E minor
Minor key with one sharp; relative minor of G major.
What it means
E minor is the minor key with one sharp in its key signature, F-sharp. Its tonic is E, and its relative major is G major. In its harmonic and melodic forms, D-sharp is additionally raised as the seventh degree to serve as a leading tone.
Musical use
E minor is among the most immediately accessible keys on the guitar, since its tonic chord is fretted across several open strings, producing a full, resonant sound. For this reason E minor appears frequently in folk songs, rock and pop music, and guitar-accompanied compositions with a dark, often melancholic character.
E minor should be distinguished from its relative major, G major, which shares the same key signature but has a different tonic and therefore a bright rather than dark tonal character. It also differs clearly from E-flat minor, which despite the similar name is an entirely different, distant key with six flats.
Performance practice
On guitar in E minor, deliberately use the ringing open strings to make chord voicings fuller and more resonant, for instance by choosing melodic lines that sound together with the open strings. In the harmonic minor scale, pay particular attention to the raised seventh degree D-sharp, which pulls toward the tonic E as a leading tone and should be practised separately.