I've got a question, I thought perhaps one of you fine human beings could help me out.
I am under the impression that you can find the relative minor key of a major key by counting down 3 steps, alternately, you can find the relative Major by counting up 3 steps from the minor. That minor should have the same amount of sharps and flats as it's relative Major. Correct so far?
So, I'm doing an exercise that requires me to identify the diatonic 7th chord for a particular scale degree of a particular minor key. The question is in the form of; B Minor, VII7 = _ _ _ _ _ . So for that instance, I got A7. I worked that out by first identifying the relative major of B, which is D, which I know has 2 sharps, F and C. Then I wrote out the B Minor scale and knew that A was the 7th degree, and that the 7th degree of a minor diatonic progression would make it a Dominant 7th, thus A7.
Now, when I go to the next example; F Minor, v7 = _ _ _ _, I try to repeat the same process but it doesn't work. A 3rd up from F is A, A Major has 3 sharps, so F C G are sharp, but F Minor obviously can't have an F# in it. So what am I missing? I know I can just write out F minor by the W-H-W-W-H-W formula, but I'm trying to do it with the relative major/minor formula. Halp?