Figuring Out the Key: A How To for All Musicians
When I lead workshops and jams at fiddle camps, one of the most commonly asked questions is some variant of, “How do I know what key I’m in?”
This question often happens when someone has learned a fiddle tune melody and might be trying to figure out the chords, or just tell their guitar playing friend what the key is so the friend can have a go at it. Or when they’re sitting around a jam/song circle and someone kicks off a tune without announcing the key. Or your new favorite tune comes on your playlist and you just need to play along. This post will give you solid suggestions on how to practice figuring out THE KEY.
To begin, you’ll need to be aware of the three fundamental chords upon which westernized music is built: the one, the four, and the five. These chords are built on the first note of the scale, the fourth note of the scale, and the fifth note of the scale and each have a function or purpose. (Side note: there are other chords and they spice things up but start with these three).
The one chord’s job is to let everyone know what key you're in. It’s the HOME chord. You feel good and solid and centered when you’re on the one. We often (but not always) begin on the one chord, but we almost always (let’s say 92% of the time*) end with it. It’s a pretty important chord, and so chances are high that you’ll hear it a bunch.
The next most useful chord is the five since it can be used in two different ways. Most of the time it’s the penultimate chord of the tune, signaling that we’re about to land on the one chord. This movement (or cadence) of five to one wraps the tune all up in a bow and delivers it on your doorstep. You can literally hear ‘we’re DONE!’ in a ‘five-one’ ending. A lot of times the five chord can also be used to signal the halfway point of the tune, a question? of sorts.
The four chord is the vacation chord. When you need to jump ship and leave the one chord, you travel to the four. The four chord is my favorite chord. It’s lovely and you can move back and forth and beyond with the four.
As you’re listening to the tune in question, focus on the end. Try to hear the ‘five-one/we’re-done’, but if that’s too much, find the last note. Hum or sing it. Find it on your instrument. When you’ve matched the final note, you’ve probably found the key. Test it out by droning that note for the entire length of the tune. It’s not going to sound great for the whole thing- that’s the point: it’s why we have other chords! - but you’ll hear that it does sound good lots of the time, and most importantly at the end. The rub or friction of the one chord in an ‘incorrect’ place can start to tell you where you’ll add other chords.
Once you’ve determined what note is ‘the one’ you’ll want to test yourself by adding in the five chord as the next to the last chord. Not sure how to determine what note the five chord is built upon? Use my Major Scale Workbook to help you!
Trust your gut. Don’t be worried about how to find where the five - one chord progression is in the melody. You’ve listened to music with this cadence for your whole entire life. It’s a total cliche and if you close your eyes and move your body to the music, chances are very high that you’ll know where the five-one happens. Then play the five-one where your instinct and ears tell you. If you’re matching the notes, you’ve found the key!
The next steps are plugging in the other chords where the one chord rubs you the wrong way, remembering the function/purpose of the chord. If you’d like more help with hearing chord progressions, I’ve got an entire curriculum built to teach you exactly that.
Another nifty way to tell what key you’re in is by using the guitar player’s hands. Each of their chords has a ‘shape’ to it and if you take a peek at what they’re playing (be mindful of the capo!), they can be very helpful. Click here for a whole other blog post on this hack.
Keep in mind that:
Most tunes are always played in the same key. So pretty much 99.9%* of all fiddlers play Saint Anne’s Reel in the key of D. And they play Cripple Creek in A. Or Big Sciota in G. So once you’ve learned the tune in that key, chances are high that you’ll continue to play it in that key. If the tune is NOT in its original key, it’s probably because the musicians are flexing their theory/fingerboard chops OR they are changing it up for excitement and/or arrangement possibilities.
What do I mean? Here’s an example:
Dolly Parton’s band playing the tune Billy in the Lowground within her song He’s Gonna Marry Me. The fiddle tune is originally in C but Dolly’s song is in D, so the musicians bumped up the tune for a very lovely medley.
Other times instrumentation determines the key since some keys are friendlier on certain instruments. Commonly known examples would be Dave Richardson’s Calliope House- originally written in E, but often played in D for pipers and whistle players. Or Roger Tallroth’s (Vasen) Josefin’s Dopvals, originally in F, gets moved to the key of G (a friendlier key for fiddlers). And Miss McLeod’s Reel is played in A, C, D, and G depending on who calls the tune - a banjo player, a guitarist, or a fiddler!
If you’re in the bluegrass or songwriter circles, the singer’s voice and their range always determines the key. And as our voices mature, sometimes we change the key. Here’s an example of John Hartford’s Gentle On My Mind in Eb, and Molly Tuttle covering it in A. Later on in his life, John performed it in A as well. So if you’re in this kind of scene, you’re going to want to learn to transpose. (That’s moving the song’s chord progression to a different key).
So now for your assignment:
Grab your instrument and drone the one chord (aka the key) along with all of the above videos so you can start to hear the tonal center. For ‘fun’, drone a different, non-one chord note on a second pass. You’ll hear how different it sounds and feels. Go back to droning the one. See if you can add the five as the penultimate chord.
Put on a track that you don’t know and find the key.
Start cataloging your repertoire by key. Make a list of the tunes you know in A, in D, in G, etc. Then play a bunch of tunes that are in the same key. You’ll start to feel similarities in your hands and you’ll begin to hear how they are all in the same key. When you get sick of that sound, move to another key and notice those similarities. Each key has a ‘personality’ or mood, and is easier or more challenging on each instrument.
You’ve got this. Once you unlock this little nugget, a whole world of possibilities will open for you.
Be well and keep in touch,
Lauren
*Percentages have not been scientifically proven but are pretty darn close ;)
p.s if you’re ready for more chord work I highly suggest taking a look at a post I wrote about How To Decode a Guitarist’s Hands
