well... this is embarrassing

[kidkage]

I can't find my keys.

















Ok, serious time:
After 6 years of musicing it up, I'm ready to admit it- I know nothing about keys. oh the shame!
I mean, I've got a tiny, tiny understanding of theory. I know the notes. A-G (#'s included... impressive, huh? ...nothing about flats, minors, majors though )
Now, assuming that 'keys' are based off notes, how do I know what "key" a song is in when so many different notes make up a song, you know?
It wasn't so much of a concern when I was just a guitarist. All I had to worry about was frets, and the tuning of the guitar. But now, moving forward, trying to improve as a writer, and introducing other instruments, and singing, I feel it's time to finally figure it out.
I'm a multi-instrumentalist, but if there are instrument specific demonstrations, I'll probably understand better on guitar.

im going to sulk now

 

[Psycho Clown]

In the most simple way possible (because even though I've been a musician for nearly 40 years, I don't know theory and technical stuff).

The key is the root note of the chord that the song resolves to. Usually it's also the chord the tune starts on, but not always.
So on a guitar, if you strum an E chord to start the song, that'll most likely be what key it's in.

At it's most simple, take 12 bar blues, with a chord sequence of E, A, E, B, A, E.
It starts on an E chord and resolves back to an E chord... It's in the key of E.

Now if someone tells you that the example above is in the wrong key and they can only sing along to it in the key of D, then the chord sequence would change to D, G, D, A, G, D

Hope this helps a bit... I'm sure someone will be along with a better explanation.

 

[dewhitt]

I think a good way to get a handle on key signatures is by using the circle of fifths as a tool to help. I didn't do an exhaustive search, but from a quick look around google, this site - Circle of Fifths ( 5ths ) - understanding key signatures seems to be something that might help.

Learning theory can be difficult, but I think it's worth it.

Good luck!

 

[kip4]

Learning theory can be difficult, but I think it's worth it.

True this I think its worth the effort. Just take your time. Practice the theory along the way
(try writing for yourself with what you have learnt) .
Study breifly a song you know really well and work out the theory behind it.

 

[kip4]

start of maybe in the key of C major (white key scale (before you say i know your a guitar player foremost but you did say you were multi instrumentalist) )and learn chord theory and Harmonizing the scale.
This might be a bit too simple for your needs iI'm not sure how far on you are.

 

[kidkage]

In the most simple way possible (because even though I've been a musician for nearly 40 years, I don't know theory and technical stuff).

The key is the root note of the chord that the song resolves to. Usually it's also the chord the tune starts on, but not always.
So on a guitar, if you strum an E chord to start the song, that'll most likely be what key it's in.

At it's most simple, take 12 bar blues, with a chord sequence of E, A, E, B, A, E.
It starts on an E chord and resolves back to an E chord... It's in the key of E.

Now if someone tells you that the example above is in the wrong key and they can only sing along to it in the key of D, then the chord sequence would change to D, G, D, A, G, D

Hope this helps a bit... I'm sure someone will be along with a better explanation.

Yeah, this is how I've always looked at it. But thought it was wrong
Good to know it's not.

I think a good way to get a handle on key signatures is by using the circle of fifths as a tool to help. I didn't do an exhaustive search, but from a quick look around google, this site - Circle of Fifths ( 5ths ) - understanding key signatures seems to be something that might help.

Learning theory can be difficult, but I think it's worth it.

Good luck!

Sweet!
Cool link I'll check all that stuff out.

Learning theory can be difficult, but I think it's worth it.

True this I think its worth the effort. Just take your time. Practice the theory along the way
(try writing for yourself with what you have learnt) .
Study breifly a song you know really well and work out the theory behind it.
start of maybe in the key of C major (white key scale (before you say i know your a guitar player foremost but you did say you were multi instrumentalist) )and learn chord theory and Harmonizing the scale.
This might be a bit too simple for your needs iI'm not sure how far on you are.

Yeah, I definitely want to learn theory a little more in depth.
Seeing how much just understanding basic notes and the like helped me was pretty motivating .
It's just such a huge world to get lost in because there's so much backtracking I have to do to understand the explanation of things
Trying to have a better understanding of things beyond guitar is also a huge motivator. So, thanks for the key suggestion. Not too simple at all. Exactly what I need.

