G-sharp minor


G-sharp minor is a minor scale based on G, consisting of the pitches G, A, B, C, D, E, and F. Its key signature has five sharps.
The G-sharp natural minor scale is:

Changes needed for the melodic and harmonic versions of the scale are written in with accidentals as necessary. The G-sharp harmonic minor and melodic minor scales are:


Its relative major is B major. Its parallel major, G-sharp major, is usually replaced by its enharmonic equivalent of A-flat major, since G-sharp major features an F in the key signature and A-flat major only has four flats, making it rare for G-sharp major to be used. A-flat minor, its enharmonic, with seven flats, has a similar problem, thus G-sharp minor is often used as the parallel minor for A-flat major..

Music in G-sharp minor

Despite the key rarely being used in orchestral music other than to modulate, it is not entirely uncommon in keyboard music, as in Piano Sonata No. 2 by Alexander Scriabin, who actually seemed to prefer writing in it. It is also found in the second movement in Shostakovich's 8th String quartet. If G-sharp minor is used, composers generally write B wind instruments in the enharmonic B-flat minor, rather than A-sharp minor to facilitate reading the music. Where available, instruments in D can be used instead, giving a transposed key of the enharmonic G minor, rather than F minor, while the E horns would have parts written in the key of E minor.
Few symphonies are written in G-sharp minor; among them are Nikolai Myaskovsky's 17th Symphony, Elliot Goldenthal's Symphony in G-sharp minor and an abandoned work of juvenilia by Marc Blitzstein.
Frédéric Chopin composed a Polonaise in G-sharp minor, opus posthumous in 1822. His Étude No. 6 is in G-sharp minor as well.
Modest Mussorgsky wrote the movements "The Old Castle" and "Bydło" from Pictures at an Exhibition in G-sharp minor.
Liszt's "La campanella" from his Grandes études de Paganini is in G-sharp minor.
Sibelius wrote the slow movement of his Third Symphony in G-sharp minor.
Parts of the Allegro non Tropo movement of Dmitri Shostakovich's third quartet, and the Allegro Molto movement of his eighth quartet are also in G-sharp minor.