How to determine the key of a piece by ear.

[UncleBalsamic]

Any advice for hearing the key or key changes in a piece. I'm having a lot of trouble doing it.

Thanks

[joelc1319]

Well personally when I learn by ear I just learn the whole piece and tab it out, then figure out the key changes later. If you're talking about jazz, try listening to the piano part to figure out what chords are being used. This makes it easier to figure out what key a piece is in rather than just single notes in a bassline. Hope this helps!

[ericmknight1906]

repetition of hearing the key is the only way. Plus, having a musical ear, you either got it or you don't

[hunta]

It's extremely difficult/impossible to learn this skill. Relative pitch is learnable, perfect pitch is not (supposedly). Most people can learn to hear if it's a major or minor key, but beyond that good luck. Once you know the key, you can develop the skill to figure out the relative chord changes with some ear training work.

The only exception to "learning" perfect pitch I know are horn players. I've taken theory classes with a few trumpet and trombone players who are pretty close to having "learned" perfect pitch.

[BillyRay]

Listening to piano or guitar is the easiest way in straightforward blues/jazz/rock. But, as been said, it's very rough to nail everything at once since you rely on perfect pitch to do so.

What I usually do is try to figure out the chords one by one or try to figure the chord changes then the key they are in.

If you know the song is in a single key, listening to the solo might give you the modes that are comprised in writing performing the solo and thus giving you the key.

[joelc1319]

Originally Posted by hunta

It's extremely difficult/impossible to learn this skill. Relative pitch is learnable, perfect pitch is not (supposedly). Most people can learn to hear if it's a major or minor key, but beyond that good luck. Once you know the key, you can develop the skill to figure out the relative chord changes with some ear training work.

+1 to all of that. Ear training is very useful for determining intervals and the like, and comes in handy in a lot of situations.

As far as perfect pitch is concerned, from what I understand it's more of a curse than a blessing, and relative pitch is much more useful. I would *assume* this would be because the ear of someone with relative pitch will adjust after hearing the first key a song is in, and be able to determine the intervals as such. With perfect pitch, if a song is not in the *perfect* key (meaning, correct tuning), the person will be bothered by this and may be "out of tune" with the song even though the song is actually out of tune and the person is correct.

Not sure though! I personally have relative pitch that I'd like to say is pretty decent; what I do is remember they key a certain song that I know really well is in, and then determine other intervals and keys that way. I seem to be consistently flat though...I guess it's better than being all over the place.

[Sahm]

Here are some links to sites with free ear trainers:
http://www.emusictheory.com/practice.html

http://www.musictheory.net

The first one has more drills, the second site has a nice downloadable flash program you can put on any computer.

Aural training is like anything else, you have to work at it night and day. You don't need perfect pitch, just a good sense of chord progressions and intervallic relations, which is possible to learn.

[CapnSev]

You can figure it out by playing along, and looking at where your fingers land. Usually it's within the relm of some scale where the key can be figured out. You should be able to determine what sharps/flats are in the song form there, then the key.

Some other easy ways (generally speaking, not 100% accurate):

The first and last note of the song is usually a dead giveaway.

If it's uber happy - Major

Kind of sad sounding - Minor

Blues changes, or classic rock style - Minor Pentatonic

[BryanM]

One thing I learned in a solfege class that I took, but may not work for everybody, is to keep a reference note stored in your head. Mine's an A440, which is pretty common, and the dialtone on US phones. From there I can usually figure out in my head what scale it is relative to that within about 2-4 bars. I occasionally miss, but if you're playing a jam, you'll usually be forgiven a few screw-ups here and there, and if you're playing with a regular band you should have an idea of the keys during rehearsal.

[hunta]

Originally Posted by BryanM

One thing I learned in a solfege class that I took, but may not work for everybody, is to keep a reference note stored in your head. Mine's an A440, which is pretty common, and the dialtone on US phones. From there I can usually figure out in my head what scale it is relative to that within about 2-4 bars. I occasionally miss, but if you're playing a jam, you'll usually be forgiven a few screw-ups here and there, and if you're playing with a regular band you should have an idea of the keys during rehearsal.

Yea, this is similar to what I was talking about with the horn players. They have Bb freakin hard coded into their brain. So they relate everything to their Bb and kind of "cheat". It's not real perfect pitch but it does the job.

[MaxZolt]

I don't have perfect pitch, but I have a good alternative. When your band is playing a new song and you want to find the key, squint your eyes, put a really pensive look on your face, and peek at the rhythm guitarist's fretting hand.

