Your Approach to finding the Key of a Piece when you know the chords.

[Duce-hands]

Greetings All,

So I'm having some issues in my bass studies. (Not formally trained, self learning) I find it a bit difficult to find what key a particular song/piece is in even if I know the chords of a song/piece. It feels very limiting especially if I am looking to solo over the piece. For example a piece in 3/4 with the progression G Maj/Eb Maj/ F Maj/ G Maj /C min/ F Maj/ Bb Maj/ Amin/ D Maj/ G Maj. But my question is what is your process to determine the key. I generally look at the chord and look to see if it fits into a known progression and if not pick a scale and see if those chords fit into that scale. The problem I run into is when there is a key change or if there are multipe scales that can be played over that chord. I'm a bit lost.

Any help in determining a better process is greatly appreciated

P.S. Another example is Nina Simone's Sinnnerman. I know the chords Bmin/ A Maj/ Emin but when follow my own guideline of find the key I come up with multiple answers of which I don't know if any of them are correct.

thanks in advance

[elgecko]

If you already know the chords, knowing the key doesn't really add much more info to go on.

[Stick_Player]

Originally Posted by elgecko

If you already know the chords, knowing the key doesn't really add much more info to go on.

This is true.

OP, from the chord progression you gave, it looks like the key has moved around.

One quick way to find a key center, is to look for ii-V progressions.

From your example: G Maj/Eb Maj/ F Maj/ G Maj /C min/ F Maj/ Bb Maj/ Amin/ D Maj/ G Maj

I see a ii-V, in Bb Major. Followed by, a ii-V, in G Major.

The first four chords (G Maj/Eb Maj/ F Maj/ G Maj) -- looks like it starts in G Major. The "Eb Maj/ F Maj" could be borrowed from G Minor. then back to G Maor.

Happy hunting!

[hdiddy]

Makes me think that Gmaj/Ebmaj/Fmaj/Gmaj doesn't look right. You could replace Ebmaj with Cmin (relative minor) and you get the same sort of progression starting at Bar 5.

Also, that whole progression is 10 bars long (a kind of odd number of bars), is there something else missing? What tune is this?

[Ed Fuqua]

Like Stick alludes, you have to be aware of secondary dominance, chords pointing at the "key of the moment".
But then, you ask, why do we say that tune like HAVE YOU MET MISS JONES is in the "key of F"? Look at the melody, rather than the harmony. For most of the standard repertoire, the melody will roughly be diatonic to a specific key (with more of an actual, rather than implied, modulation at the bridge).
Additionally, the harmony can be pretty malleable under that diatonic melody. Trying to establish key solely from harmonic information can lead you into some wrong conclusions.

[Stick_Player]

Originally Posted by Ed Fuqua

Like Stick alludes, you have to be aware of secondary dominance, chords pointing at the "key of the moment".
But then, you ask, why do we say that tune like HAVE YOU MET MISS JONES is in the "key of F"? Look at the melody, rather than the harmony. For most of the standard repertoire, the melody will roughly be diatonic to a specific key (with more of an actual, rather than implied, modulation at the bridge).
Additionally, the harmony can be pretty malleable under that diatonic melody. Trying to establish key solely from harmonic information can lead you into some wrong conclusions.

This is very true and insightful of Ed's observation about a tune's melody. He then alludes to the many possibilities for 'substitutions' that can often get you into a harmonic analysis nightmare.

[Duce-hands]

Originally Posted by Ed Fuqua

Like Stick alludes, you have to be aware of secondary dominance, chords pointing at the "key of the moment".
But then, you ask, why do we say that tune like HAVE YOU MET MISS JONES is in the "key of F"? Look at the melody, rather than the harmony. For most of the standard repertoire, the melody will roughly be diatonic to a specific key (with more of an actual, rather than implied, modulation at the bridge).
Additionally, the harmony can be pretty malleable under that diatonic melody. Trying to establish key solely from harmonic information can lead you into some wrong conclusions.

Wow, you've given me some things to research such as secondary dominance, melody vs harmony. Thanks for the information.

[Araman]

maybe you can read this

http://www.ibass-school.com/major_scale

this will enlighten you about key , how to find it and why