Minor key in the context of "II-V-I turnaround"

In classical music from Western culture, a diminished seventh (play) is an interval produced by narrowing a minor seventh by a chromatic semitone, and its inversion is the augmented second. For instance, the interval from A to G is a minor seventh, ten semitones wide, and both the intervals from A♯ to G, and from A to G♭ are diminished sevenths, spanning nine semitones. Being diminished, it is considered a dissonant interval.

The diminished seventh is used quite readily in the minor key, where it is present in the harmonic minor scale between the seventh scale step and the sixth scale step in the octave above.

Lithuanian folk songs (in Lithuanian: Lithuanian: liaudies dainos) are often noted for not only their mythological content but also their relating historical events.

Lithuanian folk music includes romantic songs, wedding songs, as well as work songs and archaic war songs. Traditional songs are performed either solo or in groups, in unison or harmonized in primarily in thirds (tūravoti - lith. "to harmonize"). There are three ancient styles of singing in Lithuania that are connected with ethnographical regions: monophony, multi-voiced homophony, heterophony and polyphony. Monophony mostly occurs in southern (Dzūkija), southwest (Suvalkija) and eastern (Aukštaitija) parts of Lithuania. Multi-voiced homophony is widespread in the entire Lithuania. It is most archaic in the western part (Samogitia). Polyphonic songs are common in the renowned sutartinės tradition of Aukštaitija and occurs only sporadically in other regions. Many Lithuanian dainos are performed in the minor key.

A funeral march (marche funèbre in French, marcia funebre in Italian, Trauermarsch in German, marsz żałobny in Polish), as a musical genre, is a march, usually in a minor key, in a slow "simple duple" metre, imitating the solemn pace of a funeral procession. Some such marches are often considered appropriate for use during funerals and other sombre occasions, the best-known example being the third movement of Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2. Handel uses the name dead march, also used for marches played by a military band at military funerals.

The ii–V–I progression ("two–five–one", occasionally referred to as the ii–V–I turnaround) is a common cadential chord progression used in a wide variety of music genres, including jazz harmony. It is a succession of chords whose roots descend in fifths from the second degree (supertonic) to the fifth degree (dominant), and finally to the tonic. In a major key, the supertonic triad (ii) is minor, and in a minor key it is diminished. The dominant is, in its normal form, a major triad and commonly a dominant seventh chord. With the addition of chord alterations, substitutions, and extensions, limitless variations exist on this simple formula.

The ii–V–I progression is "a staple of virtually every type of [Western] popular music", including jazz, R&B, pop, rock, and country. Examples include "Honeysuckle Rose" (1928), which, "features several bars in which the harmony goes back and forth between the II and V chords before finally resolving on the I chord," "Satin Doll" (1953), and "If I Fell".