This lesson will help you understand what we mean when we say we're "in a key". A basic understanding of music is helpful, but not necessary.
We have twelve notes in our system of music. You may think there's a lot more than that (a piano has 88 keys, for instance), but remember that notes repeat. When you play an open E string, and then play the 12th fret on the same string, it's the same note - it's just one octave higher. The low E string is two octaves below the high E string, but they're both E. There are twelve notes in between them counting the first E, but after that everything repeats!
If you play these twelve notes in order (this is called a chromatic scale), you may find that it doesn't sound like much. It's certainly not very musical. That's because most music you hear (in almost any genre) is based on a major scale - a certian collection of notes that does sound musical.
Here's the pattern for a major scale - pick any note on your guitar and play it. The numbers are just how many frets you go up after playing a note. You should end up on the same note one octave up when you finish.
2 - 2 - 1 - 2 - 2 - 2 - 1
Mine sounds like this (I started on the G string, fourth fret):
B Major Scale
A major scale has seven notes - we're leaving out five of the twelve possible notes. After that, the scale just repeats over and over every octave.
So how many major scales are there? Well, there's twelve, because we can start on any of twelve notes and make a major scale from there.
Why this pattern and not something else? Sometimes my students ask this, and I have no idea. The best I can do is that it's what you've heard since you were little watching Sesame Street and singing nursery rhymes. The major scale is in our heads forever! Even if you have no musical background, when someone plays a major scale with one note wrong, you'll notice.
If you play a song, melody, riff, or chord progression using ONLY these seven notes and no others, it's called being "in a key". The first note of the scale is the name of the key. For instance, play this:
The notes we're playing here are C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C, following the pattern from above. If we stay in this scale, we're in the key of C.
Keys/major scales are used in almost every style of music. One possible exception is middle eastern music and other ethnic music, but everything from country to jazz to metal to classical uses the same concept. It's kind of neat, really. So when you hear the grungiest metalhead say he is "influenced by Mozart and Bach" he's absolutely correct in this sense.
Furthermore, the key will determine what chords we play in a song and what scales we use to solo, so it's very important to know what key you're in when playing anything.
A sharp, or #, is one fret higher than the original note. A flat, or b, is one fret lower.
All other major scales besides the C major scale have at least one sharp or flat. For instance, the key of G goes like this: G - A - B - C - D - E - F# - G. If you can identify notes on the neck of your guitar, you can figure out any major scale just by following the pattern. In another lesson I will cover ALL the major scales with an easy way to remember them all. For now, we've covered enough.
Try figuring out several different major scales on your guitar starting from different notes. Once you've figured out a scale or two, try playing them across multiple strings in the first position. For instance, the C major scale looks like this:
When a song is in a key, you can sometimes figure out what key it is by guessing which major scale fits it. If there are no notes that sound out of place, then you've found your key. Sometimes you'll be very close with only one or two notes off, but keep looking until you find the one that fits perfectly.
Occasionaly, a song will change keys (jazz, for instance, changes all the time). The pattern does work, but different ones will work at different times. This is called modulation. Over time you will learn to hear this and be able to adjust your soloing.
Figure out the keys of the following song clips. Answers are at the bottom.
I Wanna Be Sedated - The Ramones
Somewhere In Between - Lifehouse
Octoberfest - Unknown
Answers: E Major, E Major, and F Major