Post by pnut on Jul 27, 2015 21:30:31 GMT
Being relatively tone death, the first thing I nearly always do when working out a new song or tune is to work out what key it's in, the reason I think I do this is so I can instantly best guess what chords to play and also what scales I can widdle around in to improvise along or work out the melody. I usually work out the key by playing a random scale and homing in on where the semitones are ( think this is a common method?). I must be a bit less tone death than I used to be because I do seem to home in fairly quickly now eg if it's in F If I don't get it first time I'll usually be widdling in Bb or C and fairly quickly adjust as opposed to messing around in keys much further away. Of course if it's in a minor key where melodic or harmonic minor is being used that confuses me for a bit longer but after years of persevering and noodling I'm starting to recognise that now, am also starting to recognise when it's using blues stuff. Jazzy stuff still confuses the hell out of me!
It was interesting a while a go when I had a really fun jam with two other forumites( (don't know why I'm not using names but they know who they are!) At the start of the evening One was playing a really nice chord sequence and from the shapes he was playing that I could see and the sound of what was coming out I could see it was in Eb or Cm, so I'm instantly happy widdling around in a mixture of Cm pentatonic and Eb and was complimented that it sounded good, if I felt adventurous may experiment with a bit of Fm or Gm pentatonic and probably be a bit hit and miss with it before giving up and returning to Cm pentatonic/Eb. Then second person starts playing a more complicated series of chords where the key seemed to be constantly changing, I'm left bemused and silent while the first chap plays along doing a whole series of fast lead work the majority of which works spot on with very few bum notes. When I ask how he does that he says he just sort of does and knows what sounds good. We get into a discussion of how I know the likely scale and chords from some basic theory knowledge of harmonised scales, to my amazement he's either never learnt this theory or it was so long ago he's not conscious of knowing it any longer! I genuinely thought he was having me on, I can appreciate having a good ear and being able to recognise a key from the sound but to do that so quickly with such constantly changing chords without any mental analysis of what you are playing yet be playing the right scale every bar.... How do you do that, I was in awe!
This does raise the question if I hadnt devoted a lot of time to reading up and learning some basic/intermediate theory so I could work out what was going on and be able to work out what key it was in, would I be a better player because I had a better ear instead of mentally having to analyse everything. (I think in my case I know the answer as I have absolutely minimal natural ability, have got to my current mediocre level thro sheer perserverence and brain learning because I enjoy playing)
So guess what I'm saying is I sort of understand Keith's Question why do they need to know, but for me unless I've got the chords written infront of me, or I've learnt the song by heart, I need to know to help stop me hitting more bum notes than good ones!
It was interesting a while a go when I had a really fun jam with two other forumites( (don't know why I'm not using names but they know who they are!) At the start of the evening One was playing a really nice chord sequence and from the shapes he was playing that I could see and the sound of what was coming out I could see it was in Eb or Cm, so I'm instantly happy widdling around in a mixture of Cm pentatonic and Eb and was complimented that it sounded good, if I felt adventurous may experiment with a bit of Fm or Gm pentatonic and probably be a bit hit and miss with it before giving up and returning to Cm pentatonic/Eb. Then second person starts playing a more complicated series of chords where the key seemed to be constantly changing, I'm left bemused and silent while the first chap plays along doing a whole series of fast lead work the majority of which works spot on with very few bum notes. When I ask how he does that he says he just sort of does and knows what sounds good. We get into a discussion of how I know the likely scale and chords from some basic theory knowledge of harmonised scales, to my amazement he's either never learnt this theory or it was so long ago he's not conscious of knowing it any longer! I genuinely thought he was having me on, I can appreciate having a good ear and being able to recognise a key from the sound but to do that so quickly with such constantly changing chords without any mental analysis of what you are playing yet be playing the right scale every bar.... How do you do that, I was in awe!
This does raise the question if I hadnt devoted a lot of time to reading up and learning some basic/intermediate theory so I could work out what was going on and be able to work out what key it was in, would I be a better player because I had a better ear instead of mentally having to analyse everything. (I think in my case I know the answer as I have absolutely minimal natural ability, have got to my current mediocre level thro sheer perserverence and brain learning because I enjoy playing)
So guess what I'm saying is I sort of understand Keith's Question why do they need to know, but for me unless I've got the chords written infront of me, or I've learnt the song by heart, I need to know to help stop me hitting more bum notes than good ones!