I Can Name That Key In ___ Notes...

i teach with a very open attitude - i like to let things flow freely between the student and myself. as a result, a lot of open jamming tends to happen. during these jams a student can learn the ins and outs of a simple scale, a song, or even themselves. it's very liberating for the student and rewarding for me to watch.

however, most of my students tend to ask the same question as soon as i give them something to play over: "wait, what key is this in?"

today we're going to discuss some simple and logical ways to figure out what key you're in on the spot, without taking too much time or asking out loud. after all, sometimes the band is too loud to speak to you! onward...

we're going to pull up the diatonic chord structure for some reference to help us out...

I     Major
II    Minor
III   Minor
IV   Major
V    Major
VI   Minor
VII  Diminished 

we've discussed before that chords appear in this pattern in every diatonic key. because of this, we can use it to help us determine what key a particular chord progression is in by looking at how the chords are built. let's take a look at this example progression...

E- D- Gmaj A-

the clue here is in the chords that fall next to each other in the alphabet. in this case, D- and E- are the clue. there is only one spot in the diatonic chord structure that allows for 2 minor chords to be next to each other, and that is the II and III positions...

I     Major
II    Minor
III   Minor
IV   Major
V    Major
VI   Minor
VII  Diminished

therefore, we know now know that II = D- and III= E-. this only occurs in C major. success!

some of you might be saying to yourself, "but A- and Gmaj are next to each other in the alphabet as well. how come you didn't use those chords?" the answer is simple - a Major chord followed by a Minor chord happens twice in the scale structure (I->II and V->VI). this would have narrowed down the key possibilities to two, but in this case that wasn't necessary.

another example...

DbMaj EbMaj F- AbMaj

this one should be easy. we've got 3 chords in alphabetical order here. two Major chords next to each other, followed by a Minor? that's gotta be IV, V, and VI. yup, we're in Ab Major.

this is all well and good, but so far we've only been looking at chord progressions that have triad-based chord structures. what happens if we don't get full triads, like in a power chord jam, or even worse, a single note riff that might not imply chords at all?

enter some note analyzation. remember how to play that major scale?

|---------------------------------|
|---------------------------------|
|---------------------------------|
|-------------4-5-----------------|
|-------1-3-5---------------------|
|-1-3-5---------------------------|

let's convert this major scale to a one string setup. this way we can see all the whole and half steps that make up this scale...

    w w h w w  w  h

|-1-3-5-6-8-10-12-13-|

given a power chord or riff based progression, we're going to be forced to use the notes themselves instead of the chord structures to help us out. imagine we're playing over a certain punk rock tune from the 90s (fill in your own rhythm)...

Eb5 Bb5 C5 G55 Ab5 Eb5 Ab5

we've got 5 notes to go by in this example...

Ab Bb C E G

again, we're taking an interest in the notes that happen to be next to each other alphabetically, but now we're also interested in the half and whole steps that occur between them as well. since the major scale consists of more whole steps than half steps, the halves are much more valuable. we've got one set in our little green riff, and it falls between G and Ab. so now we know we've got two possible scales...

Ab Bb C x Eb x G

and...

Eb x G Ab Bb C x

hmm... still not enough information! let's have a look at this progression in tab format...

|------------------|
|------------------|
|------------------|
|-8----------8-----|
|-6-8-10-5-6-6-8---|
|---6-8--3-4---6---|

each power chord consists of TWO notes. let's add those extra notes into the mix, and we end up with...

Ab Bb C D Eb F G  

looking like we have a lot more options here. now all that's left to do is arrange the notes around so we have the only way to make the whole and half steps appear in the right spots. we end up with...

Eb F G Ab Bb C D

Eb major! 

wow, that was a lot of work! well, not really. the first few times you try to figure out what key you're in on your own it might take you some time, but after a few tries you'll not only start to remember these tricks, but you'll begin to hear them as well. most people playing through this basket case of a riff will be able to pick out that they're in Eb major just by hearing it. if you can't, though, there's always these tricks we spoke about today. check for chord qualities, notes and chords that fall alphabetically next to each other, and for the arrangement of half and whole steps. with practice, you'll be able to hear and feel each key in less and less time.

until next time, grasshoppers!

