What Key is this song in?

[gecko zzed]

I'd say the verse was F, and the bridgey thing modulates to C, which is also the key of the outro part.

 

[Chili]

Which is a mode of F-maj, right?

Anything is possible. But I see the flatted 7th chord more than a major 2nd in a major scale. Come to think of it, I've never seen a Gmaj chord in the F scale. But then again, I never pay attention to those things since finishing my music theory classes some 35 years.

If the key signature changes from verse to chorus, then I say, Cool, you put more thought into it than I ever would.

 

[Robus]

Try substituting a Cmaj7 for that C chord. Does it sound okay? If so, you're in C. If a C dominant 7 sounds better, you're in F.

 

[fat_fleet]

Anything is possible. But I see the flatted 7th chord more than a major 2nd in a major scale. Come to think of it, I've never seen a Gmaj chord in the F scale. But then again, I never pay attention to those things since finishing my music theory classes some 35 years.

If the key signature changes from verse to chorus, then I say, Cool, you put more thought into it than I ever would.

Yeah, I haven't really thought about keys and scales since I was about 15.

 

[Chili]

Yeah, I haven't really thought about keys and scales since I was about 15.

Yeah, and I couldn't come up with a witty reply to Galileo and Copernicus either, so you got me there.

Hey Nola, not to disrupt your thread too much, I'll listen to your sample when I get home this weekend.
cheers,

 

[Nola]

Hey Nola, not to disrupt your thread too much, I'll listen to your sample when I get home this weekend.
cheers,

thanks chili. i deleted it because it was such a bad recording, but i'm going to redo it soon and record it well this time

 

[gecko zzed]

i deleted it because it was such a bad recording

I listened to it. True, it wasn't the best recording. Vocals sounded hesitant.

But I actually enjoyed the song. There was originality there, and I reckon it would scrub up nicely.

 

[Nola]

I listened to it. True, it wasn't the best recording. Vocals sounded hesitant.

But I actually enjoyed the song. There was originality there, and I reckon it would scrub up nicely.

thanks gecko. i put it back up (in the opening post) since you said it wasn't an unlistenable recording. i got neurotic about the recording since most people here are good and hate bad recordings. i only posted it 'cause i thought hearing it might help determine the key.

 

[rob aylestone]

Is that G Major or minor - the 5th is obvious, but I get the feeling it's minor? so G minor as a key works for me - the other chords all relate to it, just a bit of a more unusual progression.

 

[Nola]

Is that G Major or minor - the 5th is obvious, but I get the feeling it's minor? so G minor as a key works for me - the other chords all relate to it, just a bit of a more unusual progression.

hi rob. It's G major, which is what confused me. If it were Gm I could put it in F.
I only need to know b/c i might collaborate with some people online and don't know what to write as the key.

 

[VomitHatSteve]

I'd say the verse was F, and the bridgey thing modulates to C, which is also the key of the outro part.

Yeah, it's definitely a modulation of some sort. You can hear it in the demo.
I wouldn't think F for the verse tho because there's no B natural in F maj. I don't know of any key that contains both B and Bb or both F and A#.

 

[famous beagle]

Here's what it is:

The verse is in G major, but both the Bb and F chords are borrowed chords. This means they're "borrowed" from the parallel key of G minor. This is actually a very common practice. The bVII chord that Chili was talking about is the most common of all these. It's all over classic rock.

So, whereas you can have a standard I - IV - V progression in G that would be G - C - D (I think everyone knows this one), a common alteration is to have G - F - C, which would be I - bVII - IV (other arrangements of those three chords are also common). It's also really common in the key of E, where it would be E - D - A --- very Tom Petty-sounding.

Anyway, it's called a bVII chord because the seventh chord in G is diatonically a viiº (diminished): F#º (F A C). So, since you're lowering the root of that chord, F#, down a half step to F, it's called a bVII. (An uppercase Roman numeral means a major chord.)

The Bb isn't as common as the bVII, but it's still fairly common in rock. It's a bIII chord. The normal third chord in G major is a B minor chord (B D F#). But you're lowering it a half step and playing a major chord, so it's a bIII.

Both of these chords --- bVII and bIII --- appear naturally in the G minor scale. So we're "borrowing" those two chords from G minor.

