Hey, I've been playing for a few years now, and I know a bunch of pentatonic scales and stuff. I'm decent at them, but it's not too helpful if I don't know what key a specific song is in. I can usually figure it out with a bit of trial and error, but I know there's another way.
I don't know too much about theory but I know some.
Also I'm an idiot.
:D
One chord is fine.
Two you're pushing it.
Three and you're into jazz.
Certainly you are NOT an idiot. Key is something you learn through therory. PM me your email address and I'll send you a sheet that will tell you the chords in any key. Figuring out a key is a learned process. Often the first chord is the key.
"Nothing...can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts."
There is a relationship of all the chords in any given key . I'll start with the key of C .
C...F...G7 . If you count the notes of the scale (do , re , mi , fa , sol , la , ti , do) starting with C as 1 , then F is 4 , and G7 is 5 .
C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
The 1 , 4 and 5 chords can be used to play the majority of songs ever written , but not all . There is also a minor key that is related to C in that it uses the exact same notes in its scale . This key is Am . So starting from A ...
A B C D E F G A
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
The 1 , 4 and 5 chords in this relative minor key are Am ... Dm ... and E7 . So in all we have : C......F......G7......Am......Dm......E7 .
Chances are if you have a song that uses a lot of these chords in it it is in the key of C or Am . Another telltale sign of what key a song is the first or last chords in the song . They are often the same as what key the song is in . Again , NOT ALWAYS .
So for the key of G we have : G...C...D7...Em...Am...B7 .
Key of F : F...Bb...C7...Dm...Gm...A7 .
Key of A : A...D...E7...F#m...Bm...C#7 .
Key of D : D...G...A7...Bm...Em...F#7 .
Key of E : E...A...B7...C#m...F#m...G#7 .
Etc. , etc. ...
Hope this helps !
If I claim to be a wise man , it surely means that I don't know .
The key of a song generally desribes to what you release tension, so you can usually just listen and pick that chord. In modern day rock the #1 progression is the V(7)-I, pretty much always if you hear such progression the second chord will be the tonic, or atleast for those measures. Writing down all chords and figuring in which scale they fit works well in pop and such, but only if the song stays in one key. If not you'll have to notice there is some modulation going and then analyze both parts independantly. For example, take this progression:
Cmaj7-Fmaj7-Dm7-Bm7|E7-Amaj7-Dmaj7-G7-G7
It works better to see this as two mini progressions, one in C and one in A, compared with saying it's all in C but with some exceptions.
Certainly you are NOT an idiot. Key is something you learn through therory. PM me your email address and I'll send you a sheet that will tell you the chords in any key. Figuring out a key is a learned process. Often the first chord is the key.
Also often the last chord of the song is the key.
More often the last chord than the first, but both are better than average for guidelines. But there's a better way...
The real key is dominant 7th chords. If a song stays in one key, the dominant 7th will point to the tonic (the "key") of the song.
If you only have 7th chords on one note, the tonic will be a fifth lower; if a song has E7, it's in A or Am... if it has C7, it's in F or Fm, etc.
If a song has two sevenths that don't occur back to back, look to see if one is sometimes a 7th and sometimes a major (or minor) chord. If so, that's the tonic - many tunes, especially blues, will use a I7 to lead into IV.
If you have more than two dominant 7ths, the answer is more complicated. You're looking at modulation - a temporary change to a new "key of the moment". In that case, there's no simple answer; you have to understand the theory behind the specific modulation to decide what key to play in - whether or not you're actually "in" the key!
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