How do I know what key my song is in?

[FuzzFace]

When I write a song based around a chord sequence (e.g. "Am G F" or "C F C F G C"), is there a way for me to determine what key the song is in...  or at least narrow it down?

[henwrench]

I'm sure one of the good people here know the real answer. I haven't got a clue. I just say the key is the first chord I play. So if it's a C#m7, then the key is C#m7. But that's probably wrong...

                                                                henwrong

[Greeny]

I wish I knew stuff like this.

As long as it's in tune I don't delve any deeper than that, lol.

[FuzzFace]

I just say the key is the first chord I play. So if it's a C#m7, then the key is C#m7.

That would be a good song title, "Sonata in C#m7".  Ha ha.

I wish I knew stuff like this.

As long as it's in tune I don't delve any deeper than that, lol.

So... when you compose solos or basslines you just do it by ear?

I'm just looking for a way to help break myself out of my regular pattern.

[Greeny]

Yes... by ear and instinct. It will make 'proper' musicians cringe, but every addition I make (especially bass) consists of playing around randomly until I stumble on a root note and any other notes that sound like they fit.

If it sounds good, it is good!

My tip for 'creative' bass is to play higher than usual up the neck. You start to get much more melodic like that. More like Macca.

[Gnasty]

Yes as Greeny says it`s all about the root note and it helps to start learning your fretboard too.
When i looked at your C,F,C,F,G,Am i tend to look at that in a Am pentatonic C Major way but i learned
guitar by myself and its probably backwards to what a teacher would show you. If i were to play
A minor blues over that it would sound blah and boring.  

So with that configuration you are getting into modal aspects. So using the C as the root will put you in Ionion mode I think. Theres lots to learn and i did know this shit at one time like i knew the periodic table in Science class but after a while it can elude you. I just fuckin play now!

[hooper]

Trying to make a long story short:  Typically in Western music with 12 half-tones between octaves and 8 notes in the familiar do-re-me-fa-so-la-ti scale....

•  Chords built off of the 1st, 4th and 5th notes of the scale are major.  Chords built off of the other notes of the scale are minor.  So, if your song contains: C-Dm-Em-F-G-Am-Bm-C... you would know that you're in the key of 'C' .  But if your song contained only C-Am-F-G.. it would still be reasonable to say you're in the key of C because that's the only key where that combination of  major and minor chords occur naturally (that is, without adding extra sharps and/or flats) .  Take another example, if your song had A-C#m7- D-E... then you're in the key of 'A'. 
 
•  In every major key, the chord built off of the 6th note of the scale is called the 'relative minor' for that key. So, the relative minor for the key of C is Am, the relative minor for the key of G is Em, and so on.
   
•  The key signature of a minor key is the same as the major key that it's the relative minor of.  So, the key signature of Am is the same as C major, the key signature of F#m is the same as A major.  Mostly that just means (if you were writing the music in standard notation) that once you placed the necessary sharps or flats in the key signature, that should make the chords built off the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th come out major or minor the way they are supposed to. If your song had the chords Am-Dm-Em, you could call it the key of Am but the key signature would be the same as the key of C.  Tell the bass player you're playing in C. It will drive him nuts.

•  Sometimes a song might have such an odd combination of chords in it so that it doesn't  fit into that pattern.  If someone wrote that music down they would have to use lots of sharps or flats beyond the key signature.  So, for convenience it would be better to place the song in whatever key that would require the least amount of sharps and flats beyond the key signature.

•  If all else fails, when you get to the end of the song... stop, shout  ta-daaaa!  And then strike the last chord.

    If it sounds like the song is really finished, then that's the key it was in.   

[chip]

Good reply there Hooper. I was just going to say C too.. A good little tool for all this is The Chord Wheel or if you want to go further Rikky Rooksby  has some great books on songwriting. How to write songs on guitar and The songwriting source book. The Chord Wheel is a good place to start, very easy to use most of the time.

[phantasm777]

i am with greeny, most times i dont care what key my song is. im all ears, so to speak. feeling and hearing are my main musical senses.

[T.C. Elliott]

The easiest way to make an educated guess is to look at the cadences. Or, rather, the end of phrases. If you come to the end of the verse and it feels final or complete the last chord is quite likely built on the root of the scale. If it feels like an end of the phrase but doesn't really feel like it's finished it very easily could be a different chord so it is helpful to look at other phrases/endings. Also the Chorus generally will be a great place to look because, in general, they tend to reinforce the root chord. So that phrase at the end of the verse that doesn't really sound like a final chord may lead into the root chord of the chorus. This gives a lot of power to the chorus which most often is the strongest part of the song. **

In a lot of songs the chorus begins on the root note/chord and many times it ends on the root note/chord. The key is whatever note/chord your ear gravitates to the most.

A minor would be the relative minor of the C major scale. So you're most likely looking at one of those keys but if you guess wrong between those two you'll still be playing the correct notes (most of the time.)  Sometimes (but not always) the key is the chord that is used the most that also sounds final.

Personally, I think analyzing songs (hit songs, friends songs, your own songs) is a great way to improve your songwriting for two reasons. 1) You can identify and figure out exactly what you are doing on the parts you like and don't like which gives you a way to internalize and/or avoid techniques that you evaluate as good or bad. 2) You have a way to communicate with other musicians songwriters in a meaningful way. The more you discuss/communicate/examine songwriting the more your likely to learn and teach. That can only be a good thing.


** In my song 'hooker boots' I have an intro that starts on G (the I chord) and ends on D (the V chord) but leads into the verse that starts on C (the IV chord.) It gives it a nice little flavor. The verse also ends on the V chord and sounds like the end of a phrase so one could guess that D was the key. But when the chorus kicks in back on the G chord it really feels powerful. It feels like 'HOME' in a musical sense. Half way through the chorus the ending of the first big phrase ends on G again. And then the end of the chorus leads into the intro which is also a G.  So the clues in that song all lead to G even though the Verse chord progression only passes over G and doesn't ever use it as a cadence or at the end of a phrase.