What key is my song in?

Question

Hey,

I wrote something on guitar, and I'm having trouble finding the exact key, like minor, major, blah blah blah.

The chords are E, C#, B, and A, so far.

What key would this song be in. I'm trying to write a solo based on a pentatonic scale, and knowing the key is essential for doing so.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Guitar is right, it seems better suited for the key of E major. E and B are both included in the key of E major with A acting as a suspension to what we call the third of the chord "G#". So you have: E G# B = E major

                       E A B= E major with a suspended 4th

The major pentatonic scale would be E, F#, G#, B C#

I would play that and see if it fits well with what you are trying to create.

Keep in mind we would need more than just this one chord to determine the key. We'd have to look at the context and the surrounding notes to get a good idea of the key.

There is a major as well as a minor pentatonic scale, and if you wanted to, you could interpret those notes as a C#  minor 7th chord (c#, e, g#, b with the "a" acting as a suspension).

Hope that helped. Good luck on your composition.

Answer 2

You need to decide what key you want the song to be in.  before you write it.  You can't write a song in the key of C then put sharps and flats in it, at least not at your level

Answer 3

Which are major and which are minor? If that C# was a minor, and if that is the exact chord progression you're playing, then it's E major.

If you really want to know, finding the key has to do with counting sharps and flats. No sharps or flats is C major or A minor, for instance.

Learning the circle of fifths really helps with this, because the number of sharps or flats follows the circle of fifths. Counting them out gives you the key right away.

Sharps are counted F C G D A E B etc.

Flats are counted B E A D G C F, etc.

So if you realize you have a few notes, and one of them is a D#, you need to look at the progression and see which way it could go - because that D# could also be an Eb. If you had an F#, C#, and G# also, then you know it's a D# and that the key is E major or C# minor.

How did I get that? Start with C. Go fifth-wise (ie, progression of sharps) one note for every sharp, or fourth-wise (ie, the progression of flats) one note for every flat.

It's pretty easy stuff. Oh yeah, and the minor would be the relative minor, located one and a half steps down from the root note... or you can also find it if you move three notes flat-wise. Three notes fourth-wise from E is C#, for instance, so we have C# minor and E major.

Hope that made sense. If not, it's googling time!

Saul

Answer 4

All the chords, except for C#, support the key of E major.

C#m is the relative minor to E major, so that could still fit. To see if the signature is correct, end your piece in the chord of E and see how it registers.

Answer 5

The chords don't tell me much about the melody, which is what we'd need to know to tell which key it's in.   It should be fairly obvious once you've got the notes to the melody written down.