What key?

Hmmm...

So, "in theory" (pun intended...) My cat Squeaky could play my girlfriend's baby grand piano... if only Squeaky did it enough and had enough passion...

"Love to eat them little mousies,
mousies what I love to eat.
Love to bite they little heads off,
Nibble on they tiny feet."

Squeaky is swatting the E-natural key a lot...

Song must be in Emaj... (or theres a fly on that key)

:drunk:
 
mshilarious said:
The first string, second fret . . .

I think it's a toss-up between F# mixolydian and E lydian, could go either way; I wanted to play with B & F# tonality myself, which means tossing in an E# every now and again . . .
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opps! forgot about that one lol

sorry i was a dick about it :)
 
dintymoore said:
I'll be blunt: this is insane thinking! You can write any song out in any key. Your song could be in C. You can use any scale over any progression. There are never any notes that don't work.

I really question this whole thing of "what scales can I use" etc... it's unmusical thinking.

There is, and never will be "a correct scale to use". All notes work.

The only scale you need to know is the chromatic scale, and you can learn that in 10 seconds - there! End of scales. Don't think scales!!!

Best advice I have - use your ear. You cannot "logic" what to play - we're musicians, not scientists.

I've played with musicians who think scales and theory and they suck! Sorry to be blunt but I discourage people from this "Mr. Spock learns how to play guitar" type of art logic.

I know music theory (I'd rather call it nuts and bolts) but I play 100% by ear.
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i agree with playing by ear but i'm pretty sure that we would arrive at the same place if you used your ear to "find" the key of E maj and i knew the key was E maj.

i mean if you could just play any note at anytime over any chord then why do we never hear that in contemporary music?

certain notes will sound "better" over certain chords than other notes.

i mean if i played and E maj chord and you played a D# maj chord at the same time i think it's safe to say that would not be musical in any circumstance.
 
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billabob said:
Ok this is confusing as fuck :P i hoped it would be alot more strait forward than this. But In summary so far wat ive grasped is that The key is Amaj and the theoretically (Wow thats a real word?) correct scale to use over this would be E Lydian?
xxx
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not sure why you said A major but this might help...

(B)--- Major
(C#)--Dorian
(D#)--Phyrgian
(E)----Lydian
(F#)--Mixolydian
(G#)--Minor
(A#)--Locrian

all the same notes and basically the same scale

but....

you get different "sounds" depending on where you start...

i've suggested E lydian and MS has suggested F# Mixolydian

either way they have the same notes but slightly different "sounds"

you could play any of the above modes and get notes that are in key.
 
FunkDaddy said:
Honest question, if you can't figure out the key of the song, what use is the information going to be to you?
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Agreed. It would probably be faster / easier for you to write out your lead note by note to make sure it all sounds good to you. It will probably help you come up with something pretty cool too rather than making sure you are adhering to whatever scale/mode you are told to use.
 
themdla said:
... i mean if you could just play any note at anytime over any chord then why do we never hear that in contemporary music?...
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People do actually do stuff like that, it's just a matter of when and where you do it.

But the "normal" thing of course is that melodies use the notes in the chords that are under them and passing notes in the key the song is in.

But there are times when you actually can play an E∆7 chord with a D chord on top. There isn't one combination that hasn't been used to good musical effect, believe it or not. :)

But like you implied - "normal" is the key you're in.

The way I try to make melodies is more from Louis Armstrong - he had a concept of "singing through your instrument" and that's basically how I do it.
 
dintymoore said:
People do actually do stuff like that, it's just a matter of when and where you do it.

But the "normal" thing of course is that melodies use the notes in the chords that are under them and passing notes in the key the song is in.

But there are times when you actually can play an E∆7 chord with a D chord on top. There isn't one combination that hasn't been used to good musical effect, believe it or not. :)

But like you implied - "normal" is the key you're in.

The way I try to make melodies is more from Louis Armstrong - he had a concept of "singing through your instrument" and that's basically how I do it.
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hmmm... i don't mean to be combative and i also don't mean to pick on you dinty cuz your cool man :)

i think if you analyzed your playing note for note you'd find that 95% of the notes or melodies your playing are "normal" or in key with the chords your playing.

i've seen some insane guitar players do chromatic licks all over the place to good effect.

when i've asked these guys how they did that stuff most said that it's about landing on the notes in the key at specific times while surrounding those "choice" or in key notes with chromatics.

again YMMV and whatever sounds good to your ear should not be discounted because theory told you otherwise.

but i still maintain that what sounds "good" 95% of the time are notes from the key your in, but i don't have any gold or platnium records so basically i'm talking outta my ass. :spank:
 
themdla said:
hmmm... i don' mean to be combative and i also don't mean to pick on you dinty cuz your cool man :)...
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Thanks and I wasn't taking anything that way. :)

themdla said:
...i think if you analyzed your playing note for note you'd find that 95% of the notes or melodies your playing are "normal" or in key with the chords your playing...
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For sure, 'cause that's mostly what I hear, especially notes you land on for any amount of time. A lot of times I just know where 1 and 5 are and that's enough.

themdla said:
... but i still maintain that what sounds "good" 95% of the time are notes from the key your in, but i don't have any gold or platnium records so basically i'm talking outta my ass. :spank:
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You don't have to have gold records to have an opinion. What you're saying is all true.

I'm 100% for learning the nuts and bolts of music, but not think that way when you play. You need to just 100% think about the song.

I learned theory and how to read/write mainly because as a drummer in a horn band I had no other way to get my songs played. It really depends on the type of music how important theory is. Punk, blues and classic country... not so much. If you're working with horns or with certain types of music (say a large classical group) then working without music paper would be as nuts as a punk group working with music paper.
 
dintymoore said:
Thanks and I wasn't taking anything that way. :)



For sure, 'cause that's mostly what I hear, especially notes you land on for any amount of time. A lot of times I just know where 1 and 5 are and that's enough.



You don't have to have gold records to have an opinion. What you're saying is all true.

I'm 100% for learning the nuts and bolts of music, but not think that way when you play. You need to just 100% think about the song.

I learned theory and how to read/write mainly because as a drummer in a horn band I had no other way to get my songs played. It really depends on the type of music how important theory is. Punk, blues and classic country... not so much. If you're working with horns or with certain types of music (say a large classical group) then working without music paper would be as nuts as a punk group working with music paper.
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yup yup!

see i started out on trumpet around age 8 and learned to read music from the begining. at that age i didn't understand any music theory and over the years have lost the ability to sight read.

at 13 i started playing guitar and haven't played in a classical context since.

now at 27 having written many songs of varing goodness i'm returning to theory hopefully to expand my horizions and get out of a rut.

ultimately i'd like to be able to sit down with anyone, anytime, anywhere and lay down some tasty jams or song write in whatever genre, classical, jazz, rock, pop, whatever...

my ear is good, i think. i can find the right notes without resorting to a scale pattern but i'll be damned if by the time i figure out the "good" notes if i don't see a scale pattern i know.

i have always written by ear until i run into a road block, then i try to bust out some theory. sometimes it works great and other times not so much.

personally i think the "not so much" is more an effect of my lack of understanding how theory works in songwriting or how it is commonly used.

i think as long as you have a good balance of both you can't go wrong. :)
 
so what's the deal billabob?

did you figure out what you wanted to play over your chord progression?

did any of our theory suggestions work for you?
 
beatles < rolling stones, the Who, led zepplin, and many others :)

actually the club is called "the world's most overrated musicians, whos best moments were written by george martin"

on second thought that's kind of a long name so we may just stick with "The beatles are fags"
 
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