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In this bass lesson, you’re going to learn how to figure out what key a song is in using
nothing but a chord chart and some really basic knowledge of chords and scales.
Hi, I’m Luke from Become A Bassist and when you know the method I’m about to show you,
you can quickly look at the chords that get put in front of you and quickly get beyond
playing just the roots of the chords and really expand your creativity.
[Video Intro]
Tell me if this has ever happened to you.
You go to play some song from a chord chart that you found on the internet, or maybe someone
has given it to you or put it in front of you at a jam session or a church service,
but all it really gives you in terms of what you can do is the roots.
This is fine if you just want to hold it down and nothing else, but if you want to give
your bass lines a bit more flavor or even want to throw in a fill or two, knowing the
key of the song is going to basically tell you which notes are going to work and which
ones to avoid.
By the way, this is the 3rd of 3 videos all about different methods to figure out the
key of a song.
So far, we’ve been mixing the art and science of doing this, but this method is definitely
more scientific and more analytical, so if you’re the person that loves that kind of
stuff, you’ll probably love this method.
So how can you figure out the key from just the chords?
It’s simple!
All we’re going to do is figure out the notes that are in each chord, then put them
in an order that creates either a major scale or a minor scale.
I want to show you an example, then we’ll get into the nitty gritty of how it all works
and how to do it for yourself.
Let’s say we had this chord progression.
D, G, Bm and A. Simple - just 4 chords, right.
If we look at the notes of the individual chords, we’d have D, F# and A for the D
chord, G, B and D for the G chord, B, E and F# for the Bm chord and A, C# and E for the
A chord.
If we take all the doubles out, we’re left with just 7 notes.
Funnily enough, there are 7 notes in every key -whether it’s major or minor, and when
you put all the notes here in ascending order starting on D, you get this.
[plays D major scale] It’s a D major scale!
That means that this song is most likely in the key of D major.
How cool is this!?
You’ve just looked at a 4 chords and now you know the key.
If you know your D major scale or your D major pentatonic, you won’t be just locked into
those roots now.
You can use your knowledge to play around with other options.
You can do little walk-ups to each of the roots like this.
[plays bass line with walk-ups] You could make the bass line busier and more interesting.
[plays busy bass line] You could keep it simple, but throw in a fill every now and then.
[plays bass line with fill].
Everything is just from the major scale and all these option came from just figuring out
the key the song is in.
Now if you already know what notes are in which chords, you could probably stop watching
now and go and do this for yourself.
But if you don’t know, how can you figure out the key?
Easy.
Step one is learn to figure out the notes in all the chords and step two is putting
the notes in order.
So let’s start with step one - figuring out the notes in every chord.
To keep things simple, we’re just going to look at major chords and minor chords - they’re
the most common and they’ll give you the most *** for your buck.
Every major and minor chord is made up of 3 notes.
A root - the name of the chord - a 3rd and a 5th.
These are really easy to find and figure out and that’s exactly what we need to do.
The fifth of both major chords and minor chords are really easy to find and there are 2 ways
to do it.
If you start on any note, the 5th of that note will be on the next higher sounding string
- so the string going that way across your bass - and 2 frets up.
So if I’m on this note here, a Bb and I want to find the 5th, all I need to do is
go to my next higher-sounding string - so in this case, go from my E-string to the A-string
- and then 2 frets up.
From my 1st fret to the 3rd fret.
This note, this F is the 5th of Bb, and this will work for either a Bb major chord or a
Bb minor chord.
They both have the same 5th.
In fact, the majority of chords that you see will have a 5th like this, although there
are always exceptions.
If you know your fretboard reasonably well, you’ll have no problem figuring out the
notes pretty quickly, and if you need a bit of help, check out my Ultimate Guide To Learning
Your Bass Fretboard.
There’s also another way to find the 5th of any chord and that’s to stay on the same
fret, but go to the next lower-sounding string.
So going this direction on your bass.
So if I’m on this same Bb here and want to find the 5th that’s below, just go to
the next lower-sounding string and stay on the same fret.
It’ll give you the same note - that F - it’s just an octave below.
Couldn’t be simpler!
So that’s our 5th taken care of.
Now we just have to figure out how to find our 3rds.
Now our 3rds aren’t like our 5ths.
Minor chords and major chords have different kinds of 3rds - minor 3rds and major thirds,
but they’re very simple to find.
Let’s start with our minor 3rds first.
The first option fo find them is to just go up 3 frets from wherever you are.
So if I’m on this Bb here and want to find the minor third, I just go up 1-2-3 frets.
In this case, it’s a Db.
You can also use another formula that will get you the same result, but it involves changing
strings.
If I’m starting on the Bb on my E-string this time, I can find my minor 3rd by going
to my next higher-sounding string and down 2 frets.
