Why is this Am?

[HoefNugz]

Ok so based on the lead fills/my own soloing over the song I have determined this is in the key of Am. what makes this tab (dont worry it is backed by the band and they allow tablature) in the key of Am? Is it because most of the chords used all hit notes in the Am scale? if that is correct is that a good way to determine what key other songs are in? sorry if this is a noob question but I'm just getting into scales/soloing/improving. heres the tab:
http://www.geocities.com/tabs_in_one_fell_swoop/RightMeUpCrown.txt

[jakerc]

It's because all the notes and chords are in the C major/A minor key. Remember that A minor is just another way to write the C major scale:

C D E F G A B C = C major

A B C D E F G = A (natural) minor

It could be in either C major or A minor, depending on the way the chords/notes are used (from looking at that tab I would guess the song has more of a major sound, but it would be easier if you could listen to it).

[HoefNugz]

you can listen to a sample of it here http://www.emusic.com/album/10890/10890905.html its the song called right me up

thanks for the fast response

[judge_gideon]

HoefNugz,

Keys are deterimined by the number of sharps/flats found within the key signature.

I'm sure you have seen them just after the treble clef symbol in sheet music. It allows the writer to hang their notes on the staff without having to write in every single sharp/flat. The exact number of sharps/flats determines the key.

THE ORDER OF SHARPS
C major [0 #] = C,D,E,F,G,A,B,C
G major [1 #] = G,A,B,C,D,E,F#,G
D major [2 #] = D,E,F#,G,A,B,C#,D
A major [3 #] = A,B,C#,D,E,F#,G#,A
E major [4 #] = E,F#,G#,A,B,C#,D#,E
B major [5 #] = B,C#,D#,E,F#,G#,A#,B
F# major [6 #] = F#,G#,A#,B,C#,D#,E#,F#

THE ORDER OF FLATS
F major [1 b] = F,G,A,Bb,C,D,E,F
Bb major [2 b] = Bb,C,D,Eb,F,G,A,Bb
Eb major [3 b] = Eb,F,G,Ab,Bb,C,D,Eb
Ab major [4 b] = Ab,Bb,C,Db,Eb,F,G,Ab
Db major [5 b] = Db,Eb,F,Gb,Ab,Bb,C,Db
Gb major [6 b] = Gb,Ab,Bb,Cb,Db,Eb,F,Gb

The keys in the Order of Sharps increase in their number of sharps by a pattern of ascending 5ths, or descending 4ths.
ex. A major (3 #'s) => E major (4 #'s)

The keys in the Order of Flats increase in their number of flats by a pattern of ascending 4ths or descending 5ths.
ex. Db major (5 b's) => Gb major (6 b's)

How Do I Use This?
If your chords are primarilly comprised with notes from a particular major scale, then it is probably in that key.

If I see sharps in the music, and all of them are F#, I would automatically think this is written in the key of G major (also account for the relative minor of G major, which is E minor).

The number of sharps in the phrase might be deceptive though. If you're playing something other than diatonic harmonies, determining the key becomes cryptic. Then, eliminate chromaticism, and strip it down to the bare major skeleton, and see if this reveals the key - sort of as a template.

You have to find the tonal center of the song. Which note tends to have the most gravity? It will be a place of harmonic resolution that occurs often enough that it is a stable resting spot - a place of completeness. Finding this note often points to the key.

In addition to this, chord progressions tend to indicate the key. The function of diatonic chords typically have momentum and "want" to resolve to stable cadence points. When you have something like:

Em, A7, Dmaj7

...then I would see this as a ii-V7-Imaj7 and it would indicate the key for this phrase is in D major.

Remember this phone number: 362-5147
The iii chord ascends a perfect forth to the vi
The vi chord ascends a perfect forth to the ii
etc. etc.

iii-vi-ii-V-I-IV-viiº-iii-vi-ii-V-I
etc. etc.

When you find chords functioning in that order anywhere, it is a clear indication that a key center is nearby. Every once in a while, you will find an outlier, a chord which doesn't fit the set - but you can safely eliminate this from your analysis. Many times, rock songs have a chord progression which adheres to diatonic harmony and inserts a chord which seems to break the rules - but this is done for temporary colorization.

