Chord Progressions & Keys ?

[bass12345]

Okay i understand the concepts of keys and progressions, individually. What i dont understand is how do you know what key you are by the chord progressions or know what chord progressions work under which key ?

Sorry if it sounds very nooby LOl

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[Horizontalste]

All chords will should be relevant and contained within the key. So I IV V of C would be C, F, G. And a rule of thumb is Major, Minor, Minor,Major, Major, Minor, Diminished. I'm not too clever at explaining but I'm sure someone who is will be along shortly. Also if you haven't already check out the circle of fifths.

[ras52]

Ha, the key you're in is the key you think (or rather feel) you're in!

We have a song whose verse basically alternates between A and D chords. One guitarist asked which key it was in - the other guitarist said "A" and I said, simultaneously, "D" (or vice versa, I forget). He heard it as I - IV in A, whereas I heard it as V - I in D.

Sometimes it's straightforward - play around with A, D and E and it'll feel like A major (I-IV-V being "primary" chords). So in the above example, if there was an E chord as well as the A and E, we would have agreed it was in A (A-D-E = I-IV-V). Similarly, if there was was a G we would have agreed it was D (D-G-A = I-IV-V in D).

Most "tonal" western music works with the tensions between keys - sometimes you know you're in one key, sometimes you know you're another, and - where the fun really starts - sometimes you're somewhere in between and don't quite know where you are. Art is nothing without ambiguity (...discuss)

[JakeBrownBass]

I'd suggest going back to the start of basic music theory.

A chord progression can be explained simply in Roman Numerals. Common progressions in a major key for example are

I-IV-V, ii-V-I, I-IV-vi-V.

Capitals are major, lower case are minor.
In a major key, the I is the tonic, IV subdominant & V dominant. You should be able to recognise this instantly from listening to music.

These can then apply to any key, for example if you were in Cmaj,

C-F-G, Dm-G-C, C-F-Am-D

Things then start getting more interesting by use of inversions & borrowed chords from the parallel minor key, but until you have the basic understanding under your belt, it's going to go over your head.
This is pretty basic stuff so i'd suggest to sit down and learn some proper theory as appose to 'sort of understanding' whats happening.

Theres a good website here, [url="http://www.teoria.com/"]http://www.teoria.com/[/url]

Edited December 20, 2011 by JakeBrownBass

[mart]

[quote name='JakeBrownBass' timestamp='1324344528' post='1473336']... for example if you were in Cmaj,

C-F-G, Dm-G-C, C-F-Am-D
....[/quote]
+1. And then once you're familiar with the progressions you have in each key, you can turn this around, so that if your song consists of, say, C, F and G, then you can deduce that you're probably in the key of C major.

Also, another rule of thumb (to which there are exceptions, of course) is that the key should feel like "home". If you play the sequence C, F, G over and over again, and you end the sequence on a C then it should feel good. End it on an F or a G and it should feel a bit unfinished.

And if you end it with a Csus4, it will sound so unfinished that I will personally come round to wherever you're playing and play a C chord just to resolve the thing!

[Bilbo]

Most decent tunes are in several keys but, as has been stated, the key you are in at any moment is defined by the relationships between the chords and not by the chords themselves. In jazz gig parlance, 'what key is it in' is often to establish the first chord as tunes often modulate around various key centres (some more than others).