When you are about to start learning a song by hearing, the first thing you may want to determine is the key of the song.
This is to see if it’s likely to have more black notes in its melody and chords, and therefore be a little more uncomfortable to learn and play (especially if you’re still just starting off on the piano). If so, you may decide whether you need to transpose the song before (using an electronic piano’s transposer), or after you learn it (manually transposing the notes).
As you can imagine, finding out what a key is in a song is not an easy thing to teach, let alone write about. The simplest two methods I can think of are:
(i) listening to the starting bass and chord of the main melody, and
(ii) playing some notes of the main melody to try and determine the scale, and hence the key.
Method 1 – Hear the Home Chord
In the first method, you would first listen closely to try and find out what the primary or ‘home’ chord of the song is.
To do this, you listen to Melody 1 (see Song Structure), which usually comes after the Introduction (Do not use the Introduction to figure out the song’s key). Typically, you would listen to first chord that the song starts with. The bass would also give a hint of what this chord is, E.g., if the bass is G, then the chord should also – more often than not - be G major, and this is the ‘home chord’. This is the primary or main chord that the other chords - after their ‘progression’ - keep coming back to during the song.
As a double check, also try and hear if this chord is also the one that the song ends with. A song usually ends with the home chord (if it’s a Major one) or the song’s key. But this is not always the case, as the song could have a key change, or the composer might end the song with an unexpected one, other than the home chord.
A word about Major vs Minor Chord songs
Most songs have a major (rather than minor) chord as the home chord.
A song that is dominated by a Major chord tends to sound ‘positive’, ‘pleasant’, and ‘straightforward’. Many modern songs are made to sound ‘even happier’ by applying Major 7th and Major 9th (common in New Age music) chords are used as the ‘home chords. Just a good-to-know point at this stage.
A Minor Chord song, on the other hand, sounds more ‘serious’, ‘somber’ and often ‘sad’ in tone. The name of the minor chord dominating the song is never the key of the song, i.e. if A Minor (Am) is the home chord, the key is not A, but in fact C. With a minor home chord, the key is always 3 semi-tones – if counting right-wards - from the name of the minor chord, E.g., if D Minor is the dominant chord, then counting rightwards, 1=Eb, 2=E, 3=F … the key is therefore F (and not D). If it’s Cm, the key is Eb; if Gm, the key is Bb, if F#m, the key is A, etc.
Method 2 – Match the Notes with the Scale
The second method of figuring out the key of the song is to learn about 10 or more notes of the main melody, write them down, and see which scale (and its accompanying notes) of the 12 keys do these melody notes match with most.
Every chord has its own unique set of scales (each of 8 notes) attached to it. It’s quite hard to remember all scales in the different chord names. Thankfully, most songs have either a basic Major or Minor chord as their primary home chord; and we only need to be concerned with these two here, in determining the song’s key.
The following is a table showing the Major scale for each of the 12 keys:
KEY: SCALE:
|
C |
D |
E |
F |
G |
A |
B |
C |
|
Db |
Eb |
F |
F# |
Ab |
Bb |
C |
Db |
|
D |
E |
F# |
G |
A |
B |
Db |
D |
|
Eb |
F |
G |
Ab |
Bb |
C |
D |
Eb |
|
E |
F# |
Ab |
A |
B |
Db |
Eb |
E |
|
F |
G |
A |
Bb |
C |
D |
E |
F |
|
F# |
Ab |
Bb |
B |
Db |
Eb |
F |
F# |
|
G |
A |
B |
C |
D |
E |
F# |
G |
|
Ab |
Bb |
C |
Db |
Eb |
F |
G |
Ab |
|
A |
B |
Db |
D |
E |
F# |
Ab |
A |
|
Bb |
C |
D |
Eb |
F |
G |
A |
Bb |
|
B |
Db |
Eb |
E |
F# |
Ab |
Bb |
B
|
You therefore look at the 10 notes of the main melody you’ve learned, and see how most of those notes match with the ones in above rows of scales. If they seem to match with the notes in F key (i.e. scale notes: G, A, Bb, C D, E ), then play the F chord with the melody notes and hear if they sound right. If they do, then F is the key of the song.
If they don’t, then by all means try matching the notes against the most of the same ones in any other row, until the sounds appear to match up.
If a song overall sounds like it’s in a more serious tone, it’s likely to be dominated by a ‘home’ minor chord, in which case the melody’s notes would likely fall in one of the minor scales shown in the above table. Just for good measure, here too, is the MINOR scale for each of the 12 keys.
KEY: SCALE:
|
C |
D |
Eb |
F |
G |
Ab |
Bb |
C |
|
Db |
Eb |
E |
F# |
Ab |
A |
B |
Db |
|
D |
E |
F |
G |
A |
Bb |
C |
D |
|
Eb |
F |
F# |
Ab |
Bb |
B |
Db |
Eb |
|
E |
F# |
G |
A |
B |
C |
D |
E |
|
F |
G |
Ab |
Bb |
C |
Db |
Eb |
F |
|
F# |
Ab |
A |
B |
Db |
D |
E |
F# |
|
G |
A |
Bb |
C |
D |
Eb |
F |
G |
|
Ab |
Bb |
B |
Db |
Eb |
E |
F# |
Ab |
|
A |
B |
C |
D |
E |
F |
G |
A |
|
Bb |
C |
Db |
Eb |
F |
F# |
Ab |
Bb |
|
B |
Db |
D |
E |
F# |
G |
A |
B |
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