Although, certain genres of music play multiple keys, and not a single one. Typically, rock & metal stay in a single key throughout the entire song, but jazz, fusion, ecclectic/progressive rock, etc. often have mutiple key centers featured in different "modules" or moments within the music.

I know this doesn't make things easier - but music theory isn't for dummies.
♪ ♫♫♪

[HoefNugz]

Wow thanks your posts tend to be very detailed and extremely helpful. I am starting to grasp things a little bit, but I was wondering if you could point me somewheres to help find out what this:

Remember this phone number: 362-5147
The iii chord ascends a perfect forth to the vi
The vi chord ascends a perfect forth to the ii
etc. etc.

iii-vi-ii-V-I-IV-viiº-iii-vi-ii-V-I
etc. etc.
means it is still unclear to me like what the roman numerals stand for and such, sorry if i am being a bother to ya but any help is appreciated.

Im at that point where I have some basic parts down but i want to learn more and im at that point where music theory is going to have to be digested. Im the kind of person who wants to know why something works. I know that the scale I am using sounds good with the song and I would love to know why.

[jakerc]

Wow thanks your posts tend to be very detailed and extremely helpful. I am starting to grasp things a little bit, but I was wondering if you could point me somewheres to help find out what this:

Remember this phone number: 362-5147
The iii chord ascends a perfect forth to the vi
The vi chord ascends a perfect forth to the ii
etc. etc.

iii-vi-ii-V-I-IV-viiº-iii-vi-ii-V-I
etc. etc.
means it is still unclear to me like what the roman numerals stand for and such, sorry if i am being a bother to ya but any help is appreciated.

Im at that point where I have some basic parts down but i want to learn more and im at that point where music theory is going to have to be digested. Im the kind of person who wants to know why something works. I know that the scale I am using sounds good with the song and I would love to know why.

Those roman numerals are scale degrees, and chords based off those scale degrees composed entirely of notes in the key. For example, in C major, your notes are

C D E F G A B

so your chords are

C major - I
D minor - ii
E minor - iii
F major - IV
G major - V
A minor - vi
B diminished - viiº

These are all the chords that can be composed with the notes of C major. It helps to memorize the order; major minor minor major major minor diminished, as these apply in any major key. The 362-5147 phone number are resolutions I believe; 3rd degree to 6th to 2nd to 5th to 1st to 4th to 7th (i am not 100% on this as I'm not too familiar with resolutions). Minor keys are a little bit different because of the three different forms; i'll let gideon handle that :p

[HoefNugz]

Thanks, Its rare to find people actually being helpful here instead of just saying something along the lines of "stupid Noob" "Find out for yourself"

[jakerc]

no problem man, theory can be very daunting, and this is just the basic stuff :( i myself don't even know that much, but i'm hoping to learn more from my music theory class + perusing these forums.

[Trigger_003]

Thanks, Its rare to find people actually being helpful here instead of just saying something along the lines of "stupid Noob" "Find out for yourself"
That's probably more the actual guitar forum than in here :).

[judge_gideon]

jakerc is right -

The chords in a major key are found in that major scale.

Here is a single-string example so you can see the notes in C Major:

C Major Scale
├─C─┼───┼─D─┼───┼─E─┼─F─┼───┼─G─┼───┼─A─┼───┼─B─┼─ C─┼───┼─D─┼───┼─E─┤

I - C Major Chord (C,E,G)
├─C─┼───┼───┼───┼─E─┼───┼───┼─G─┼───┼───┼───┼───┼─ C─┼───┼───┼───┼─E─┤

ii - D Minor Chord (D,F,A)
├───┼───┼─D─┼───┼───┼─F─┼───┼───┼───┼─A─┼───┼───┼─ ──┼───┼─D─┼───┼───┤

iii - E Minor Chord (E,G,B)
├───┼───┼───┼───┼─E─┼───┼───┼─G─┼───┼───┼───┼─B─┼─ ──┼───┼───┼───┼─E─┤