[Infernal Affair]

Originally Posted by hunta

Yea, this is similar to what I was talking about with the horn players. They have Bb freakin hard coded into their brain. So they relate everything to their Bb and kind of "cheat". It's not real perfect pitch but it does the job.

That seems interesting. I wonder if I could do that with open strings considering I tune regularly. I definitely know the relative pitches to each of the strings since I always play GDAE in succession right after a tuning.

[LavendarSunrise]

Originally Posted by hunta

Yea, this is similar to what I was talking about with the horn players. They have Bb freakin hard coded into their brain. So they relate everything to their Bb and kind of "cheat". It's not real perfect pitch but it does the job.

Yeah, same goes for me. I also play a bit of blues guitar and tune to open G... so G is pretty much drilled into my head and I use that as a reference. Anyway, I would definitely recommend learning some basic guitar or piano. That way, you will begin to recognize how various chords sound and how they are played together. That way, you will be able to regognize what chords your guitarist/keyboardist is playing, and, after a few changes, you will (after some practice), be able to infer the key.

[inasilentway]

There are a few things you can do to figure out the key in rock and roll. I usually try to listen for chords that I know the sound of (open guitar chords like C, G, D, A, and E) and then listen for functions (usually I or V). Listening for half-steps helps too, it's a dead giveaway for major, minor, or mode.

I took four semesters of ear training classes to get to the point where I am now, which is still a long ways off from being able to transcribe songs without an instrument in my hands. I practice by listening to a song and then immediately trying to play along to it and see if I was right. Practicing constantly using real music is the only was you will get there.

Jazz is a whole 'nother story! It will be a while before I can hear jazz changes as well as I do rock changes.

[ksandvik]

This is kind of a statistical trick that I've been thinking about recently, I suspect this is how I operate when winging known or unknown tracks during jam and open mic sessions.

A lot of rock songs are usually set in very few keys, E, A, D and G are statistically the most frequent keys, maybe followed by C and F. So if you start playing, a good chance to get something happening is to hit a D key and you could quickly compensate back and forth to get into the right key. Also, if you look at the guitar player and see what basic chords he or she starts with, it's not so hard to see that it's an E major/minor, a G major and so on.

Perfect pitch is tough, but I think with statistical means as well as with a visual connection you could figure things out fast. Provided the other instruments are in tune, of course. --Kent

[Dave Martin]

is the original pster asking about learning to recognize the key of a song based on the chords in it, or is he asking about how to recognize the chords in a song based on the relationships between those chords, or is he asking if it's possible to learn perfect pitch? Those are very different; the first two are pretty easy, and I'm not sure the third one CAN be learned.

If it helps, I tend to write charts for songs based on the Number system (originated by studio singers an musicians here in Nashville; the book sold at http://www.nashvillenumbersystem.com/ can help anyone to learn it), and I seldom use an instrument when writing charts. I don't have perfect pitch so have to use one to write down what key the song is in, but I don't need it to actually WRITE a chart that the studio musicians can use to play the song.

[ksandvik]

Oh, I see, there's another section in the question related to hearing chord changes and how to follow. For me, the best is just to learn chord progressions, either using a guitar, or keyboards, or both. After a while, a lot of contemporary music has a certain set of chord progressions that will happen -- Frank Zappa (bless) being an exception. Based on that pattern knowledge you could learn to play nearly anything and it sounds decent. --Kent

[dannybuoy]

Originally Posted by BryanM

One thing I learned in a solfege class that I took, but may not work for everybody, is to keep a reference note stored in your head. Mine's an A440, which is pretty common, and the dialtone on US phones. From there I can usually figure out in my head what scale it is relative to that within about 2-4 bars. I occasionally miss, but if you're playing a jam, you'll usually be forgiven a few screw-ups here and there, and if you're playing with a regular band you should have an idea of the keys during rehearsal.

Yeah, I always used to tune my guitar by plucking the top E string until it sounded like the first not of Jingle Bells!

[hunta]

Originally Posted by Infernal Affair

That seems interesting. I wonder if I could do that with open strings considering I tune regularly. I definitely know the relative pitches to each of the strings since I always play GDAE in succession right after a tuning.

The thing with remembering a Bb on a trumpet vs. an open string on a bass, is that all you do to make that open note is pluck. Horn players train their embouchure to constantly fine tune every single note they play. I don't think simply tuning an open string repeatedly would be enough. You might think you know an open G, but I bet you could be fooled very easily by knocking it off a few cents. These dudes you could say, hey sing a Bb, and they'd be dead on a very high percentage of the time.