[GraceAlone]

Hey everyone, I was wondering what is the best way to determine what key a song is in ? I have a tab sheet for the song "Praise Adonai" and the intro is this: Em, C, G, D, B7. Please reply . Thanks and God bless.

[Giga Hertz]

That's potentially E Min/G Maj (someone will have to correct me on this).

[Rainer.]

That's E minor, but not G major.

[jthomas1600]

Originally Posted by Rainer.

That's E minor, but not G major.

This thread is a few months old, but I was wondering if you could explain how you knew that?

[Rainer.]

A dominant 7th chord (X7, structure: root, major third, fifth, minor seventh) generally only appears in the the key that it is the V chord of (in other words, the root of the tonic of the key, and the root of the V chord must be a perfect fifth apart). The V chord is also known as the Dominant chord.

In this case, B7 only exists a key where E is the tonic; E major and E minor (B is a perfect fifth above E). B7 does not exist in the key of G major, in the key of G major, the only chord with B as the root is B minor.

In E minor, B7 is the dominant 7th, and the structure works in terms of a harmonic minor or melodic minor key (more likely melodic minor due to the incidence of D in the chord progression).

[jthomas1600]

Muito obrigado...that's Portuguese for thank you very much.

[1/2-Fast Player]

Rainer:
> B7 does not exist in the key of G major

In Em, shouldn't the V chord be Bm, or Bm7 in this case? Em, being the relative minor for G major, is spelled exactly the same, so if "B7 doesn't exist in the key of G major" then it doesn't exist in Em, either.

The song is in Em, as you say. The song's chord progession uses major chords to create tension, and resolves to Em.

[Rainer.]

Originally Posted by 1/2-Fast Player

In Em, shouldn't the V chord be Bm, or Bm7 in this case? Em, being the relative minor for G major, is spelled exactly the same, so if "B7 doesn't exist in the key of G major" then it doesn't exist in Em, either.

When referring to minor keys, you always have to keep in mind the harmonic minor and melodic minor in addition to the natural minor (harmonic and melodic minor were arguably much more common forms of the minor scale in the classical era).

E natural minor is spelled exactly the same as G major, as you say, but the chord progression in question in the original post is in melodic minor. E melodic minor includes B7, as does E harmonic minor.

[1/2-Fast Player]

Ah! Thanks! So the real answer to the original question should've been, "The song is in E melodic minor."

Interestingly, the melodic minor is spelled the same as the natural minor when descending. So when the melody is ascending (intervals would be w h w w w w h) one would harmonize with B7, but when descending use Bm7, correct? IOW, the scale would contain a D# ascending but D descending.

Or am I terribly confused?

[RockManDan]

dont worry too much about that descending/ascending business. in my experience its just an unneccesary confusion for most people. When im writing/arranging or in general theory mode in my head, i dont ever think about ascending or descending. Basically just remember that for 95% of songs the chords will work out to being in one key, or its relative major or minor. In the case of your example, to me that song feels more at home in Eminor that Gmajor, but since they share the same scale its really a question of preference. What tips the balance is teh presence of that B7 chord, which contains a D#, a note that you wouldnt normally find in Gmajor, and it is the leading tone in an Eminor harmonic scale, which is just a fancy music theory way of saying that the song 'wants' to be in Eminor.

However, there are plenty of songs that contain that kind of relationships that are for all purposes still technically in a major key. So if you have a song that goes G C D for most of its time, then during the bridge theres like an Em B7 progression, that one little area of the song isnt enough to change the whole character of the song from Gmajor to Eminor just because of the existence of one D# note. In this case its what we in my music theory classes used to call 'islands' of a different key or tonal center. Its a small isolated area of time in which the tonic center sounds more like Eminor, when the rest of the song sounds more like Gmajor. A more technical term is calling it a 'secondary dominant'. what that means is that just like a D chord is considered the dominant chord of the key of Gmajor, a B7 is considered the dominant chord of the key of Eminor. So if your song is mostly Gmajor chords, but then has that small section with the B7, what you're doing is invoking the dominant chord of a different chord in the key than the usual G. Thus it isnt a normal dominant, but a 'secondary dominant'. Since Eminor and Gmajor are largely the same, switching between these two types of tonicizations is fairly easy.

what all this means is that if you run into a chord in a progression that just sticks out and doesnt seem to fit, chances are that it is some kind of secondary dominant or transitionary chord, and thus you'll probably be ok if you just ignore it for the purposes of saying 'this song is in X key or Y key'. Music theory rules only exist to show people how stuff USUALLY works together. Its ok to break them if it fits the music. They're just tools. telling someone to use the same type of screwdriver is terribly boring. -Dan

[Nate]

Originally Posted by RockManDan

They're just tools. telling someone to use the same type of screwdriver is terribly boring. -Dan

It's also the only way to get the damn screw in or out. -Nate

[gtrdave]

Originally Posted by Rainer.

When referring to minor keys, you always have to keep in mind the harmonic minor and melodic minor in addition to the natural minor (harmonic and melodic minor were arguably much more common forms of the minor scale in the classical era).

E natural minor is spelled exactly the same as G major, as you say, but the chord progression in question in the original post is in melodic minor. E melodic minor includes B7, as does E harmonic minor.

Hmmm, that's interesting.
I've not known a song to be in a harmonic nor melodic minor "key". Only natural major or minor.
In this instance, the presence of a D# in the harmonic and melodic minor scales sort of discounts either one, since the progression contains a D. Also, the progression contains an F chord (played at the tail of each chorus) which is also not contained in any of the minor scales (nat., harm, or mel.).
This leads me to believe that a little key-center alteration is going on for both the dom7 chord and the min2 chord in the progression.
For the entire song the key is either Em or G. Playing melodies from those scales over every chord (except the B7 and F) works just fine.

For the B7 you can play E melodic minor or sharp the 4th note of the scale and play E major. If I were locked to the E melodic minor chord, I'd probably add a #5 to the B7 chord (B aug), but that's me. Also, invert the chord to a B7/D# or Baug/D# and you've got that leading tone 7th of E minor pulling you back home.

For the F chord, I like F lydian (C major) since the scale contains both the 5 and the root of the Emin chord that the F resolves to.

So, I'm hesitant to say that the song is in E melodic minor for those reasons. It's in E natural minor until those two chords are encountered.

[Rainer.]

^ I was not even aware that there was an F at all, I don't really know the song. Obviously, knowing the entire context of the song would be helpful in any situation.

Dan: There is plenty of music out there based solely in harmonic/melodic minor, I don't think that it's quite fair to relate all E minor keys to G major, since it might not be an apt describer.

Though as with all things, there are counter-examples for every example, so the overriding answer will be "it depends".

[gtrdave]

Originally Posted by Rainer.

^ I was not even aware that there was an F at all, I don't really know the song. Obviously, knowing the entire context of the song would be helpful in any situation.

Here's Paul Baloche performing it in it's original key of Am:
YouTube - Praise Adonai - Paul Baloche

[Skifree0813]

I'm pretty sure there is no such thing as "the key of (n) melodic minor." You can have something based on the melodic minor scale, but because the scale is different whether ascending or descending, it can't be a "key." Cursed technicalities.