IV - F Major Chord (F,A,C)
├─C─┼───┼───┼───┼───┼─F─┼───┼───┼───┼─A─┼───┼───┼─ C─┼───┼───┼───┼───┤

V - G Minor Chord (G,B,D)
├───┼───┼─D─┼───┼───┼───┼───┼─G─┼───┼───┼───┼─B─┼─ ──┼───┼─D─┼───┼───┤

vi - A Minor Chord (A,C,E)
├─C─┼───┼───┼───┼─E─┼───┼───┼───┼───┼─A─┼───┼───┼─ C─┼───┼───┼───┼─E─┤

viiº - B Diminished Chord (B,D,F)
├───┼───┼─D─┼───┼───┼─F─┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼─B─┼─ ──┼───┼─D─┼───┼───┤

So, you have this chord set:
C,Dm,Em,F,G,Am,Bº

And the Roman Numeral analysis is:
I,ii,iii,IV,V,vi,viiº

If you use the 362-5147 as a rule for resolutions, you'll find chords tend to progress in this order.

iii-vi-ii-V-I-IV-viiº-iii-vi-ii-V-I etc.

That would be like:
Em-Am-Dm-G-C-F-Bº-Em-Am-Dm-G-C etc.

Many times, you'll find a fragment of this used, like:
V-I
or
ii-V-I
or
I-vi-ii-V (C-Am-Dm-G)
♪♫♫♪

[judge_gideon]

nice hat Trea :D

[Trigger_003]

Yeah it is, isn't it?
It was sent in specially from my designer just today.

:p

/ends off topic

[aria2]

hey tiiger 03 ther is a fred in gtar waitin for u to listen

[HoefNugz]

Dude I cant express how awesome that is, I totally understand this soo much more now, its like learning a math formula, once you know the formula you can figure alot of things out. Thanks again youve been a huge help

[judge_gideon]

HoefNugz, isn't it beautiful how the patterns have such meaning once you crack it open? They fit together like art!

[Lydisk]

♪♫♫♪

[HoefNugz]

The 362-5147 rule doesnt have to be used all the time though right? Like for example the chord set F C Dm Am goes together rather well and that doesnt follow the number theory, so 362-5147 is just used as a guide to help point you in the right direction for a chord to possibly use next?

[Trigger_003]

/is half asleep still so forgive me if this isn't as good an explanation as usual

The iii-vi-ii-V-I-IV-viiº-iii-vi-ii-V-I rule applies to something called a circle progression, which you will come across in the later lessons on musictheory.net I'm pretty sure.

A circle progression occurs in any instance where the tonic of a chord moves down an interval of a 5th or up an interval of a forth.

e.g.
we have a progression that has
iii -> vi
in this case, the chords are
Em -> Am

To find out if this is part of a circle progression, we take the tonic of both chords (E and A) and find out the interval:
E->Eb->D->Db->C->B->Bb->A
- m2, M2, m3, M3, P4, D5, P5
(m = minor, M = major, D = diminished, P = perfect btw - let us know if you need an explanation on intervals)

So if we descend the root from E to a lower A, the interval here is a fifth. And moving down a fifth, as I said before, creates a circle progression.

You can string a whole series of these together. And that's what's actually been done with this rule.
If you care to work it out, you'll also find that the tonics of all of the iii-vi-ii-V-I-IV-viiº-iii-vi-ii-V-I rule either descend a fifth or rise a fourth from their predesessor.

Starting on I;
I -drop by a 5th = IV - rise a 4th = viiº - v 5th = iii - ^ 4th = vi, etc etc.
And we've just created iii-vi-ii-V-I-IV-viiº-iii-vi-ii-V-I

In many pieces you come across, there are going to be chords where there is a tonic interval that isn't a drop of a fifth or rise of a 4th. However, it's fairly unlikely that there won't be at least one.
Why? Well these intervals are used in creating something called a cadence. You'll read about these on Musictheory.net when you get around to it, so I won't go into full detail... but so that you have an idea, cadences are like punctuation. They create something called phrasing and these cadences create a sense of completion (or tension that leads onto the next phrase, depending on which species of cadence you're putting to use).
So like Greg said;
Many times, you'll find a fragment of this used, like:
V-I
or
ii-V-I
or
I-vi-ii-V (C-Am-Dm-G)
You can use these. You can use others as well. You can put other chords in between these, but you can still easily use any two or more sequential chords from the circle progression. It will sound good, and practically every song is going to have at least one set of them somewhere.

