this helps!
Yes, each major key has a relative minor key.



For example, the key of G primarily uses the chords G, C and D7.

The relative minor key is Em,Am and B7.



To change a chord from a major to a minor you simply flatten the third note in the chord, so E (notes of E, G# and B) becomes E, G and B.



Hope this helps.
You change the key. Minor is it's own key. You can achieve minors by altering they keys, but if your writing your melody, it should be noted as changing keys.
The minor scale has a flat third, sixth and seventh.



For example:



C major: C D E F G A B

C minor: C D Eb F G Ab Bb