Page 35 - Guitar Tuition for Students and Tutors chord chart book

Page 34

Keys

There are 12 possible keys any particular song can be played in. This is because of
the 12 notes on the piano keyboard, A, A#/Bb, B, C, C#/Db, D, D#/Eb, E, F, F#/Gb, G, and G#/Ab.
A song can be played so that any one of these twelve notes will be the tonal centre or home
base.

Most music is in a particular key. If we say that a song is "in the key of C,"

this means that the pitch C sounds like the most stable “home note” (or
tonic) for the song.
Likewise, most songs use notes within a particular scale — a collection of

notes in order from low to high as we can see from this chart that I have
made. We can read this chart many ways. To make things easier and not to

confuse things only look at columns 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

(Please Note: ignore the +7ths column, in light grey)

As you can see from this chart to the

left, there are a few keys.!!

Let’s take the example of the
Key of C or C Major.

It is the only key with no #’s (sharps)
or flats. On a piano it’s easier to see,

as they are, just the white notes!

From the chart,
we read horizontally:
Column 1 is the root note.
(Only read from columns:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7)

For the key of C the

corresponding notes are:
C, D, E, F, G, A, B

For the key of D the

corresponding notes are:
You may download and print out this chart D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#
and keep it for your reference.
The links are found on the next page and so on…..