 

[Phrasemaker]

Hi, An exercise which proved useful when I was teaching music to my son was to establish on piano and guitar how to identify a semitone shift which is easy on a guitar because each fret represents a semitone or half note shift in a given key, piano is slightly more complex because the white keys are the natural notes of the key of C or the relative minor A key, hence the white note intervals are not even across the whole scale. Once you know the intervals of a chosen scale for arguments sake, a regular diatonic major scale it's a case of moving that pattern up or down to play it in an alternative key. The note intervals stay the same unless you are using a scale where there are variations between ascending and descending runs, but for the usual major/minor scales there is nothing more to worry about than the intervals of that key which are set out to make to them usable.

Regards

Tim

 

[rayc]

At teachers' college I chose music appreciation as an elective as I thought music theory was too difficult.
Oh how I wish I'd chosen theory now that i know that I know nothing useful.
Then again - without Music Appreciation I wouldn't be so in love with Pierrot Lunair.

 

[GazEcc]

*clears throath*,

First things first, you already know flats, flats are sharps going the other way, A, A#, B, C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G# is also A, Bb, B, C, Db, D, Eb, E, F, Gb, G, Ab, so you know this now, this is called the chromatic scale, (ie, has all 12 notes in it)

So F# and Gb are the same thing,

Next, Major and Minor are tonalities, these are based off of an ancient system called Modes,

Modes were basically a scale of steps and half steps that made a particular sound like if you press all the white keys starting and ending at C you get a major scale, if you start at A you get a minor scale, these were originally the Ionian (major) and Aeolian (minor) modes based on all the white keys starting on Doh and Lah,

But the use of modes is not very commonly understood today so we say major or minor meaning happy or sad sounding overall,

a chord is made up of 4 notes (a triad is 3 before anyone jumps in there) and a major chord is root 3rd 5th and root', note the ' after root which means above, so for instance C E G C is the chord of c, but if you flatten the third you get the minor so R b3 5 R' of CEGC is C Eb G C which is a C minor chord,

NB: flattening the third will NOT find the relative minor chord, just find the minor version of THAT chord,

next on to key,

keys are basically a series of chords and notes on a scale that match together in a song for instance a song in C major, will have CDEFGABC and the major chords will be I IV and V as with all major keys,

I IV and V in C is C F G It'll also have it relative minor chord (vi) [note lowercase] and its secondary minor (ii) which in C are Am and Dm,
These chords sound great with this scale and key,

As I said this I, IV, V, vi, ii can be used with any key so in the key of G its G, C, D, Em, Am, and so forth, this is the basis of transposing aswell or at least a handy way of doing it,

so now we've covered keys notes tonality and sharps and flats, the last thing I wanna mention is cadences, as with guitar, a lot of chords sound well when put together but at the end of a musical phrase (think of 4 chords that make a line or a verse whatever) there needs to be a cadence, there are two types of cadence and two subtypes of each, a Perfect (finished) cadence and an Imperfect (unfinished) Cadence,

A Perfect cadence can be either Perfect (Authentic) or Plagal (Amen) a perfect is V - I and sounds good for endings of sections or songs outright and a Plagal sounds like the Famous church choir Aaaaaaaaa-mennnnnn, It is IV - I so try playing an G - C or an F - C and see if you can here it,

Imperfect cadences are used when you don't want the section to sound finished just yet like after the second line in the verse when theres 2 more left etc,
there are two types here aswell deceptive and Half these are V - Anything other than I (deceptive) and anything - V Half

this should help you get started, a lot of its off the top of my head and I'm trying to use American instead of british terms so sorry if I mixed them up but its a good starting point anyway good luck on the keys

 

[grimtraveller]

Blimey !!

 

[kidkage]

Thanks for that! Trippy how sharps and flats are the same thing

 

[famous beagle]

Well, they're not really the same thing. It's just that you can identify the same note as either a sharp or a flat. In other words, the note between A and B can be called A# or Bb. But A# and Ab are not the same note. Does that make sense?

Thanks for that! Trippy how sharps and flats are the same thing

 

[kidkage]

Well, they're not really the same thing. It's just that you can identify the same note as either a sharp or a flat. In other words, the note between A and B can be called A# or Bb. But A# and Ab are not the same note. Does that make sense?

