Key
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Posted on Jun 22, 2005 06:55 am
stephie
Member Since: Apr 11, 2003
Hi Guy's,
This is going to sound really pathetic, but I've been writting songs for a couple of years and still have real difficulty finding the key for a song.
I usually start off with a melody and then try to find the chords. But it would be sooooooooo much easier if I knew which key I was singing in in the first place.
Is there an easy way to determine the key for a melody? Please respond in as basic a form as possible as I am useless with music theory.
Your help would be much appreciated as I am really starting to get frustrated. I just can't work out how I decide which key the melody is in.
Cheers,
Stephie
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Jun 22, 2005 08:48 am This is a difficult task. As a GENERAL rule, the note that you start singing on and finish singing on is many times the key that you are playing in. (This, of course, is not always the case.) So, if you can figure out the first note, and more likely the last note, you can be fairly sure that that is the key you are singing in.
Hope this helps as a place to start...
TadpuiI am not a crook's headMember
Since: Mar 14, 2003
Jun 22, 2005 09:24 am Hey I got to Googlin' and I found this link:
silostock.com/playc3.php
There's a key finder on the left-hand side, just type in the chords you're using and supposedly it'll spit out the key.
shepherdsampatron saint of quality footwearMember
Since: May 30, 2002
Jun 22, 2005 06:33 pm I'm racking my brains for an easy way to help you.
What Guitar Jim said is sort of correct in the sense that the prominent note of the song is usually the root note of the key you are in.
However, say you are playing a 12 bar minor blues that starts and ends with E (to A to B) although you may say that you are playing in E, in fact you are playing in E minor(Aeolian) which is actually the 6th mode of the Gmajor system. Usually when just a note is given as a key signature it means you are playing a pure major scale. So you could call that E minor or G Major (or just G, but not just E unless everbody playing assumes the minor sytem is being used)
Using the Cmajor scale as an example,you can see the formula using whole tone steps and half tone steps.
C - Whole tone up to - D
D - Whole tone up to - E
E - Half tone up to - F
F - Whole tone up to - G
G - Whole tone up to - A
A - Whole tone up to - B
B - Half tone up to - C
Now, using the formula W-W-1/2-W-W-W-1/2 we can find out what key any given song is in.
Plot out the notes in your song and find out where the pattern lies, if the pattern fits "as is" after the primary tone of the song then you are playing the pure major of whatever that note is.
Another way is to know how the chords fit into all that. Using the Cmajor scale from above, I'll list the basic triads taken from each tone in the scale and their Modal name (The Modal name doesn't have anything to do with the chord, it's just there to show you what to call the scale if it starts at that position of the major system pattern).
C major.........I......Ionian
D minor.........ii.....Dorian
E minor.........iii....Phrygian
F major.........IV.....Lydian
G major.........V......Mixolydian
A minor.........vi.....Aeolian
B diminished....vii....Locrian
Now that you can see where the chords fit in it gets easier to know where you are. Keep in mind that although Cmajor is used as the example the chords follow this major/minor pattern whatever the key is. Looking at my crude chart above we can see that if you have two major chords in your song that are exactly one whole step apart, then those must be the IV and the V. If you have two minor chords exactly one whole step apart then you know those are the ii and iii chords. By fitting your chords into the pattern you can determine exactly what key you are in.
Getting back to what Guitar Jim was saying, if your song turns out to be in the key Cmajor but you have a bass pounding out nothing but A then you are playing A Aeolian which is the pure minor mode. If your song fits the pattern of C again but the root feels like an F then you are most likely playing in F Lydian.
One caveat, when I was getting used to all this I sometimes would overlook the fact that my songs didn't always stay in one key. That led to a lot of frustration before I realized the whole song didn't necessarily have to fit into the same pattern.
I really hope that made some sense, maybe somebody else out there will come along with an easier explanation.
Jun 22, 2005 09:41 pm My way is easiest, I just never pay attention to what key it is, as long as it sounds right... :-D
olddogMember
Since: Jul 02, 2003
Jun 22, 2005 11:48 pm I follow dB's plan. :D Though I often wonder exactly what key my songs are in.
I've heard that more often than not the chord you end on is the key of the song, don't know if it's true but it seems to hold up.
Dan
shepherdsampatron saint of quality footwearMember
Since: May 30, 2002
Jun 23, 2005 08:05 am I'm not suggesting that you use this information to write your songs.
No one says anybody has to learn any of this, I was just trying to help Stephie figure out how to determine the key she is in.
I will say this however, knowing this stuff makes it far easier for me to walk into a situation cold and be able to take or give direction to other players on the fly. This stuff hasn't changed the way I write a song but it sure makes it easier to explain to other musicians how to play something they've never heard before.
Jun 24, 2005 04:55 am So what we're really saying here is that it's pretty much the last note of the melody (Verse?) that dictates the key?
Am I right?