Compare the two scales in harmonized fashion:

G Major:
I G
ii Am
iii Bm
IV C
V D
vi Em
viiº F#º

G Minor:
Gm i
Aº iiº
Bb bIII
Cm iv
Dm v
Eb bVI
F bVII

Just about any of these G minor chords can be used in G major for a different effect. A very common Beatles device was the minor iv chord. So in a G major song, when you see the C chord followed by a Cm (which would almost always be followed by the I G chord), that's an example of the minor iv (Cm). It's borrowed from the parallel minor key.

The bridge section of your song is a bit more ambiguous, but I would still place it in G major, with the C chord being the IV chord. Each phrase still strongly resolves to that clear G major chord.

The outro section is more ambiguous still because it never goes to G. However, the C chord doesn't feel like the tonic to me at the beginning of the section because it's still kind of functioning the way it was in the bridge. It's only after the repetition of this progression at the end that the G tonality starts to lose its hold.

So I would say that the verse and bridge (the C-G section) are definitely in G major (with borrowed chords).
The outro section could be analyzed in G major or C major. It's not really clear.

I should also mention that, if you analyze the outro section in C, then the Bb would be a borrowed chord as well. (It would be the bVII chord.)

 

[Nola]

that was amazing. thanks, famous beagle.

 

[Robus]

I think we've got our answer!

 

[famous beagle]

Thanks, just doing my job. (Music theory major in college.)

 

[Nola]

I should also mention that, if you analyze the outro section in C, then the Bb would be a borrowed chord as well. (It would be the bVII chord.)

Beagle, i have one more question. Why not just analyze the outro as F major instead of C? The chords are Bb-F-C that seems like F major to me. But, I guess it does sound resolved on the C chord so maybe it's C.

 

[famous beagle]

Beagle, i have one more question. Why not just analyze the outro as F major instead of C? The chords are Bb-F-C that seems like F major to me. But, I guess it does sound resolved on the C chord so maybe it's C.

Yes, exactly. You have to be careful with that "take the chords and place them in a key" approach because it only takes into account diatonic chords, and the music world is filled with non-diatonic chords (borrowed chords or secondary dominants mostly).

This is the famous "Sweet Home Alabama" debate. People who know just enough to be dangerous sometimes look at that song and say, "Oh ... D, C, and G. Three major chords. The only key in which those three major chords fit is G, so it must be in G." But if you actually listen to the song, everything else about it (the progression, the vocal melody, the phrasing, etc.) suggests D as the key center. So most people say that the song is in the key of D, and the C is a bVII chord.

Funny enough, though, the guitarist (I don't remember which one played the solo) and the producer, Al Kooper, got in a debate about that very thing while they were recording the song. The guitarist was one of those "knew just enough" people, and so he was soloing in G. Al said, "What are you doing? The song's in D; you're playing in the wrong key!" But they ended up liking the way it sounded, so they left it.

But take another song with that same exact chord progression (D - C - G) like "Werewolves in London," and you can hear that it actually is in G. It's clear with the vocal melody; it all resolves on that chorus bit ... "ah ooooooooh, werewolves of London," all of which are G notes.

But the vocal melody (the main one and the backups) in "Sweet Home" are all clearly resolving to a D note.

So you have to take cues from the melody as well when considering the key.

 

[Nola]

that makes sense to me and is great stuff, thank you.

 

[ashcat_lt]

I know a little more than just enough, and don't really care about Skynyrd, but if I see (or hear) a song that goes D-C-G, and wants to resolve to that D, and most of the melodies seem to be diatonic to G, I'd tend to think of it as D Mixolydian.

 

[famous beagle]

I know a little more than just enough, and don't really care about Skynyrd, but if I see (or hear) a song that goes D-C-G, and wants to resolve to that D, and most of the melodies seem to be diatonic to G, I'd tend to think of it as D Mixolydian.

Right ... you're absolutely correct about that. If the song contained nothing but D, C, and G chords but made D the tonal center, you could call it a D Mixolydian progression for sure. And I guess I should have clarified that ... you wouldn't want to solo over "Sweet Home" with the D major scale, because the C# note would clash against the C chord. If you did want to pick a scale that worked over all three chords, you'd pick D Mixolydian (which, of course, contains the same notes as G major; it just places D as the tonic instead of G).

However, it's often the case that a song may contain a V chord and a bVII at certain times. In that instance (as is the case with many songs), there's not one scale that will work throughout the whole song.