what does, "playing in key" mean!??
binauralonthecape
Posts: 257
when im playing with a few of my friends they are always asking what key im playing in, need some insight here...thank you, i used to take lessons a few years back and now ive forgotten what that means, dammit!
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...i know all the rules but the rules do not know me, guaranteed...
...i know all the rules but the rules do not know me, guaranteed...
Post edited by Unknown User on
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basically, it's what note the series of chords and notes you're playing is rooted it.
i seriously can't explain it. i hate theory.
like "elderly woman" is in 'D'.
that whatever chord you start the song with
that is the key you're in
Elderly Woman starts with D so it's in D
etc...
Typo Man: "Thanks kidz, but remembir, stay in skool!"
it's technically the D mixolydian mode (which is essentially the key of G). the D major scale has a C#m in it whereas the G has a C major (which is what is used in the song).
shoot. i always get that wrong.
i just realized that i know nothing about music at all
...i know all the rules but the rules do not know me, guaranteed...
neither did the beatles, technically.
yeah, good point, its all in experimentation, well, it can be......
...i know all the rules but the rules do not know me, guaranteed...
pretty much
Typo Man: "Thanks kidz, but remembir, stay in skool!"
basically yes. The knowledge becomes more essential when your writing your own music, especially if your writing other instrumental parts into your song.
ok you know how to build a major scale right? Welll if you dont here it is. The most important thing to remember: no E# (Fb) or B# (Cb). Lets take the easiest scale, C, because there is no sharps or flats.
C D E F G A B
Now examine that pattern. C to D is a whole step, D to E is a whole, BUT E to F is a half step because there is no E#. Continuing the pattern, F to G is a whole, as is G to A, as is A to B. If we were to continue going up the scale to the next octave, we would see that B to C is a half step, remember no B#. So look at the pattern (W=Whole, h=half):
W-W-H-W-W-W-H
This the pattern for all major scales. Now numbering notes or chords. A chord gets a number that is in accordance with its number in the scale. Hence, in C major, C is 1 (usually with a roman numeral, but itll make things easier on you if its not for now) D is 2, E is 3, etc... A common pattern for songs is 1-4-5, at least this what many blues songs are built, and since blues is the grandfather of rock and roll, it applies here.
Now finding minors in the key your playing in. The way I do this is pretty simple, you just have to break it down. As you know chords are just 2 or more notes played together at once. To build chords, you use a scale, similar to the way you find out what key your playing in. So lets look at an easy chord, and it gets no easier than C major. To form basic chords, you take the 1st, 3rd and the 5th.
C D E F G A B
So in this case its C (1), E (3), G (5). Simple right?
Lets look at more diificult chord, E major
E F# G# A B C# D#
Same pattern as before to form the scale, remembering to exclude E# and B#.
So lets look at what the E chord actually is: E(1) G#(3) B(5)
Now heres the tricky part. Say we are playing in the key of C.
(C D E F G A
In stead of playing the G#, which is 2 WHOLE steps above an E, you go 1 AND A HALF steps above the E, and play a G natural. Hence the E become an Eminor (commonly written as Em).
So basically to recap, as theory goes, if the chord you want to play has a note that isnt in the Key you are playing in, then make it a minor.
I probably gave you a lot more than you need, but itll be good for all the other beginners out there. Remember that is just very basic stuff, and it gets alot more complex, but thats a good base i think
E-G#-B-D# =E major 7
F#-A-C#-E =F# minor 7
G#-B-D#-F# =G# minor 7
A-C#-E-G# =A major 7
B-D#-F#-A =B dominant 7
C#-E-G#-B =C# minor 7
D#-F#-A-C# =D# half diminshed
So the above collection of chords comes from the E major scale, thus they are in the key of E major. Again this is very simplified but hey you've gotta start somewhere!
Now going back to the chords, if we take a progression such as a II-V-I (very common to jazz) and put that in the key of E major you'd have a progression along the lines of F#-7 B7 EMaj7 and the notes that you would play over these chords all come from the E major scale.
The example of the blues came up earlier -this could be worth taking a look at as it provides a slightly different example to the one above. Lets say we're playing a very basic rock blues, which follows the form:
I /I /I /I
IV/IV/I /I
V /IV/I /I
You'll hear this pattern in alot of ZZ top kinda tunes, usually with a couple of variations but this form is the skeleton of the blues, even in jazz which has infinately more complicated variations that we won't go into here! OK so back to the blues, if we put that in E major we have:
I=EMaj 7= E-G#-B-D#
IV=AMaj7= A-C#-E-G#
V=B7= B-D#-F#-A
So far so good? Not quite... the blues is unique in that all of the primary chords (the ones we used in the previous example) are dominant chords, they all have flat 7ths which means that E7 becomes E-G#-B-D, A7 now has a G natural and V remains unaltered as it was already a dominant chord. So this begs the question what key are we really in? And more to the point how do we work out what key we are really in? This problem is further exacerbated in rock music by the use of power chords, or chords that are structured 1-5-8 (or E-B-E in the case of our E major). As these chords do not contain a 3rd or a 7th degree, they do not have any independant harmonic quality (ie Major Minor or Dominant) -thus key becomes dependant on the relationship between chords.
Going back to our blues, let's simplify it one step further and assume that we're using power chords for I IV and V -so how do we tell that we're in E? Well as I said it comes down to the relationships betweem the chords. For starters, each root note (the note at the bottom of the chord) comes from E, this is a good start but they are also found in a number of other keys (example A C G etc) so what we really need to listen for is cadence points, which comes back to the idea that key is based around what chord you start on. You'll notice in the blues for example that I is the most emphasised chord, but don't think of it as a chord, think of it as the most emphasised sound. In fact, for the second half of the second line and right throughout the third line the chord progression is moving towards that E chord. In fact if you play it on your guitar you'll hear how the third line sounds like it really wants to move towards that E chord -if you just got up and walked away after playing the A chord then it wouldn't sound finished. Why? Because you are interupting the cadence to the tonic chord. So what I'm getting at here is that key can be determined by the chord to which your cadence resolves, or to make that easier the chord at which your progression sounds finished, complete, relaxed, however you want to think of it!
Anyway I'm sure this has given you plenty more to think about than you were really after so I'll leave it here. The concept of key is really only the beginning of harmonic theory, I don't know how serious you are with your playing but it's really worth looking into, particularly if you plan to improvise your solos.
Good luck!
...i know all the rules but the rules do not know me, guaranteed...