Plex Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 Couldn't find a thread about this, and since Music Theory comes up in a lot of tablature discussion, I thought I might as well make it. I have a question. I know my music theory pretty damn well. I don't really need to know anything else. So please don't think I'm one of those kids like "wer iz teh c flat on te fretbord?!?!?". My question/comment/what ever the fuck you want to call it: I'm in the process of writing a song, and can't figure out what key it is in. The intro is of two chords. It alternates back from Dmaj to Fmaj7. E|--2--0-- B|--3--1-- G|--2--2-- D|--0--3-- A|-------- E|-------- The verse has a descending chord thing going on. It goes from Dmin to Gmin to Edim to Dmaj. It is played thusly: E|--10--6--3--2-- B|--10--8--5--3-- G|--10--7--3--2-- D|--12--------0-- A|--------------- E|--------------- Yeah. What key is this in? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milkybar=] Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 the key is D major that E diminished chord throws you off the scent of it but if you were to choose a key, it would be D major. the gut instinct way to tell is will the penultimate chord sound resolved when you play the last chord, in this instance D maj. and in this case i think it is! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lexical_Whale Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 D minor, F major 7 and G minor aren't in that key though. G minor/BFlat Major would seem like a better bet to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthijs Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 There's two ways to approach this: theoretically and the 'pop'-approach. Theoretically you can't say Dmajor, because of the reasons mentioned above; you could say that it starts in D and changes to another key throughout the song. However, pop music has a way of taking chords which are not in the key, substituting majors and minors. Yet still they would say that the song is in D major, as that is the 'home-feeling' to the song. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milkybar=] Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 D minor, F major 7 and G minor aren't in that key though. G minor/BFlat Major would seem like a better bet to me. if they were in the key then the song wouldnt be very interesting as it would all be diatonic, the dissonances give the chord sequence a bit of extra flavour, if you were being really picky you could say halfway through it modulated (i dont know what to as i dont have a piano to hand) but it is better to not split ends about it and say its in D major my personal opinion anyway, obviously this kinda stuffs pretty subjective Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lexical_Whale Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 ;8978019']if they were in the key then the song wouldnt be very interesting as it would all be diatonic, the dissonances give the chord sequence a bit of extra flavour, if you were being really picky you could say halfway through it modulated (i dont know what to as i dont have a piano to hand) but it is better to not split ends about it and say its in D major my personal opinion anyway, obviously this kinda stuffs pretty subjective He didn't ask if it was an interesting chord sequence though, he asked what key it was in . The only chord in that entire sequence that has anything to do with D major is the D. Thinking about it I'd be inclined to say that the second set of chords could also be in F major due to the E diminished. Either way it's the D major that's likely to be out of place if the song's written in a specific key which it likely isn't by the look of things! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plex Posted February 27, 2011 Author Share Posted February 27, 2011 I definitely know it's not it Dmaj. D minor, G minor, and E dimished are all in Dmin. So it's closer to D minor than D major. I guess I'll just go with D minor, unless there's any other suggestions. The chords for the chorus I've got are Dmin, BbMaj, Fmaj, then A7. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneWhoGoes Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 We could post here in which key/keys songs (Muse or not) are written, that is useful to do some improvs over them, which I find really fun to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthijs Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 we could, or we could just look at the official sheet music and see the key on there ourselves Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneWhoGoes Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 we could, or we could just look at the official sheet music and see the key on there ourselves Every song from every artist have an official music sheet? Besides, where do you see the key in music sheets? Because all I can see are chord names... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthijs Posted March 5, 2011 Share Posted March 5, 2011 because all different keys have their own key signature. C major has none, parallel is A minor G major has #, parallel is E minor D major has ##, parallel is B minor (etc) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crowella Posted March 5, 2011 Share Posted March 5, 2011 The key is usually on the staves of written music. EDIT: Matt beat me to it, also, that's one good chart too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plex Posted March 5, 2011 Author Share Posted March 5, 2011 The key is usually on the staves of written music. EDIT: Matt beat me to it, also, that's one good chart too The chart is called the circle of fifths. It many music classes it is required to memorize it, which isn't hard. You can just count up a fifth. C has no sharps. The fifth, G, has one sharp. The fifth of G, which is D, has two sharps. And so on. For flats you count up a fourth. C has no flats. F has one. Bb has two. Etc. Also, speaking of keys in Muse songs. Knights of Cydonia is pretty fucking crazy with the key changes. The Small Print is also somewhat odd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crowella Posted March 5, 2011 Share Posted March 5, 2011 I know what it is, was saying it was good to bring it up Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plex Posted March 5, 2011 Author Share Posted March 5, 2011 Oh alright. It sounded like it was your first time seeing it by saying "That's one good chart". Although that is true. It's a damn good chart. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
*TC* Posted March 5, 2011 Share Posted March 5, 2011 there was a discussion pretty similar to this on TheGearPage the other day, about a song that had the chords B, F#m, A, E. So instantly I thought it was in E, but if you try soloing over it you realize that E doesn't really work where as B does and if you play the progression resolving on B sounds perfect. So what key would you say the song was in hmmm? Later that day I tried writing a B section to that chord progression and found it near on impossible to make it resolve back on to the B for the second verse, it was begging me to land on E Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plex Posted March 5, 2011 Author Share Posted March 5, 2011 Holy shit. I just tried that. That's weird. If you play the progression backwards, it wants to resolve on E. What the flying fuck is this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthijs Posted March 5, 2011 Share Posted March 5, 2011 Because of the F#m which is originally in the key of E, but not in the key of B. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
faptdivers Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 B Major F#m A major E major B D# F# F# A C# A C# E E G# B The key of B major: B C# D# E F# G# A# B fits B major (because it's freakin' B MAJOR!) , F#m dosn't fit because it has that pesky little A in it (the B maj scale only has A# ) , then we transition to A major (again that pesky A) and then to E major (the 4th chord of the B major scale , also called a subdominant). You could play B mixolydian ( B major with a flat 7th) over the entire progression and it would fit.You could also change scales on each chord.There's alot of ways to solo over that progression. Also note that if you add the dominant chord (the 5th) from the B major scale after that E major it would resolve way stronger to B major. B major - F# minor - A major - E major - F# major - B major Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
*TC* Posted March 10, 2011 Share Posted March 10, 2011 isn't playing B mixolydian exactly the same as playing E over it? But just emphasizing different notes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RayFan9876 Posted March 10, 2011 Share Posted March 10, 2011 isn't playing B mixolydian exactly the same as playing E over it? But just emphasizing different notes Yep. It could be either thought of that way or thought of as flatting the leading (7th) note of B. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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