Remember, theory is a set of guidelines, not of dos-and-don'ts. The purpose of this rule is to give you some chord progressions that you can mix and match with your other knowledge (and ear) in order to create whatever your imagination limits you to.

To take this a bit further...
As Jake said, the minor scale applies differently in this situation.
A minor is
ABCDEFG

whereas C major (the relative major) is
CDEFGAB

So when you're writing in Amin, what's I (or i) going to be - Cmaj or Amin?
Well A is the tonic of Amin, which is what we're working in, so that should answer that question for you.

Now your diatonic chords for minor are different to the diatonic chords for major.
As Jake partially explained,
C D E F G A B

so your chords are

C major - I
D minor - ii
E minor - iii
F major - IV
G major - V
A minor - vi
B diminished - viiº
In any major scale, you can apply this pattern - MmmMMmd - and you will have the names of the diatonic chords.

As you may or may not have noticed, the A minor scale contains all the same notes as C major; the scale just starts in a different location.

So if you were to take Cmaj
CDEFGAB
and take away all of the notes before A
AB
then put the notes you took away (CDEFG) onto the end
ABCDEFG
you have the A (natural) minor scale.
This is the concept behind modes (ish), but that's not what we're here for.

You can do the same type of thing for the diatonic chords:
MmmMMmd - major to
mdMmmMM - natural minor

So if you work through this like we did the major circle progression - which was
I-IV-viiº-iii-vi-ii-V and back to I
C-F---Bº--Em--Am-Dm-G and back to C

You'll find you have
i--iv-VII-III-VI-iiº-V and back to i
Am-Dm--G---C—-F---Bº-Efor natural minor, which will change completely the kind of sound you get (chords have changed - like the Em used in Cmaj is an E in Amin and stuff like that).

Hope that helps :thumb:

[judge_gideon]

HoefNugz,

the 362-5147 is the formula for circle progressions - but, you can create all sorts of cool-sounding chord arrangements. Your ear tells you what is good. Remember, theory is the dry bones - it's up to you to build the rest of it through your own creativity.

Plus, there are other fundamental reasons why the F to C, and the C to Dm, and the Dm to Am sound good when they progress from one to the next.

(*EDIT: lol, Trea and I posted at virtually the same time! Oh, well, her explanation was way better anyway ;) )

[Diatonic Dissonance™]

Greg, what happened to C# and Cb major?

[Trigger_003]

Greg, what happened to C# and Cb major?
Haha it took me a while to work out what the heck you were referring to, but true.

[Diatonic Dissonance™]

Haha, I already know what he's going to say.

"I already covered them by mentioning their enharmonic equivalent keys - Db major and B major!"

Just you watch, ;).

[judge_gideon]

Gavin! I gathered that you would probably be the purist here!

And yes, you know what I'm going to say:
"Why play in C# Major, which has 7 sharps when the enharmonic equivalent Db Major has only 5 flats?"

and

"Why play in Cb Major, which has 7 flats when the enharmonic equivalent B Major has only 5 sharps?"

Yes - I leave them out because beginners would never see the need in playing in the key of C# Major.

Now, I ask you personally, which do you prefer?

All I can say is from personal experience working with professional musicians, they would think playing in they keys of Cb and C# is downright ludicrous!

But hey, if you like doing that, then knock yourself out!
♪ ♫♫♪

[The_Mop]

.....why not?

[judge_gideon]

The Mop, reread my last post, that's why not.

[judge_gideon]

The_Mop, think about it for a moment.

