Many times in a modern band, like a worship band, you're presented with a piece of paper to play from. But it's often not sheet music. It's just lyrics with "Chord Symbols" over the words!
For example:
G Am7
Here are the lyrics to the song
F C
They are going on and on
Am G
You're supposed to make up your own part
F
From the chords above
This is called a "Chord Sheet". It's one form of a music "Chart". It has the chords, but every member of the band has to create their own parts to play.
This presents MANY problems when you're not used to it. Just one of the problems is that it provides NO KEY SIGNATURE. Knowing the key is helpful to embellishing the chords and creating beautiful sounding parts. And you can do it yourself.
Here's a simple check to find the key of any song using only the CHORDS. **Note: This particular trick will work for MAJOR KEYS ONLY. But that is most songs, so it's a very useful trick to know.
Step 1:
Find all the MAJOR CHORDS used in the song. Sometimes they may HIDE as other names. Here are some examples:
Ignore chords like: Dm, Eminor, Adim7, Dm7, Em7(4) and others that have m, dim, º, or minor in them.
For example:
G Am7
Here are the lyrics to the song
F C
They are going on and on
Am G
You're supposed to make up your own part
F
From the chords above
This is called a "Chord Sheet". It's one form of a music "Chart". It has the chords, but every member of the band has to create their own parts to play.
This presents MANY problems when you're not used to it. Just one of the problems is that it provides NO KEY SIGNATURE. Knowing the key is helpful to embellishing the chords and creating beautiful sounding parts. And you can do it yourself.
Here's a simple check to find the key of any song using only the CHORDS. **Note: This particular trick will work for MAJOR KEYS ONLY. But that is most songs, so it's a very useful trick to know.
Step 1:
Find all the MAJOR CHORDS used in the song. Sometimes they may HIDE as other names. Here are some examples:
- Major Chords: C, F, G
- "Hiding as other chords": Cadd2, F2, Gsus
Ignore chords like: Dm, Eminor, Adim7, Dm7, Em7(4) and others that have m, dim, º, or minor in them.