Originally Posted by: Catafracta

In the lesson "Flying Fifths" ( https://www.guitartricks.com/lesson.php?input=20192&s_id=1590 ) , Anders starts playing in A major scale, but then he shifts to three frets higher in the fretboard to "get our minor sound". I guess he means by going three frets higher he's changing to the relative minor scale?

[p]No, he means parallel minor. A major to A minor. Staying on the same root note but changing the chord or scale quality (major to minor, vice versa) is called parallel minor.

In this case Anders is simply demonstrating the sound of an interval of a 5th in A minor. He starts by referring to A major because that's what he does throughout the tutorial on intervals. Just to give you a consistent reference point. The distance from the A to the E is a 5th. Then to give you variety he also shows you a 5th interval from the C to the G (in A that's the minor 3rd to the minor 7th). He's showing you 2 different ways to visualize & play the 5th interval.

And since this is the Rock course he's presenting it in a rock style context. Mixing parallel keys is pretty common in a lot of rock music. You can look at it like A major to A minor, or A minor to C major.

The bass stays centered on the A throughout the track, so in this lesson it's all very much in A minor.

Although F# minor is the relative minor of A major there is no F# minor involved! Hope that helps!