When they say..."the key of" phase

I've noticed people say "the key of A minor" etc... so my understanding so far is that you can jam along the chord progression with A Minor scale. But my question is are there any restrictions in which chords you can play to make that backing, because it's in a key of something?

I know a guy who pulls out alright tunes without any theory and here I am reading posts and columns of great guitarist who talk in this language, its quite mind boggling. I try to come up with chord backings with just luck, strumming to anything I know, but its sounds like this is not the only way to go about writing solid chord progressions.

If there's a previous post regarding same topic (which I don't know the name of this theory) please post! :D

Thanks,

If it's in the key of A Minor, then you can use the chords diatonic to the A Minor scale, as well as substitutes and leading chords (but if you're trying to stay on the safe side, stick with the diatonic for a while). For a natural minor key, the diatonic chords are as follows: i, ii(dim), III, iv, v, VI, VII. So the chord built off the first note in A Minor, which is A, will be minor, the second note (B) will make a diminished chord, the third (C) will be a major chord, the fourth (D) and fifth (E) will be minor. The sixth (F) and seventh (G) will be major. Notice that these are the same chords you can use in C Major, A Minor's relative major key. You can apply the formula (i, ii(dim), III, iv, v, VI, VII) to any minor key for easily useable chords. Hope that helps. Later.

Yeah, there are restrictions to what chords go with a certain key. Chords that work are chords that exist with the key (scale your playing in). Take an A minor chord in the key of A minor. The scale of A minor is A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A. The A minor chord is made up of A, C, and E. A minor triad. Notice that pattern, it's start with the root of the chord which is A, skip a note(B), C, skip another note (D), E. This is the pattern used to form a triad. To know whether a triad is major, minor, diminished, or augmented you have to add up the distance from each note to the next. So starting with A, C is a minor 3rd above A. Then E is a major third above C. It looks like this.

A ~> minor 3rd ~> C ~> major 3rd ~> E = A minor chord (triad)

All intervals between triads are in thirds (whether major or minor). A minor third is 1 1/2 steps or 3 frets up, and a major 3rd is 2 steps up or 4 frets up.

Now here's the intervals for each type of chord (triad).

Minor = minor third, major third
Major = major third, minor third
Diminished = minor third, minor third
Augmented = major third, major third

Now that you see how you come up with why A is minor chord in a A minor scale (key). You can do the same with all the other notes in the A minor scale.

B is a diminished chord. B to D is a minor third and D to F is a minor third too. When you have 2 minor thirds it's diminished. If you go on through all the notes, you end up with.

A minor, B diminished, C major, D minor, E minor, F major, G major.

Here's the major chord structure with a major key.

A major, B minor, C# minor, D major, E major, F# minor, G# diminished.

Hopefully you see how chord exist within scales (keys). So if you wanted to play a progression I, IV, V in A major. You would play the chords A major, D major, and E major.

Now it goes farther when you start adding extensions to those chords. i.e. A major 7th. The simple way to look at it is you just take the A major triad (A, C#, E) and add the seventh note up G# to that chord. So you end up with A, C#, E, and G#. Now by adding different notes to the simple triad you can create a nice range of different ways to color a chord within a certain key. Take A major in the A major scale. Here's a few chord that you can use by adding a note to a simple triad.

A major 7th = add G#
A major 6th = add F#
A major 9th = add B
and so on.

Hopefully that helps. I would have sent you a link to a previous thread but I didn't feel like looking.

Thanks Dirt and noticing, thats what I wanted to hear. Something practical yet theortical. Gets annoying when ppl say just write songs by ear, play whatever sounds good to you. That is a luxury for those players who managed to learn lots of good sounding chords :mad: And its a luxury I cannot afford!

Well everything sounds okay till that last part about the 7th and 9th... hopefully I'll catch on later :)

Thanks for the help amigos!

what do you mean it gets annoying whne people say" write by ear" thats how a bunch of good famous and non famous ppl do it.theory are like guidelines man..u dont have to folow them to get a good prgression..use ur head not the books(theory)..if you cant learn the chord then figure them out urself..it will help awhole lot more in the future

Just that when I meet guys that have considerable years of playing under their belt tell you... "There's nothing to it (writing songs)". I guess I'm more annoyed at their inablilty to teach you stuff. They seem to give me rough off handish answers like that which doesn't help me to get better at all. Don't get me wrong coz I do believe in all that "feel" business when you're playing, but you gotta start somewhere and theory I reckon helps you alot.

i started off with ZERO theory - did it all by ear from the very first moment on - worked fine.

now - much later - i´m pretty interrested in theory and
music history.

i mean... how are you goin to explain someone how to solo?? you CAN only do it by your ear and heart, because music is something very emotional. of course you can pic up the book of golden rules and write a solo like an architect using predefined rules - but that way it will sound very lifeless. its as if you are trying to explain the color RED to a blind man... *LOL* you will know what we are talking about once you tought yourself how to solo. then you will be like "aaah! now i understand" and you´ll be also telling peeps that they should do it by ear *LOL*

i know that this doesnt sonud very helpfull, but its part of your development on the guitar. you dont wanna end up as one of those theory-gurus, waving the cepter of knowlege at the artist, divinely signifying that he has done somehting theoretically wrong, even if it sounded brilliant.


[Edited by Azrael on 08-20-2003 at 06:30 AM]

Originally posted by Azrael
you dont wanna end up as one of those theory-gurus, waving the cepter of knowlege at the artist, divinely signifying that he has done somehting theoretically wrong, even if it sounded brilliant.

Oh, You talking about me now? HAHA. ;) I understand what andy is saying though, it doesn't help when you ask somebody something and they tell you just to figure it out yourself. But the point that everyone is saying to you andy is the most important thing about music, you have to use your ear. To become a good musician you have to have a good ear above everything else. Think of theory as your trick bag, like if you need to figure out how to do something say suspension chords. Theory will help, but you do want to write music with your ear not theory. Too much theory and you still write good music but you lose that creativeness that makes the music you write your music. You'll probably break a few rules of music theory, but that's ok if thats what you want. Just listen to Radiohead, I think they break a rule in every song (haha) but they still write awesome music.

Hehe true true, well I kinda learnt guitar by only looking at tabs in the beginning, which I feel it took away the chance to get creative and expriment. I'm quite ashamed of this but, I didn't know how to jam along anything for ages till I found out the easy way of using major scales and knowing the keys blah blah blah. So whilst improving technique I'm either posting here or talking to other guitarist to get some theory. Although my feeble attempt at soloing freestyle sounds hilarious, I'm loving that "feel" business everyone is talking about. And yeh when I really solo one day I'll be saying the same thing to others... hopefully. ;) Well I lost the obsessesion to become a master at guitar and now just enjoying playing for the fun of it... little theory along the way will only make it sweeter.