@ChrisAbeGuitar
I have tidied up the posts about Too Much Of A Good Thing to remove the typos and responses to them.
Here is a slightly different analysis.
The intro and verse simply bounces back and forward between C and Em but it feels tense, unresolved, looping around with no place to settle.
Then, when the chorus arrives - do you hear how satisfying that G chord is? They have arrived at the tonic. The key of G but until the chorus the tonic chord has been avoided with a two-chord vamp that tricks us. The solo and bridge use F and in the key of G that is a bVII chord, a commonly borrowed chord.
Robbie, you can train your ear and Justin has Ear Training courses to help develop this essential skill.
one of the most important things you can do is familiarise your ear and your expectations of chord movements is by following my mantra - learn songs, learn songs, learn songs. By learning songs you are exposing your ears to many, many ways that chords are used in combination. The combinations are limitless but there are a handful of very commonly used patterns that you will encounter across all genres - so learn and and all songs whether it is your taste or not.
@ChrisAbeGuitar
This puts it in G mixolydian mode. C major resolving to G. This also explains the D chord being major and the F not being F#dim. In the key of G the D is the 4 chord and F# being flattened to F.
So the easiest way to look at this song is in the Key of C but the tonal center is G. To get the sound of the G mixolydian mode into you head play the C major scale but start and end on the note G.
@stitch
I didnât want to raise the notion of modes in case it was unfamiliar territory for @ChrisAbeGuitar but that is a valid way to view that section I reckon.
I definitely hear G being the tonic (that we have been long teased about but denied) when the chorus lands after that extended 2 chord vamp in the intro and verse.
Because the F chord arrives during the solo, any lead guitar will need to make sure to avoid the G major scale F# note (and ideally land an F note) over that chord.
Iâve been going through a few songs in my repertoire and noticed that 2 of them could be either of 2 keys:
Whatâs up
A Bm (C#m) D (E F#m) = A
or
D (Em F#m G) A Bm = D
Mr Jones
C Dm (Em) F G Am = C
or
Am (Bdim) C Dm (Em) F G = Am
If I understand Justinâs video correctly itâs just a matter of checking which scale sounds best when improvising over the song to determine which key it actually is. Or are both keys just as correct?
Floris, I think you have listed the six main diatonic chords for the keys you are naming and placed a bracket around those not used in the chord progressio. If so, that is useful because it can help to see the inconsistencies in your presentation and conclusions.
Whatâs Up
This is a I, ii, IV progression in the key of A â YES
If
D = 1
then
A - V and Bm = vi
A I, V, vi progression in the key of key of D â NO
Mr Jones
The verses are in the key of A minor and the chorus in the relative key of C major.
Relative major and minor share common chords so it is the manner in which they are played and which is given emphasis to be the âhome chordâ.
Thank you so much for emphasising the importance of doing at least 5 songs (although better 50 rather than 5). This has been a revalation for me. Iâve been a little inconsistent with my practical theory and recently reworked previous quizes and corrected some misundertanding from that valuable exercise. The past couple of days Iâve been working identifying some progressions and couldnât understand why some of the keys sounded different from others. I somehow hadnât recognised the importance of the intervals and only now while working on a I, IV, I, IV, V, I in the key of F I found that B didnât work (this was my problem) but Bb did. Ding! A revalatory moment. Happy days. Thank you once again for yet another superb lesson.
hi Justin. after following your videos i realize that there are many different position to play a particular chord that varies by pitch . but if i hear someone sing and i wanna play guitar for them. i still cant figure it which chord to play. how do people recognize which chord to play for a note that someone is singing. and how do i figure out if i have to move up the fret board and use a capo. do i have to play all the open chords and figure out which chords suits best or is there any other technique
i was listening to âShe loves youâ by the Beatles s to see if i could find out the key of the chord progession
i found it was a G major key but thereâs an A major chord in the intro to the song?
Hi Aeron, I think the intro is in a different key from the rest (or most of the rest) of the song. You can kind of feel it if you listen with that in mind. I havenât analyzed it myself though!
A single chord for a single note, with little context, is something difficult to find. There can be multiple chords to fit.
Say the singer is singing the note G. The chord to fit could be any one of these:
A7 = A, C#, E, G
C = C, E, G
Dsus4 = D, G, A
Em = E, G, B
Fadd9 = F, A, C, G
G = G, B, D
Without the context of harmonic structure, a chord progression for a song, it is an impossible task.
If you are asking how to create a chord progression when all you have is a harmony, that is quite an advanced skill using theory and music knowledge. You will begin to work towards that as you progress with PMT.
Once you have a progression, if the key is wrong for the singer, they need to determine if they need the melody higher or lower in pitch. You then accommodate chords either with a capo or seeking different chord shapes for a new key.
Youâre right to question this ⌠not every song contains only chords from the key ⌠or not every song section is in the same key. That intro is a dynamic statement and gives surprising sounds with the energy to launch into the song and part of that is achieved by using chords that should not belong together as theyâre not from the same key.
Donât know about anyone else but I canât do this in my head. However given any specific key I can easily figure out the chord progression and intervals, and given a progression I can usually figure out the key and the intervals if I have my guitar handy, oh, and I keep a Circle of Fifths tacked to the wall. But trying to figure this in my head? Nope. Just too old.
You are correct. It doesnât âfitâ into the 3 stated patterns.
For me, a minor , one tone above a major, is either a 1-2, or a 5-6. The 3rd chord here, Am will tell you which one; in this case 5-6. So G Major, for the exercise.
(Technically, it could also be E minor, but thats not part of the lessonâs scope).