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a couple of questions...


dix0r

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- how do you find out what key a song is in?

 

- say i'm playing an easy song like social distortion - ball and chain (D-A-G-D). how do i know what to solo over those chords (aside from pentatonic scale)? like, just for example, would i play notes from the D major scale while the D is being played, than notes from the A scale during A, etc, or how do i know what to play when?

 

 

forgive me...i've only taken two or three guitar lessons in my life, and they were many years ago. heh.

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Seems to be in D. It's a I - IV - V progression, D - G - A, with the IV and V reversed. It also begins and ends on D, so that's a hint. Never heard the song, but that's my guess.

 

You can most likely just play in D over the whole thing and it'll sound fine, though if you want to play around with notes from G and A while over those chords, give it a try.

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I usually do it this way (works almost anyways for rock, pop and other common stuff).

 

* Find out the tonic center (the key). That's usually the same as the last and first chord. You could also just take your guitar and try out all the 11 notes. One will sound best, That's most probably the key. Another way would be to play the chord progression and find out which chord is the most peacefull, friendly and resolving one (a chord which does not need to move further).

 

* Determine the mode: Search for the gender of the I-IV-V progression. In other words: Check if you find a chord that is a 4th (7 halfsteps) above the key. that one is the IV. Do the same with the 5th (9 halfsteps above).

 

* Use this table:

 

I maj - IV maj - V maj : Major (Ionian), or blues.

I min - IV min - V min : Minor (aeolian)

I min - IV maj - V min : Minor (dorian)

I min - IV min - V maj : Harmonic Minor (might also be aeolian)

I min - IV maj - V maj : Melodic Minor (might also be dorian)

 

 

I know it looks like a lot of work, but if you've done it a couple of times you know the mode and key by just looking at the chords. You'll get a feeling for it.

 

 

I'll give you two examples to get you started:

 

 

First example:

 

Here are the changes of a song I really hate (morning has broken). But it's a good example how to apply that stuff:

 

C / Dm / G / F / C

 

First guess: C is the key (if you play these chords you'll find out that C is the most stable chord).

 

Analyze the chords: I assume a major scale and write down the chords as roman letters based on the note they have (e.g. the C is the first note of the c-major scale, so it's called I, the Dm is the second and called IIm and so on).

 

I / IIm / V / VI / I

 

Here we have all the 3 chords (I, IV and V). And they're all in major, so the mode would be major as well. Now we know that Morning has broken is written in C-Major.

 

 

A harder example (one that doesn't work with the first chord)

 

C#m / A / B / E / B (start of Moonlight Shadow by Mike Oldfield)

 

First guess C#m.

 

Analyzing the chords (assume a minor scale for the roman letters since the first chord is minor). This gives me the following progression:

 

Im / VI / VII / III / VII

 

There are no I-IV-V chords in it. I most probably picked the wrong key, or the song is written in a uncommen mode. Lets analyze the chords again, but this time base them on the A-chord:

 

IIIm / I / II / IV / II

 

Still no IV and V found. This wasn't the key either.

 

 

I'll pick the E this time:

 

VIm / IV / V / I / V

 

That looks good! We have I, IV and V.

 

The song is in E-major. I would either solo using the e-major scale or it's relative minor scale (in this case it's C# aeolian).

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