Ah I think so

 

[famous beagle]

You could kind of think of it as a color wheel.

You have the primary colors: Red, Yellow, and Blue.

Between red and yellow is orange. You could also call that color, let's say, red-yellow or yellow-red. Either name you give it, it's still the same color and looks the same, but it's not the same color as red or yellow. It's a color all its own.

Just like you have the notes A and B. The note in between could be called "a little higher than A" (A#) or "a little lower than B" (Bb). Either way you name it, it sounds the same---A# and Bb are two different names for the black key on a piano between the A and B keys. The term for this is enharmonic. We say A# and Bb are enharmonic to each other.

Ah I think so

 

[grimtraveller]

In other words, the note between A and B can be called A# or Bb. But A# and Ab are not the same note. Does that make sense?

Did you mean "A# and Bb are not the same note" ?

Either name you give it, it's still the same color and looks the same, but it's not the same color as red or yellow. It's a color all its own.

Just like you have the notes A and B. The note in between could be called "a little higher than A" (A#) or "a little lower than B" (Bb). Either way you name it, it sounds the same---A# and Bb are two different names for the black key on a piano between the A and B keys. The term for this is enharmonic. We say A# and Bb are enharmonic to each other.

Your colour example overcomplicates this. Obviously "red yellow" or "yellow red" are neither red nor yellow. They're orange. A fusion of the two colours and no longer either one or the other.
But whether you call A# and Bb enharmonics or not, they are the same note. If you play the note between A and B on a piano or guitar or mandolin, regardless of whether you call it A# or Bb or George or Great Uncle Phidippedes, it's the same note. There may be musical reasons why you'd sometimes call it A# or at other times Bb but no amount of science or spirituality changes the fact that they are the same note.
It's as bizarre as Bb on a clarinet being a C on a piano {or that may be the other way around. I have trouble recalling ! }. Why complicate matters when it's the same damn note ? It sounds exactly the same because it is !

 

[kidkage]

Ab=G# ?

tomato, tahmmato?

 

[famous beagle]

Did you mean "A# and Bb are not the same note" ?

No, this wasn't a typo. Why would I say that? They are the same note! I said this because in an earlier post, the OP said "it's trippy how sharps and flats are the same thing." I didn't want him thinking that A# and Ab were the same note.

Your colour example overcomplicates this. Obviously "red yellow" or "yellow red" are neither red nor yellow. They're orange. A fusion of the two colours and no longer either one or the other.
But whether you call A# and Bb enharmonics or not, they are the same note. If you play the note between A and B on a piano or guitar or mandolin, regardless of whether you call it A# or Bb or George or Great Uncle Phidippedes, it's the same note. There may be musical reasons why you'd sometimes call it A# or at other times Bb but no amount of science or spirituality changes the fact that they are the same note.
It's as bizarre as Bb on a clarinet being a C on a piano {or that may be the other way around. I have trouble recalling ! }. Why complicate matters when it's the same damn note ? It sounds exactly the same because it is !

Yeah, perhaps the color analogy wasn't the best, but it is the same basic principle. You have the primary colors, which would be the natural notes, and the secondary colors would be the accidentals. Like you said, it doesn't matter whether you call it orange or "red mixed with yellow" or "yellow mixed with red," just like it doesn't matter if you call it A# or Bb or some other, as-of-yet unheard of term like "AB" (just as we have a separate name for orange). It's still the black key between A and B on the piano or the fret between A and B on the guitar.

You do have the clarinet thing backwards. When they read (and play) a C (on a Bb clarinet), they produce a Bb pitch. (There are also Eb clarinets that produce an Eb when they read/play a C.) But that doesn't really have anything to do with enharmonic names for notes.

Anyway, I just wanted to make sure that the OP didn't think that sharps and flats could be used interchangeably (like writing Ab when the note is actually A#). It was just his comment above that made me think he hadn't fully grasped the concept.

 

[famous beagle]

Ab=G# ?

tomato, tahmmato?

Yes, Ab = G#. Sometimes it's a tomato, tahmmato thing. But not usually.

If you're in the key of A major, for example, the major scale is spelled A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#. Every major scale has seven different notes. When you're spelling a major scale, you use each letter name once.

