how do you tell the difference..

when a song is in the key of I or its tonic? like, for example, G and Em... arent all the chords in the keys the same? what would make them different?

 

the 1 is the key tone center, the 6 is the relative minor...in the key of G. Em is the 6

 

sorry man, i misunderstood, yea, in a natural minor they would be the same, the are a bit different in the harmonic minor and the melodic minor

 

no no no i mean what would make the difference in a song...
k lemme rephrase ...
what makes the difference for a song being in the key of G or the key of Em? aren't the same notes in both of the keys, and how would you tell the difference?

 

They're not actually the same keys. They have the same key signatures, but the minors also have accidentals in their scales. For example, in G major, Chord III which is a triad built on the note B contains a D natural and an F# and is essentially a Bm triad. Yet in Em B is chord V, the dominant and therefore will always be major (not considering modal music in which the key technically wouldn't be Em anyway), as the 7 is raised from D natural to D#.

But to spot the difference, all you really need to do is look at the last chord in the piece. Nine times out of ten a piece will end on the tonic and so you can derive the key from that. Add to that of course that it's very easy to hear whether something's in a major or minor key.

Mind you, most music will modulate anyway which means the key won't stay the same throughout.

 

isnt a song in the key of G... starts out with a G? and a song in the key of Em start out with Em? im not too sure, but i thought i heard that somewhere before... haha im probably really wrong, but thats ok peace~

 

not always forest 420, but alot of the time yeah.

 

wow...this is insane! i can't believe people on the performing arts section are actually talking about music hehe just joking hum

listen to sax machine, he knows. The key signautes don't tell you the accidentals...like G has f shapr in it and Eb has Eb...and...well lots more


listen to sax he can explain it better than me

 

ha, wow, i dont think i care anymore too freakin confusing, playing by ear is what the non-smart people do

 

hehe tis probably better than way coz then you learn by instinct

 

and i noticed that in my choir class, i'm one of the two kids who never need sheet music to sing and can sing when asked without any prior reading. it takes the rest of the choir like 5 times to "know" a song, i can get it in two...

yeah anyways

 

Which is exactly what I've been telling you... Use theory as needed, man.