The theory norms make it easier to talk about Music when we translate it to English or our native spoken language.
The Music came first, the analysis and theory came after. All are valid and none should be confusing to you.
The other beautiful thing about Music Theory is that you can think about it in anyway that you wish and works for you to create and communicate what’s inside you. ‘All Blues’ is written in C Major, but follows a D dorian tonality and scale. The “key” of D dorian can not exist without the key and key signature of C Major. If you base your melody and chord progressions on the C Major scale, but consider D as the home tone, you are said to playing in the dorian mode. They also have the key signature of the relative Major, in this case C Major. The natural minor scale has alterations to make it what WE CALL harmonic minor and melodic minor. the key signature for C Major is the key signature for A minor. That said, because of the concept of enharmonics, the theory states that there are 15 Key signatures.Īlong the way, some committee decided that every Major Key has 1 relative “minor” key, i.e. This is the wonderful thing about Music Theory…it’s a THEORY and your thoughts are totally valid if it allows you to effectively communicate in the language. Those keys are all written the same way and the Major and Minor “keys” are just “Tonalities” like every other mode. If we’re not going to leave it up to the player to figure out that a song is in Phrygian then we have to tell them somehow so saying I’m in E phrygian shouldn’t be anymore confusing as saying I’m in C major or A minor. Otherwise, how do you write the key signature at the beginning of a piece of music in the Am key? How do we know the music is not C major? Or F Lydian? It’s all of them. The mode name tells you how you’re using the notes in the room that the key unlocks.
#Music keys in order how to#
It’s actually less confusing to use the modes as keys because you know where to start and how to approach. You automatically know that the tonal center will be a D. But saying you’re in the key of D Dorian tells you HOW you’re USING the notes in that room. That key opens the same room as the C major key and the A minor key. So there’s nothing wrong or confusing about saying I’m in the key of D Dorian. Looked at it this way, a key is just the notes in the music unless otherwise stated and all of the modes you can make out of that group as well. Modes tell you how you’re using those notes. Just looking at a key signature tells you what notes are in the room. A device to open a room with specific notes inside. The way I look at it, none of the modes, and yes the major scale is just a mode…mode 1, are any more valid to use as a key as any other. We just decided as a western culture that mode 1, the major scale is the one we’d compare everything else to because you have to start somewhere. If one mode can be a key then they all can. Mode 6 if we’re counting the major scale as mode 1. If the relative minor can be a key then so can any of the other modes because that’s all the relative minor is. So calling one of the other modes, like Locrian or Lydian a KEY should not be considered confusing them. Well when you said each major key has a relative minor key, that relative minor “Key” is no different than any of the other modes. Music is a Language, therefore the same Rules apply. Although they sound alike, the words “their” and “there” have different meanings. Literacy demands that we spell words correctly for their intended meaning. This shows an example of “ Enharmonics“ one pitch with two names. Even though an A# and Bb have the same PITCH, they are NOT the same note in terms of a scale or chord. The iii chord in the Key of A Major is C# minor… not Db minor, even though those two chords sound alike.Ī C7 chord is spelled C-E-G-Bb NOT C-E-G-A#. Understand that Letter names of pitches must be listed in order in a scale and that all 7 must be used only once. Think of them as Tonalities instead of Keys. They are scales that are all based on the Major Scale. There are 7 Sharps: F#, C#, G#, D#, A#, E#, and B# which give us the Major Keys of: G, D, A, E, B, F#, and C#.Įach Major Key (the Ionian Mode) has a relative minor (the Aeolian Mode), so we need to double the Total, giving us 30 Keys.īe careful not to confuse the other modes, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian and Locrian, with Keys. There are 7 Flats: Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, Cb, Fb creating the Major Keys of F, Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb and Cb. As long as you know the order of Flats and the order of Sharps, it’s very easy to understand.Ĭonsider that there is ONE key with NO Sharps nor Flats: The Key of C It’s really quite logical and uses a bit of Music Theory knowledge. A quick Google search yields a wrong answer. For some reason, this is a question that many Musicians and Music Educators answer incorrectly.
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