Keys

Keys bring together the elements we’ve covered in our previous discussions on scales and intervals. The keys use the major and natural minor scales to create the harmonic environment that you’ll play with. In this sense scales and keys are like the delineation between melodic intervals (one-after the other) and harmonic intervals (one stacked on top of the other). 

You’ll use keys in your playing to create a certain mood and harmonic environment. This will naturally limit what you can use and which scales you can create melodies from and still sound good. For example, if you’re playing in the key of C, the chords you would play would be all build off of the notes in the C Major Scale. You could then use scales that use the same notes like: C Major, A minor, C Major pentatonic, or A minor pentatonic, etc.

Major and Minor Keys

Just like you can build scales for each of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale, the same goes for keys. The keys range from no sharps or flats to all seven scale degrees being sharps or flats. Below in Figures 1 and 2, you can see how these get translated into music notation as well as the notes associated with each key. Along with the major keys, Figure 1 also shows the relative minor keys.

Looking over the examples in Figures 1 and 2 you may be saying, “Wait a second, I thought you said there were only 12 for each.” You’re right, there are but we’ll cover that after we cover the Circle of Fifths.

Circle of Fifths

When it comes to music theory one of the main ideas to be aware of is the Circle of Fifths. Pictured below in Figure 3. If you start at the top of the first key is C Major and its relative minor - A minor. When you move around the circle, clockwise, you’ll begin to move through the keys that use sharps. At the same time, you’re also moving in intervals of fifths: G is the fifth scale degree of C Major, D is the fifth of G Major, etc.

Conversely, if you start at the top with C Major and move around the circle counterclockwise you’ll move through the keys in fourth intervals and go through all of the keys that use flats.



Finally, one important thing to note about the circle of fifths figure is at the bottom of the circle. There are scales at the bottom of the circle of fifths that are enharmonic. Enharmonic pitches are notes that sound the same but are notated differently.

These begin at the five sharps or flats point. If you look at what pitch a C♭ would be on the guitar neck or a keyboard it is the same as a B. Therefore, the scale shapes, patterns, and exercises that we use for B Major and G♯m are the exact same that you would use if you were given a song written in C♭ Major or A♭m. The same can be said for C♯ Major/A♯m and D♭ Major/B♭m, as well as F♯ Major/D♯m and G♭ Major/E♭m. 

For a deeper dive into keys and scales head over to the lesson blogs and choose which one you’d like a closer look at.