[cshude]

After chatting with a couple members in the chat room (those of you not jumping in there are missing out on some good discussions!), I decided to put together a little illustration on the benefits of understanding how particular chords make a key.

I would recommend that in addition to this little illustration you check out Fretsource's lesson on the Circle of Fifths (The Circle of Fifths
and
the basic lesson found here: http://www.guitarforbeginners.com/chords.html

Now, with a basic understanding of how a key is defined, let's look at the key of C and the chords from which it is comprised:
C Dmin Emin F G Amin Bdim
When developing a chord progression, one of the basic foundations of music, it is a good idea to know what key you are using as it will help you to find that chord that will fit just right in each place of the song.

The attachment here is a sample of a chord progression using all of the chords in the key of C. First I played through the progression just strumming each chord, then a couple times through with some chord embellishments and little runs to spice things up a bit. How long did it take to come up with that little ditty? About 2 minutes- because I know the key! If you learn the keys, you will be able to come up with interesting progressions in very short order as well.

Here's the progression used in the example:
"verse" : C Bdim Amin F C G C (repeat)
"chorus": Emin Amin Dmin G

As you can see, all of the chords in the key of C were used- this is not to say that your chord progressions need to use all of the chords in a key (there are thousands of songs with just 3 or 4 chords in them). The purpose was to show how they all fit together nicely.

Hope this helped some of you get a little better understanding of what keys are all about as well as their practical purpose!

[eddiez152]

cshude,

thanks for the post,example, tekkers links- gonna practice it.

eddiez152

[Aunt Doty]

Thanks for the lesson Chris.........Some of the fog is starting to clear. I still have a lot of work to do on the finger picking though!I think we need a smiley with a light bulb...you know , for when things finally go DING!!

[__tsidewinder__]

Nice song. I really like the way your guitar sounds. Sounds real nice and deep.

[Tekker]

Great lesson cshude. I think my lesson on harmonic conjugations compliments your lesson quite nicely.

I liked your song song also and I 100% agree with sidewinder that your guitar tone is awesome.

-tkr

[busaclub]

yes chris well done just show what you can do dosent it

[GuitarCanuck]

Okay, complete music beginner here with a dumb question.

Does that mean that if you play a chord from another key (other than the key of C that you mention) it will not fit with the other chords and sound bad?

E.g. if you throw in a D7 or something?

[Fretsource]

No - D7 won't necessarily sound bad, but doing so will have consequences that are worth knowing about.
D7 contains the notes D, F# A & C.
Of those notes, F# is foreign to the key of C. However its not foreign to the key of G major which is one of C major's closest major relatives. In fact being the seventh degree of the G scale it has a strong tendency to rise to G, so strongly that it can cause you (and your listeners) to perceive a change of key (from C to G in this case)
So foreign notes and chords will always have greater or lesser effects, which are either good or bad depending on how they're handled.

[seppi65]

Originally Posted by cshude

After chatting with a couple members in the chat room (those of you not jumping in there are missing out on some good discussions!)...

Chat room, there's a chat room?

[Matty22]

http://www.guitarforbeginners.com/fo.../flashchat.php