Joined: Mon Jul 18 2005, 05:16PM Sekarang saya tinggal di kota:: Batu Posts: 479
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For many people, the thought of playing “by ear” or being able to anticipate the chords, notes and musical charges in a song you’ve never heard before seems like an impossible task. It’s often considered a gift rather than a skill that can be learned and constantly improved on. Yet, as church based musicians we often have repertoires that consist of perhaps 150 songs that we need to be able to lead confidently in, and preferably without having to locate the music at a moment’s notice. Alternatively, if you’re in the type of church where someone starts a spontaneous worship song wouldn’t it be nice to be able to locate the right key and anticipate what chord is coming next?
And for songwriters too, wouldn’t it be good to be able to hear and try out every chord that is available to us in any key rather than just try to shoehorn the melodies we create into familiar chord sequences that can make a new song sound a bit predictable. Alternatively if we create a melody line that goes just too high for our congregation to sing, how do we know what the correct chords will be if we find that the melody best works in a lower and unfamiliar key? And for some of us who haven’t had any formal musical training, what on earth is a ‘key’ anyway?
Getting familiar with this music theory that frees us to know exactly what to play over any song we hear is not the daunting process it appears and couples a little theoretical knowledge with honing your musical ear. This skill of playing by ear can be developed in the same way as anyone can improve their musicianship, with practice, patience and most importantly, by increasing your musical listening skills.
Playing by ear is really about recognizing the number of musical ‘steps’ between the note you have just played and the one that comes next. Just as you can remember the melody of a song you can actually train yourself to remember how many steps higher or lower your note has traveled as the melody has changed. You can then apply exactly the same principle to any chord in a song. Most people can recognize the difference between a happy sounding major chord and a sadder sounding minor chord. Learning to go further and recognize a sequence of chords really is possible. With a bit of practice, you could adapt the same chord sequence into a variety of different keys, without music. The secret is having a framework, which helps you recognize what possible chords are coming next—and then adding the age old discipline of practice. When I started to play guitar in my teens I was at a church where people would often sing out a spontaneous song and I had to pretty quickly learn ways to figure out which chords to play as the song was being sung. The fear factor was a great motivator to learn!
So how do we learn what chords are available to us in a key? The first way to start is to pick a familiar key – Try G, D or E for guitarists as we regularly play songs in those keys and are familiar with the chord shapes. For this exercise we’ll start with G.
First, to find the notes in the key of G we use the major scale. Saying a song is in the key of G equates to using the major scale of G to find all its melody line notes and chords. If you’re not too familiar with the notes in the major scale take a look at the exercise below.
What is a major scale? A major scale is easily recognized by the singing of the song Doh, Ray, Me Fah, Soh, Lah, Te, Doh
Next, count how many ‘steps’ are between Doh, (sung low) and Doh, (sung high) Only count Doh once.
You will discover that there are always seven notes in any major scale. Remember the 1st note and the 8th are both named ‘Doh’ and have the same sound albeit an octave (or eight steps) apart.
So the way to work out the notes in a key is this: Write the numbers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 across the top of a page and then underneath assign the notes in the key to the numbers.
For example in the key of G major we would start with G as note number 1 and work up alphabetically through our 7 musical notes.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 G A B C D etc.
Three rules for working out what notes are in the major scale of any ‘key’. There is always one of every alphabetical letter between A and G - the musical alphabet. There is never two of the same letter in the same scale. E.g. you won’t find Bb and B together in a key. You never miss out any letters. E.g. A scale will never go A B C E F, missing D.
You never mix sharps (#) and flats (b) together in the same key. E.g. A scale will never go A, Bb, C, D#, E, F#, G
I’ll put in the sharps and flats at this stage and we’ll learn how to do this together in a future article. For now, complete the table below to show the correct notes in each of the following keys.
C A G D E F
You fill in the blanks
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
C D E G A
A # D E # G#
G A D #
D F# B #
E # # A # #
F Bb C E
Chords Within The Key In addition to the notes in the major scale or key, there are also seven chords that fit over the individual notes.
The chords are either major or minor in sound and all follow the same major/minor order sequence explained below
Each chord is made up from individual notes taken from the relevant major scale. The formula for the chords looks like this:
1
2
3
4
5
6 P 7
Major
Minor
Minor
Major
Major
Minor
Minor (½ diminished)
Lets work this formula into the chord table above and line up our notes from the key of G major.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
G
A
B
C
D
E
F#
Major
Minor
Minor
Major
Major
Minor
Minor (½ diminished)
These seven chords make up the chords that you are likely to find in any song in the key of G. Some are more common than others. These are G major, C major, D major and E minor (the numbers 1, 4, 5 and 6). You may also have played the chords of A minor and B minor in songs within the key of G.