How To Properly Not Practice

for this lesson i'm going to offer another mental consideration to think about that is somewhat related to The Apex Shredator's Shreditation article. we've all been there - you're practicing lick A for a painstaking amount of time. you're tired, your fingers are red and ripping up, and while you were progressing nicely 30 minutes ago, you're somehow falling on your face now and regressing to sounding even worse than when you started. what's going on here?

cut to another day. and another situation entirely....

it's 9am. your Stand Out! guitar lesson is today at 1pm. you haven't practiced your frosted mini sweeps all week, but you figure since Shredator said to work on these for 30 minutes a day that 4 hours straight before your lesson will work even better. hey, you'll even be nice and warmed up for when he gets here. 4 hours later at 1pm, you never got there. what happened?

both of these situations are seemingly different, but both have the same reason for failure - you didn't not practice correctly.

every time you learn a new lick, your brain, hands, arms, and eyes need to work together to make it happen. the first time you play a new passage, most of this is a mechanical process. all of your associated parts have to figure out how to physically make lick X happen. think about the first time you learned the blues scale - it sounded nothing close to 'bluesy' - it was just a bunch of notes getting plunked down on your instrument for reference. it's only after mindlessly beating it into your brain over and over again that the notes start to sound like something. start to mean something. start to have some soul to them. while it's true that practicing over and over helps you to cross over to this point, the time spent not practicing also helps as well.

your hands and arms need time off to release tension created from learning harder passages. your brain needs time off as well, but something different happens inside your head while you're not playing. when you relax your muscles, they get to recharge their batteries. when you take your mind off guitar playing, your brain is still working on what you were practicing at a subconscious level. it's like that awful math lesson you had to sit through one day at school - it seems foggy the day you learn it, but a week later the concept of the lesson becomes clear and 'easy' to think about. it works the same way, and i know nobody practices math class on their own time to get better at it!

now let's keep this in mind - you still need to practice regularly. you can't just merely think about guitar on your off time and expect to get better consistently. this is more about budgeting and prioritizing your practice time and time off from the instrument. you cannot get these skills hammered into your brain by trying to 'cram' for hours before a performance or a lesson. however, if you try for a '30 minutes on, 1 hour' off kinda of a schedule, you might find yourself learning things quicker, with less overall time spent hammering on the instrument. everyone's time limits will be different - i recommend practicing for a decent amount of time up until you begin to get frustrated. once that happens, you're likely to slow down any progress, and just get more and more angry. don't quit in 5 minutes, but anywhere from 20-60 minutes spent on a single topic should be good enough for one practice session.

the next question - what to do when you're not playing? the answer is simple - anything else. sports, video games, social activity, sleeping - any of those healthy (in moderation) activities will help keep your mind fixed on something else besides your instrument, which will in turn relax you and prepare you for your next practice session. when you do return to your instrument, you should feel recharged and calm, ready to hack away at whatever you're working on.

give it a shot, and see if any differences in your playing show up. practice is important, and so is 'not practicing' - but only in moderation!

Harmonization 101

this week i had a request from a student to explain the process of harmonizing single note lines. as you may know, lots of harder rock and metal lately involve 2 guitar players playing single notes that somehow interact with each other in a cool way. we're going to talk about some basic harmonization that occurs in lines like these.

it all begins (as always), with the foundation of music - the Major scale...

you'll notice this particular diagram has numbers written in place of note names. these are the scale degrees of this particular Major scale. at the moment the actual key is not important. let's keep it universal for now.

all of these notes bring a certain color to the table sonically. we're going to structure these sounds into 'intervals' to get an idea of what they sound like. the way we're going to analyze these notes is to compare all of them to the root of the scale, which in this case, is D. play all of these combinations of notes together to get a quick little primer as to what these harmonizations will sound like...

D against D
D against E
D against F#
D against G
D against A
D against B
D against C#

you might find some of these are fairly pleasant. you might find others are more angular or boxy, but still quite cool. you also might find a couple that just sound all sorts of wrong. that's ok - these are the flavors that we're given.

remember that diagram earlier of the major scale with the numerical degrees on it? let's check it out again...

the scale degree you play will also dictate the harmonization's name. in other words, if you play D against G, you'll be harmonizing a 4th. if you play D against E, you'll be harmonizing a 2nd.

this system is pretty easy to deal with. if you have a melody that you want to harmonize, decide what sound you like, count up that many scale degrees, and play your original part in that new location in the scale.

let's practice one. let's stay in the key of D for the moment. play this melody to get it in your ears...

|-------------------------|
|-------------------------|
|---------------6-7-------|
|-------------7-----7-----|
|-5-7-9-5-5-9---------5---|
|-------------------------|

i know, i'm a regular mozart. deal with me.

what i'd like to do now is take this and harmonize it up a 3rd. 3rds are very common starting points. let's look at the melody in english, now..

D E F# D D F# A C# D A D

if i'm harmonizing up a third, i'll take each note and count 3 degrees up. take note you must count the original note as the 1st degree! so up a third this harmony will be..

Original - D  E F# D  D  F# A C# D  A D

Up a 3rd - F# G A  F# F# A  C E  F# C F#

makes sense? good. keep in mind that in our example we harmonized a third higher than the melody. you could just as easily harmonize below the melody, just counting backwards in scale degrees. that's pretty much it! it might take you some time to figure out more harmonizations at first, but in time you'll learn to hear and feel them in the same way you feel the scales on their own. also feel free to experiment with different harmonizations in the same passage - they dont have to all be 4ths or all 5ths or whatever. play with it!