How to find key of "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay&quot

Also how could I write the chord progression for this song in Roman numerals?
Well, you'd have to know the key to do that...

Edit - Which is just straight ahead G it looks like...

G A B C D E F#

How did you figure out it's a G?

G major would have G,Bm,C,Am, but verse goes G,B,C,A, so why don't those chords clash?
Also, bridge has F major chord, and isn't it strange to have a chord whose tonic isn't in the key?

I've read somewhere that the ending chord of the song defines key more often than the opening chord...so wouldn't that make it in A major or E major?

well, since Neal Schon redid this song with Michael Bolton, and since Neal LOVES the key of G, and since most the notes fit nicely into G, and since everything seems to resolve back to G, I'm gonna say G.

How did you figure out it's a G?

Seem to have gotten myself in quite a pickle here. I admit it, I was guesstimating.

Me: "Hey every line starts with G and none of the notes look like they're going to be freakishly out of place, I'm good!"

My best guess without hearing the song is still that it's just G with some harmonic variation. So it's A and not Am, adds G's tri-tone there (C#), seems like it's still G, with just a little bluesy flavor.

Or maybe I'm completely wrong.

See, this is why we need Notey McBoaty in here...

See, this is why we need Notey McBoaty in here...

Happy to oblige.

Having played for over 30 years now, I've collected a lot (700+) of music books. Pulling my copy of The New York Times Great Songs of the 60s off my shelf (copyright 1970 - the song was published in 68, so the sheet music I have is 'current'), I find it's not in G... it's in F.

The chords are:

F, A, Bb, G, F, A, Bb, G, F, D, F, D, F, G,
(1st ending F, D)
(2nd ending F, D, F, C, Bb, F, C, Bb, F, C, Bb, F, Eb, C)
(3rd ending F, D, F, D... fade out)

So what makes the song in F? It's got all major chords, on I, II, III, IV, V, VI, and bVII.

But if you look at the melody notes, they're F, G, A, Bb, C, D, and Eb. The only variations from that are Ab - always in the middle of a chromatic run from A down to G ("sitting when the EVE-NIN-COME" etc.) - and G# in the whistling part on the fade out... which is always a decoration of A (A-G#-A).

Besides the fact that I can look at the key signature - one flat for F - the melody has the notes of the Bb scale. That's the thing about modal tunes, though... they're not in the key of the scale; we need to look for the tonal center.

The melody starts on F; the primary melody of the verses ends on F, but then descends to D in a vocal riff ("wasting time" is G-F slurred, D, F... the F is held for more than a beat - a fair space in a cut time tune - then the riff ends with A-F-D); the second ending phrases ("looks like nothing's gonna change") start on F and end on F an octave lower; even the whistling starts on F... and while it ends on C, the music shows that's a glissando starting on C and descending from there, fading out.

So F is clearly the tonal center, and that makes the piece in 'F something'. The fact that there are no E notes, only Eb, makes in in F mixolydian.

As a general rule, keys are defined by the melody and supported by the harmony. F major appears to support every F note in the piece, with one exception: the slurred G-F notes in "wasting time"... that's on a G chord, but right after the slur and the following D note, the melody returns to F - supported by F major.

While most chord progressions will use chords native to the key, some don't. This happens to be one of them, so it's hard to pick up the fact that it's in F from the chord progression alone. You have to actually analyze the melody. The fact that this is in a modal scale makes that tougher if you're trying to analyze it by tabbing it out, but it wouldn't be impossible.

Holy crap batman. :shock:

That was my next guess. :lol: Well, at least within 11 more guesses. 8)

Just to make sure people are on the same page, Noteboat is working from a different transcription ( key of F ) than yaroslavvb, undercat and sirN (key of G). Some artist evidently transposed it to G, either for greater ease in playing (G is much easier with open chords) or for the sake of the singer.