subject: Teaching Beginning Guitarists To Understand Keys As Simply As Possible [print this page] f you are a beginning guitarist, and you have learned several chords and can play them reasonably well with any sense of rhythm, you may be ready to take it to the next step. That next step is to begin to understand just what exactly it is that you are playing and why certain chords tend to sound good together.
But there seems to be a reluctance to either take this step, or to pursue it as it seems to be too complicated a subject. The first point I can understand. Not everyone wants to learn a lot of music theory-type-stuff when all that they want to do is be able to play a little bit.
It's also true that some people are immensely talented and don't feel the need to try to learn the technical aspects of something that they already may have a natural feel for. So why bother? What's the big deal? I just want to become a great guitar "shredder". What does learning this stuff give me anyway?
Here's what it gives you:
1. The ability to understand why certain chords and notes seem to go well together, and to develop a "feel" between chords. 2. The eventual ability to actually "pull" songs off of a recording because of an understanding of how chord progressions are typically put together. 3. The ability to know what scale or chord forms can be used as lead lines against a chord progression. 4. Understand how to transpose music. You won't always be able to do a song in the same key as the original artist. 5. Composing songs
But is understanding musical keys too complicated a subject?
That depends on how it's being taught. And it depends on the goals of the student.
Learning keys and how they work is helpful for any aspiring guitarist -- or any other musician for that matter. But how should one go about learning it? How should an instructor go about teaching it?
Again it depends on the student -- at least in my view.
Do instructors want to teach music theory for theory's sake out of some sense of purity? Or do they want to make use of theory to give their students the tools to perform more effectively?
I personally prefer the latter on the "theory" that the student can always go back and fill in the gaps at their leisure IF desired and IF needed.
Understanding musical keys does contain a certain amount of complexity. It is unavoidable. Theory is theory after all, and it can become a mind-numbing exercise. But an instructor must do what he or she can to bring it to life and help the student see the practical applications.
Understanding musical keys is not rocket science. It comes from a basic knowledge of arithmetic (like 1 + 1 = 2, and 1/2 + 1/2 = 1). It also comes from an understanding of 2 important scales -- The Chromatic Scale, and the Major Scale.
I preach this over and over because a student does not need to be bogged down in a mountain of terminology to gain a basic knowledge of keys and how this knowledge can be used in practice.
It's a building block approach. There's a step 1, a step 2 etc. The first step is learning and understanding the Chromatic Scale. This scale itself is part of the foundation of music.
Once you have a handle on that, learn how to construct major and minor scales. After that, understand the concept of 3rds and of constructing chords. That's all there is to getting you started on "the secret".
None of these things are hard to do. Yes, this involves learning a little terminology, but not a lot. It also involves being able to add. And it also involves some memorization. But the whole idea of learning keys is not rocket science. And the knowledge of it pays great dividends. When you're ready for it. When you are ready, take the trouble. You won't regret it.