Don’t worry about the 7th chord being described as ½ diminished. Just think of it as minor for now and I’ll come back to it in a later article and explain how why and where to use diminished chords and chords “outside the key” to great effect in a congregational worship band setting.
So try taking any existing song or new melody and play it the key of G working out the chords using the chart above. Try listening out for which chords sound major or minor and choose the right chord by hearing which of our alternatives fits best. The more you do this, the more you will find your ear will ‘tune in’ to the possibilities of what chords fit the song.
Once you’ve got that mastered try it in other keys. The same Major/Minor chord formula works in exactly the same way in every major key. So perhaps if your melody becomes too high for an average congregation to sing, pick a lower key and use the exact same formula to plot out the right chords in that new key. If you’re not sure how to find which key you should be using, sing up and down your new melody until you find the note that seems to be the first note of the key, the Doh. Whatever that note is called, forms the home or the ‘root’ note of that key.
Don’t be afraid to try utilizing the 2nd and 3rd chords in each key over your melodies. They aren’t generally used much in worship songs but because both chords are minors, they can provide some really fresh sounds, particularly if your lyrics contain a lamenting or reflective theme.
Finally, whilst learning all this technique, don’t forget that theme and content, particularly in worship songs are just as important as great melody. I defy you to try and find a song that has stood the test of time, pop song, worship song, or hymn, that doesn’t have a great theme and lyrical content. Great melodies will always catch people’s attention, but great theme and content will cause that song to last.
Joined: Mon Jul 18 2005, 05:16PM Sekarang saya tinggal di kota:: Batu Posts: 479
Last month we looked at how to work out all the chords available in the key of G and then use them to write a song. I suggested you take an existing song and work out which chords came where by listening to see which ones sounded major, which ones sounded minor and by the process of elimination work out which chords sounded most appropriate for your new song from the seven possible chords I gave you.
Did you try it? Did it work? Let’s try working out the chords in the keys of C and E so you can also play songs in two further keys. Follow these steps as before:
Step 1 Write down the numbers 1 – 7 on your page.
Step 2 Add the alphabetical letters to the numbers starting with your root note i.e. key of ‘C’ is 1 ‘D’ is 2 etc.
Step 3 Add the major, minor, minor chord rule to the notes.
Step 4 Add sharps or flats to the letters. We will look at how to find this out in an exercise below but for now just be aware that the key of C has no sharps or flats and E has sharps on note numbers 2 3 6 and 7. So just add a sharp symbol (#) to the chords and notes on those note numbers.
Now try and work out the correct notes and chords in both of those keys. I have put the answers at the bottom of the article, so give it a try. You won’t know unless you have a go!
So if you go back and remember the chord sequence you worked out for your song in the key of G you can actually learn to play it in the two other keys we have just worked out.
The way to do it is to line up the numbers of the chords you have played. E.g. if the song went… G C D Em Am D then the chord numbers would be: 1 4 5 6 2 5
If you took those same chord numbers and lined them up to the key of C you would get: C F G Am Dm G 1 4 5 6 2 5
Or in E:
E A B C#m F#m B 1 4 5 6 2 5
This way you can transpose any song to into any key
What we have been exploring here is something called the Nashville Numbering System. This was devised for the country music recording scene where songwriters would write the chords out to a song only to find that the hired session singer would need to sing it in a different key. Rather than having to transpose all those chords into another key, they came up with a way of numbering the chords in the key so that the musicians could quickly and easily adapt the “pitch” of the music without having to write it all out again. This system is now widely used by musicians all over the world to communicate new song structures.
So when learning and writing songs try to think of the chord sequences as numbers in a key rather than just the names of the chords on their own. So, in G don’t think G D Am C In E, don’t think E B F#m A Instead think, 1 5 2 4
That way once you get to know the chords in each key you can play the same song in any other key just by remembering its Nashville Numbering sequence. It can also be used as a simple way of directing musicians through a series of improvised chords in a new song you have just written. You could say ‘2 6 5 1’ ‘key of A’ and musicians will know to play Bm, F#m, E, A or even hold up the right number of fingers on your hand to show them which new chord you want to go to next. This way if you suddenly find your new melody is not singable in a band or congregational setting in its original key, it’s much easier to try out another key without having to rewrite all the chords.
What about the Sharps (#) and Flats (b)?