If you were to play in Cb major, it would be:

Cb,Db,Eb,Fb,Gb,Ab,Bb,Cb

That's every friggin' note flatted. Whereas, the alternative approach would be to play the enharmonic equivalent of the exact same scale pattern:

B,C#,D#,E,F#,G#,A#,B

It makes far more logical sense to play this way, rather than in 7 flats. Maybe some crazed musical lunatic might compose something in Cb, but only because of the novelty of being ridiculously eccentric.

[*edit: and C# major is equally as daft - for it would be spelled
C#,D#,E#,F#,G#,A#,B#,C#
That's every friggin' note sharped! Whereas, the alternative approach would be to play the enharmonic equivalent of the exact same scale pattern:
Db,Eb,F,Gb,Ab,Bb,C,Db
Yes, far more logical sense than all those crazy sharps.]

[The_Mop]

friggin' eck - i was just joking, calm down!

[Diatonic Dissonance™]

Just gotta' teach him incase he's taking a theory exam and his teacher asks him to write out C# major, :p. He'll lose marks if he goes "oh, they're trying to trick me!!! /writes out Db major".

/me speaks from experience :upset:

[HoefNugz]

God i wish i was able to argue about music theory like this.

OT im the only one in this thread without a santa had avatar

[Diatonic Dissonance™]

God i wish i was able to argue about music theory like this.
Haha, I used to feel the same.

[Trigger_003]

Haha I remember you telling me about that one (the "trick me" thing). Poor you.

All you've gotta do is practise, Hoef.
Just what everyone loves to hear :p.

But at least you want to learn this stuff. At my school there was (and still is) no real focus on theory. There are probably two people including myself that are actually interested in it. I say "modes" or even "relative minor" in a music class and everyone's like "uh... what?". Most of this year's class seriously had trouble identifying a major chord from a minor... and I don't mean formulas, just by ear. I mean, come on.
One class this year, our teacher actually puts up the topic of modes (like, woah), asking someone to describe them. Only my mate Ben and I can. Then she asks me to list them. So I list the seven. She says, laughing, "wrong", and then almost gloatingly goes on to tell me that there are 12 (this is where all that hypodorian and stuff came from, if you remember that thread I did, Gav).
I researched it further and using her approach there are actually 14. Haha, my school's classroom music program really annoys the hell out of me :upset:.

[Diatonic Dissonance™]

Yeah well in my music class, the hardest thing we did this year was write F major scale ascending two octaves in treble clef with key signature.

:upset:

Oh, and we spent four periods learning about compound duple :rolleyes:.

[jakerc]

God i wish i was able to argue about music theory like this.

OT im the only one in this thread without a santa had avatar

me!

and my music class is pretty bad too..i'm nowhere near the theory knowledge of you two, but really..we don't need to spend three classes (each one is an hour and a half) on how to make four kinds of seventh chords :mad:

[HoefNugz]

I dont mind practicing at all (i think im addicted to guitar) its just one of those things where it started off slow, then I learned a whole lot of stuff really fast now its back to the slow part of the messed up learning curve that is music

[Trigger_003]

Haha, my class didn't even get to sevenths... you should consider yourself lucky :p

Hoef, yeah, that's pretty much how it works. Great fun, eh?

[judge_gideon]

Just gotta' teach him incase he's taking a theory exam and his teacher asks him to write out C# major, . He'll lose marks if he goes "oh, they're trying to trick me!!! /writes out Db major".

Hmm, I've never had an exam on material not previously mentioned in either the lecture or the text.

Anyway, I hope to help with beginner-level theory. I don't sweat it if I leave out stuff - it will be covered eventually. Kinda like programming. An intro course never tells you about APIs and multithreading, but seasoned professionals mistakenly think they should. What they don't realize is that the beginner's brain is maxed out already and doesn't need to dwell on those higher concepts quite yet.

Oh yeah, and here's HoefNugz in a festive Santa hat:
http://gregapel.com/images/guitar.jpg

[Diatonic Dissonance™]

Ah yes, I get what you're saying.

[HoefNugz]

Oh yeah, and here's HoefNugz in a festive Santa hat:
http://gregapel.com/images/guitar.jpg

Ha awesome!