Changing keys

[Plaxy]

Please bear with me here as I am a newbie at this!

How do I change keys, say I know a song and then the singer says, lets do it in A etc.What do I do?:help!!

[jadesmar]

If it's an AC/DC song, play 8th notes on the 5th fret of the E-string.

Otherwise, it'll probably have a progression on some sort.
1. Figure out which key the song is in.
2. Identify the chord progression by numbers (eg. I - IV - V)
3. Shift progression to A -> I = A, IV = D, V = E etc.
4. That all assumes A major.

[Freddels]

Originally Posted by Plaxy

Please bear with me here as I am a newbie at this!

How do I change keys, say I know a song and then the singer says, lets do it in A etc.What do I do?:help!!

Since you're a newbie, I can say that you have a lot of work ahead of you. But if you really want to learn it, you can.

First, stop worrying about changing keys at this point. You need to learn the all keys first and the location of the notes on your instrument. We all had to start at the beginning at some point in our lives.

Do a search of TB for theory and key signatures and begin reading those. There have been many books for beginning theory suggested on TB. You may want to pick up one of those to start. You're going to get a lot of different suggestions on how to learn this and that on here but just get one and stick with it or else you can easily be confused with too many "theories" of how to learn this stuff.

It may seem overwhelming at first but everyone learns a little at a time. You can't eat a years worth of food in one day!

[arbarnhart]

For a pretty fair percentage of rock and blues, it isn't all that hard...

You are playing a bass line over a chord. That chord has a root note and that note is often (but not always) the first note of the bass line that starts at each chord change. Think about where the rest of the line is relative to that note instead of its absolute location. That's its "shape". Simple transposition is to move to a different note that has room the for the rest of the line (won't run out of strings) . Sometimes that doesn't work out and you have to change the shape of a line to fit a different location.
You will also find that the chords in the song (and their corresponding root notes) also have a relationship that can sometimes just be moved together and keep the shape of the whole song's bass line intact, just starting on a different fret. But a lot of times you will find that you need to play an octave up or down for one of the root notes.

[steveb98]

You have to know enough about theory to figure out the chord progression in numbers. Like you hear Blues is a I IV V progression. If you know the progression in numbers its is easy to play in any key. Look up the term Nashville charts. They are charts written in all numbers to make easy to transpose.

[arbarnhart]

Yeah, that's the relationship between chords I was referring to. I play with a very experienced guitarist who has been force feeding me that system. We mostly play blues and old rock and for a lot of it we never chart it or have music. He'll just say something like "It's in D, has a fast four, starts on the five but you don't come in until the one". I will take some of those shapes (choice based on the song style) based on the chord and just plug them in based on D.