B minor

B minor

Relative key	D major
Parallel key	B major
Notes in this scale
B, C♯, D, E, F♯, G, A, B

B minor is a minor scale based on B. The harmonic minor raises the A to A♯. Its key signature has two sharps.

Its relative major is D major, and its parallel major is B major.

In Baroque times, people thought that B minor was the key of passive suffering. Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart (1739-1791) said that it was a key that was complaining gently and quietly, something that matches Bach's use of the key in the St. John's Passion. By Beethoven's time, B minor had changed in people's minds: Francesco Galeazzi wrote that B minor was not suitable for music in good taste, and Beethoven labelled a B minor melodic idea in one of his sketchbooks as a "black key". The chord was famously used as the first chord in Pink Floyd's 1979 hit "Comfortably Numb", commonly renowned to be a very emotional and melancholic song. The second movement of Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, one of the most famous compositions for the classical guitar, is in B minor.

It is a common key used in rock, folk, country and other guitarist-based styles because a guitar is naturally tuned so that all the open strings are notes in B minor.

Well-known Classical pieces in this key

• Violin Concerto No. 3 (Saint-Saëns) - Camille Saint-Saëns
• Mass in B Minor - Johann Sebastian Bach
• Piano Sonata in B minor - Franz Liszt
• Piano Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58 - Frédéric Chopin
• Waltz Opus 69 No. 2 in B Minor - Frédéric Chopin
• Violin Concerto No. 2 in B Minor (La Campanella) - Niccolò Paganini
• Symphony No. 8 in B minor - Franz Schubert
• Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74 (Pathetique) - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
• E lucevan le stelle from Tosca - Giacomo Puccini
• Cello Concerto in B minor - Antonín Dvořák
• Concerto for 4 Violins and Cello, RV 580 (Concerto No. 10 from L'estro Armonico) - Antonio Vivaldi