So, you wouldn't call that note Ab, because you've already got an A (natural) note. This is also, of course, represented in the key signature. The KS for A major is three sharps: F#, C#, and G#. This is essentially telling you that the notes in this scale are all natural except for these specified ones. So, since A, B, D, and E aren't specified, they're natural. So when you write out the resulting letter names from A, you get the A major scale: A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#.

If you were in the key of Eb, though, you'd call this note Ab, because the key signature for Eb is 3 flats: Bb, Eb, and Ab. Filling in the unmentioned natural notes, you get the Eb major scale: Eb-F-G-Ab-Bb-C-D. Since we already have a G note in this scale, we don't call that note G#.

All the above was talking about strictly diatonic music; that means notes that are in the key. In other words, in the key of A major, notes like C#, G#, A, and E are diatonic (in key). But notes like Bb or Eb are non-diatonic, because they're not found in the A major scale.

In non-diatonic applications (or sometimes you'll hear "chromatic"), things get a bit fuzzier as to which enharmonic name to use. One general rule is that you use sharps when ascending and flats when descending.

If you were to play from a lower C to a higher C (left to right) on a piano and play every key (black and white) along the way, you'd be playing the chromatic scale, which has 12 notes. So most people would use sharps for the accidental notes, which would look like this:

C - C# - D - D# - E - F - F# - G - G# - A - A# - B - (C)

But if you were descending from a higher C to a lower C, you'd normally use flats for those black key notes.

C - B - Bb - A - Ab - G - Gb - F - E - Eb - D - Db - (C)

This same logic applies to shorter chromatic runs of three notes. If you're in the key of A major for example, and you move up chromatically from D to F#, technically you would write it as D - D# - E - E# - F#. I know it looks funny, but E# is just another name for F. And since you're ascending through the notes, that's the technically correct way to do it. However, you'll see plenty of times where F natural would be used too. The difference is that, if you use sharps when ascending, it's less accidentals that you have to write.

Compare:
1. D - D# - E - E# - F#
or
2. D - Eb - E - F - F#

In 1, you'd only have to write a sharp on D# and a sharp on E#.
In 2, you'd have to write a flat on Eb, then a natural on E to cancel that, then a natural on F (because the key signature says F#), and then a sharp on F# to cancel the previous natural.

Anyway, there are plenty of times when it's really left up to the discretion of the composer. If you're in A major, and you have an Eb (D#) note just out of nowhere that's not part of a chromatic run, you could really name that whatever you'd like. Many times, people will use the underlying harmony as a guide with this type of thing.

If that note occurred over a B7 chord (II, or V/V if you prefer) in the key of A major, for example, it would make sense to call it D#, because a B7 chord is spelled B-D#-F#-A.

If the note occurred over an F7 chord (bVI) in the key of A major, it would make sense to call it Eb, because an F7 chord is spelled F-A-C-Eb.

So there are a bunch of different musical situations that could affect how you choose to name a note. These are just a few.

 

[grimtraveller]

That was really informative and easilly broken down Beagle, thanks for that.

No, this wasn't a typo. Why would I say that? They are the same note! I said this because in an earlier post, the OP said "it's trippy how sharps and flats are the same thing." I didn't want him thinking that A# and Ab were the same note.





Anyway, I just wanted to make sure that the OP didn't think that sharps and flats could be used interchangeably (like writing Ab when the note is actually A#). It was just his comment above that made me think he hadn't fully grasped the concept.

I get what you're saying. I thought the statement

Well, they're not really the same thing.

was a general statement which seemed odd as you went on to explain that they were. But sharps and flats that have the same letter aren't the same. I didn't realize that you thought the OP thought it might be so. It all makes sense now !

You do have the clarinet thing backwards. When they read (and play) a C (on a Bb clarinet), they produce a Bb pitch. (There are also Eb clarinets that produce an Eb when they read/play a C.) But that doesn't really have anything to do with enharmonic names for notes.

I often get them backwards. But when I play with clarinetists and saxophonists, we manage to sort it out. I still think it's daft ! It's easier explaining 'to', 'too' and 'two' to kids just learning to read and write !

 

[kidkage]

yeah beagle thanks a lot!


I'm starting to feel like I'll be able to understand this stuff thanks to all the explanations given here.
I really appreciate you guys taking the time out to type all of this stuff!

Do you all have any "full coverage" type books to recommend?