View post (Scales and Key question. Newbie.)

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greengamer8990
Registered User
Joined: 01/02/21
Posts: 17
greengamer8990
Registered User
Joined: 01/02/21
Posts: 17
11/20/2021 11:30 am

Okay this is brand new to me, just kind of figured some of this stuff out by accident, but here goes. [br][br]So I recently played through a song twisted Sister - Captain Howdy. [br][br]And I noticed the chords were C5, D5, E5, F5, G5, B5, and A5. And I thought I wonder what Key that's in, but the normal websites that generally show BPM and the key a song is in [many times these websites will actually disagree amongst themselves what key a song is in] but anyway I was unable to find out what key the song was in, as it wasn't pulling up. [br][br]So I typed all the chords in google, and it pulled up the following [br]"The power chords that can be used when soloing with the C Major scale are D5, E5, F5, G5, B5, and A5. You can mix and match any of those chords and you will be playing in the key of C" [br][br]I thought that's internesting, those indicate the key of C, and of course I had to do more google and find a website with 50 songs in the key of C major and found out they had similar chords ending with 5s [Iron Maiden-Run to the Hill was another one]. [br][br]So I was thinking why do these chords make the key C major? I was scratching my head thinking what is it about these chords or any chords that fit into a certain scale? Why do these specific chords for whatever reason are identified as the C major scale and the key of C? [br][br]So I though, well let me check something out, so I looked up a website that shows a fretboard and basically you can click the fretboard and the strings and it will show you the note and you can click multiple notes and it will make a chord then show you the name of the chord. For example [br]I clicked String 7A and string string 9B and the chord is E5 and interestingly that 7A string is the note E. So I tried another one [br]and clicked low String 10E and string 10A and the chord is D5 and the 10E string note by itself is a D. [br][br]I'm not sure if I'm using the correct terminology, but it looks like the first string is the root of the chord and determines the name i.e. if that string note is A then it becomes an A chord, D becomes a D chord etc. So I thought well that is interesting. [br][br]But my question is, since I'm a newbie, and this is all quite shocking and interesting to me, back to my question. Why do these chords make the key C major? I was scratching my head thinking what is it about these chords D5, E5, F5, G5, B5, and A5 or any chords that fit into a certain scale? Why do these specific chords for whatever reason are identified as the C major scale and the key of C? What's the logic behind them being in that scale/key?