So I move to my A-string, then down 1-2 frets and that’s the same Db we got as before!
Again - simple.
Whichever formula works for you - go for it.
Major 3rds are simple to find too.
Again, there are a few different ways to find them, but one of the easiest is to simply
go up 4 frets from wherever you are.
So if I’m on this D right here and I go up 1-2-3-4 frets, we get an F# which is our
major 3rd of D. You can get the same result by going over to your next higher-sounding
string and going down one fret.
So if I’m on this D on my A-string and I go to my next higher-sounding string - my
D-string - and just move down 1 fret from where I am, that’ll give me the major 3rd
- the F#.
Same exact result as before, but this time with a slightly different method.
Alright!
Now you know how to find the notes in basic chords, you’re pretty much ready to get
started.
Imagine you came across this chord progression.
Am to G to Dm - this is a real progression by the way - the kind that gets used in real-world
songs like I Need A Dollar or John Mayers I Don’t Trust Myself With Loving You.
Let’s figure out all the notes though.
In A minor, obviously we have an A. We’ll find the minor 3rd because it’s a minor
chord so that means going up 3 frets.
1-2-3.
That’s a C, and if we want to find the 5th, we start on the A, go to the higher-sounding
string and up 2 frets, 1-2 and we have an E. So the notes in the A minor are A, C and
E.
In our G chord, obviously we’ll have a G, our 3rd will be a major 3rd so up 4 frets
from this G is 1-2-3-4 - that’s a B. Perfect.
And finally our 5th will be on the next string, and up 1-2 frets - that’s a D. Nothing to
it.
G is made up of the notes G, B and D. Finally, with our D minor will have a D, and the minor
third will be up 3 frets - in this case, an F. And then to find our 5th, we can just go
to our lower-sounding string, which means it’ll be an A.
So these are all of our notes.
If we put them in the order we found them, we’d get this.
If we got rid of the doubled notes we’d get this.
And finally, if we put them in an order, we should be able to figure out the key.
Our first chord was an Am, so if we started on an A we’d end up with this.
[plays A minor scale] This is our regular old A minor scale - so we’re in A minor.
How useful is this!
Again, you’re not stuck with just playing roots any more.
Before you might have had to stick to this [plays dull bass line] But now you can add
in other sounds - other colors.
[plays slightly more interesting bass line] Pretty sweet, right?
Now how do you know where to start organizing the notes once you’ve got them all together?
One trick that sometimes works is looking at the chords at the start and ends of phrases
or even the entire songs.
A lot of the time, especially with simpler songs, the first and last chords will be the
same as the key.
For example, if you see a song that starts with a G major chord and ends with a G major
chord, chances are that that song is in the key of G major, meaning you can use the notes
of the G major scale or the G major pentatonic scale to get beyond just the roots.
This isn’t always the case though.
Some songs don’t start or end with the home chord and there are even songs that never
actually play the root chord, which can get confusing.
Let’s do one more that’s not so straightforward.
If we have this progression: E, D#m, B, C#m.
If we blaze through the notes we end up these notes in the chords and when we put them in
order starting on the E we get this.
Now if we play this, it’s kind of like a major scale, but not quite.
There’s one note different.
Check it out.
[plays scale] This note here - the A# - doesn’t fit into the key of E, so we’re probably
not in that key.
Let’s move on to the next chord, the D#m.
If we arrange all the notes starting on D# we’ll get this.
This isn’t a regular old major scale or a minor scale, so we’re probably not in
D#m, but what about B.
If we arrange all the notes starting on B, we’ll get this.
Now this IS a B major scale so we’re actually in the key of B - even though the chord progression
didn’t start on a B or end on a B.
Now if you think you’ve figured out the key to a song, but you’re not sure, there’s
actually a way to ‘test’ whether or not you’ve got it right.
Most people when they’re trying to figure out the key to a song make 2 critical errors,
but there’s a process you can go through that eliminates these mistakes automatically
and I’ve created a special bonus video for you that teaches you exactly how to do it.
When you know the process you can be absolutely certain that the key you’ve figured out
is the right one.
To get the bonus video, just click the link in the description and fill out the form on
that page and I’ll send it straight to your email address.
By the way, it’s 100% free - just an awesome little gift from me to you.
Also, if you’re struggling with the keys, there’s a special bonus PDF I’ve included
that shows you all the notes in every key.
If you’re struggling with putting the notes in the right order, that PDF will be a huge
help to you.
To recap though, you learned how to use the chord dissection method to figure out the
key to a song.
You learned that the first step was to figure out the notes in every chord and then you
put them in the right order and you learned exactly how to do this.
Thanks so much for watching - I really appreciate it.
I’m Luke from Become A Bassist and I’ll catch you soon.