Is There a Way of Finding out What Scale, Lead Guitar is Played in Which Key for a Particular Song?
What a great play lead guitar question:
The song that inspired the question was Hotel California by the Eagle’s but i have sooo many more that i would love to be able to play along to also.
When i say which scale i mean is it played in the blues scale or pentatonic, ionic etc.
Yours in hope
Paul
Good Question, and of course, this is a natural progression i the process of learning to solo. Here is a suggestion that will hopfully be helpful to you. I used to approach soloing this way when I started out. I didn’t have an MP3 player, or CD player, or any records (yeah, I’m old, we’re talkin’ 70’s here : – )… but I used to play along to the radio all the time. I used to play a game with myself to see if I could solo along to any song that came over the radio. I tried to figure out a formula that worked. Here is one that worked for me:
Most songs are in a pretty standard key. Pop songs are usuall in a very ovious diatonic key, Blues and funk are usually in keys, but a bit modal, Rock is usually kind of like pop. Now, I am being VERY VERY general when I say all of that, but follow me here:
Step 1: First learn what a major scale is, and how to play them in every key on the guitar. That is very easy, and once you learn one scale, you pretty much got it in all the other keys and can move up or down the neck to change keys. If you can do all this already, then great, on to step 2.
Step 2) Understand that each major key has a "Reletive minor" key. I’m really (really) oversimplifying things here, but: to figure out the "Reletive minor" key on guitar, just take your major key, and move down three frets. So, if the song is in "C Major" then the "Reletive minor" key for that song is "A Minor". This also works in the opposite direction.
Step 3) Listen to the song, play along to it, see which scale fits – As you play along, figure out the tonal center, i.e. the key. This should only take a minute or two. Then once you have figured out what the tonal center is, figure out if that note is the Major Key or Minor Key. In other words, if you hear "C" alot, and this seems to be the " I " (one, or tonic) of the song, try playing a C Major scale over the song. If you find it works, then you have found your scale. If you find that it works, but something sounds a little off, and that the note "A" sounds more centered, then maybe the song is really in "A Minor". This also works in the opposite direction.
Step 4) Once you are confident that you have found your key, play with it! – If you are in C Major, figure out if the song really has more of a bluesy feel to it. Play with Blue Notes by playing the third note of the scale flat (i.e. Eb) then diatonic (i.e. E), play around with the 7th note of the scale (i.e. Bb). if the Bb sounds good, then maybe the song is really in the key of "F" not "C", but the tonal center is "C" which would make it "Lydian". You could try playing an "F Major" scale over it and WHAM! you have that sound that you hear in alot of Allman Brothers songs.
The point here is that instead of memorizing alot of modes and scales, try training your ear to really hear what is going on. What is the tonal center of the song, what notes "Work". What flavors can you add that really work (i.e. a Flat-3rd, or Flat-7th) etc…. There is so much you can do, but start of by just trying to figure out what is happening in the song harmonically, first the key, they use your ear to determine what scale degrees really work.
If you would like more suggestions, please feel free to contact me via my Guitar Website: http://www.american-guitarist.com
Good Luck!
Kevin Chisholm – American Guitarist
Just follow the tab and learn it by ear. And don’t forget to cheat occasionally. If you’re going to goig remember that 99 per cent of people won’t notice the odd dropped note…
yes , but there are several ways of tuning try tab crawler for alternative tuning , lyrics chords lead and bass tabs .
http://www.iol.ie/~murphypj/, this is a good site….i think you have to pay for songsheets if you want the artists version…
Hotel California, I can tell you without having to look it up, is played mostly in the melodic minor scale of whatever key that song happens to be in. (I was once forced to play it for about half an hour while the guitar player soloed endlessly, and ever since then I’ve never liked it, and have blotted the key from my mind.)
One book I seriously recommend on the subject is Ralph Denyer’s ‘The Guitar Handbook’, now in about its third edition. I bought the first edition about twenty years ago when it first came out, and it has an invaluable section on scales and modes.
The modes are all built on successive tones of the diatonic major scale. The melodic minor scale is basically the natural minor scale with a sharpened 6th and 7th – in other words, it’s exactly the same as a diatonic major scale, except that the 3rd is flattened.
Learn as many scales and modes as you can (bearing in mind that there are only so many possible sequences of the 12 notes in the chromatic scales) and use them to solo along with songs you like. The ones that sound better with the song are the ones that the song is probably in.
You could try playing in pentatonic minor (the blues scale, more or less) along with Hotel California, but it would sound a bit crude and inelegant. Melodic minor will give it that xtra-melancholy twist so beloved of Eagles fans.
If you can’t tell what key the song is in from simply playing along with it on your guitar, you have a serious problem.
Guitar solos rarely stick religiously to one scale or another, you’ll always find some note or another that doesn’t ‘belong’. Your best bet is to carry on practising all the different scales at your disposal which will help you to train your ear to recognise different intervals. You shouldn’t really be thinking in terms of scales when you are playing a solo as this will restrict you, just think about hitting the right note!