In order to make the best use of Nashville we need to be able to work out which keys have sharp or flat notes in them. If we don’t do this then our major scale will sound strange from the outset in some keys. E.g The key of D has two sharp notes in it , F# - chord 3 (F#m) and C# - chord 7 – C# ½ dim. If you just played Fmin and Cmin instead it would sound odd.
In all the most common keys every musical letter or note can have a sharp version of it. Eg. as well as G there is also G#, as well as A there is also A#. In fact the only two notes that would normally not have a sharp option are E and B. If you play piano you will know the black keys contain the sharps and both the E and B notes don’t have a black key to their right.
This is exactly the same on a guitar. Each fret represents a single white or black piano key. As you play up the guitar fret by fret on a single string it’s exactly the same as playing from the bottom to the top of the piano, not missing out any notes at all.
As guitar frets aren’t marked as black or white keys, we need to learn a system of one or two fret ‘jumps’ to help us work out which keys have sharp or flat notes in them. These jumps are called tones and semi-tones.
There are two distances between notes in music – the tone and the semitone. A jump of a semitone is moving one fret up or down on the guitar or one key (the next black or white key) on the keyboard. So moving from A to A# is jumping one semitone as is moving from B to C. A jump of a tone is moving two frets up or down the guitar – the equivalent of two semitones. For example, moving from A to B is jumping two semitones or one tone.
The major scale key that we have been looking at is always built up from a series of tones and semitones (or 1 or 2 fret jumps) in this order:
Root Tone Tone semitone (Tone) Tone Tone semitone
To help you remember, say it like this:
Root, Tone, Tone, Semitone, (Separated by a tone), Tone, Tone, Semitone Which we will abbreviate to:
R TTs(T)TTs
For visual learners you can see this looks quite symmetrical
Example – C major (don’t worry if you can’t read music – we have put the “stave in below as a visual reminder for those who do)
If we start on the note C this would give us this series of notes;
C
D
E
F
G
A
B
C
R
T
T
s
T
T
T
s
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
1(8)
(R=Root, T=Tone, s=semitone)
With the key of G:
G
A
B
C
D
E
F#
G
R
T
T
s
T
T
T
s
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
1(8)
With the key of F:
F
G
A
Bb
C
D
E
F
R
T
T
s
T
T
T
s
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
1(8)
By following that simple formula of tones and semitones, you will be able to discover the correct notes of any major scale including the sharps and flats. It doesn’t matter which note it starts on. It could be E, Bb, A# etc. It makes no difference.
As I mentioned in the last article, when we name notes in the major scale, there are three important rules: You must use every alphabetical letter from A through to G There must be only one of each letter e.g. you can’t have Db and D in the same scale it would have to be C# and D We never mix sharps and flats in the same scale
Try this:
Start with playing string 6 (the lowest string) on your guitar at the G note (fret 3). Call that the ‘root’ and plot out the tone tone semitone (tone) tone tone semitone method on that string. If played correctly you should find you have played a correct sounding major scale. Try again starting on ‘F’ (fret 1) then ‘A’ (fret 5).
Use the notes on string 6 you already know to work out if the your major scale matches up to the natural A B C etc notes or if any fall between them in which case the note will be ‘something’ # or ‘something’ b.
Remember – you can’t have two of the same alphabetical letter in the same key. Eg if you have just played an A and have to go up a semi-tone then the next note will have to be Bb and NOT A#.
If you aren’t sure of the note names on string 6 of the guitar then this will give you a guide
Fret 0 (open string) 1 3 5 7 8 10 12 14 Note E F G A B C D E F#(Gb)
Once you have worked out the right notes in the key, you can then apply the Major Minor Minor chord sequence to those notes on the same 1-7 basis and will have the tools to work out all the notes to any key and all the chords that are in that key. Again this is great for songwriting because helps you compose melodies in unfamiliar but singable keys and allows you to experiment with chord options that you may not have naturally played before.
Of course there is nothing to stop you writing melodies with notes and chords that fall outside the key. Some of the greatest songs of our time have used the odd chromatic (outside the key) note to lift a song and surprise the listener. But remember; always let your ears be the judge of a new song. You can in theory go in and out of the key as much as you like as long as you follow the golden rule. Keep the songs catchy, easy to pick up and sing by non musical church members and playable by the musicians you have.
Answers
Key of C
Number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Note C D E F G A B Chord maj min min maj maj min min(1/2 dim)
Key of E
Number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Note E F# G# A B C# D# Chord maj min min maj maj min min(1/2 dim)
Joined: Fri Aug 26 2005, 12:04PM Sekarang saya tinggal di kota:: Indonesia, Jakarta Posts: 16
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