What Is a Key In Music? Meaning, Types & Examples

Just by being here and reading this article, you deserve credit. You seeking such information means that music for you is more than just a set of catchy melodies or a singer with a pretty voice, so kudos!

However, as you’ve probably found out already, the music world has plenty of terms that can seem complicated, confusing, or even downright scary when you try to decipher their significance.

This is the reason I’ve decided to try and help make music less of a hassle and easier to approach for those determined enough to seek more knowledge about its theories and fundamentals. Today, I’m answering the question: what is a key in music?

Understanding the concept of keys is a crucial step in figuring out how music is formed, organized, read, and played. Once the idea is clear enough to you, you should practice finding out what key a music piece is in.

This is one of the most essential skills a musician should master, whether they’re composing a piece, playing an instrument, or singing.

In this article, I’ll be explaining what a key is and why it’s important to pinpoint. I’ll also be discussing how many keys there are, how you can work out the key of a song, as well as answering a few common questions on the topic.

What Is a Key in Music?

In music, the key of a song is the major or minor scale that the music piece revolves around. In other words, a song’s key is the primary group of notes or pitches that come together to create the harmonic basis of a music piece.

As such, if a song revolves around a major scale, this means it’s in a major key, and if a song is built around a minor scale, it’s in a minor key.

Explaining Keys in Music

Like I mentioned above, a key In music is the main group of notes or pitches around which a piece of music revolves. Generally speaking, the main notes or pitches featured in a song belong to one specific scale — this is where a key of a piece of music gets its name.

If you’re familiar with the concept of “the tonic”, chances are you’re already picking up on some similarities between the two terms. We’ll talk about this more later on, but for now, keep in mind that a song’s key is the central note of the music; the tonic.

Going back to keys in music, let’s check out a few examples:

• If a piece of music is played in the C major key, the song will revolve around the notes existing in the C major scale, which are the 7 notes: C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Consequently, the song’s bassline, melody, and chords are all made up of fundamental notes derived from that particular group of pitches.
• If a piece of music is played in the F major key, the song will revolve around the notes existing in the F major scale, which are the 7 notes: G, A, Bb, C, D, and E.

Likewise, a song can be played in a minor key and be centered around a minor scale (natural). An example of this case can be a piece of music played in the D minor key. It’ll revolve around the notes existing in the D minor scale, which are the 7 notes: D, E, F, G, A, Bb, and C.

From this section, we can conclude that the key of a given piece of music can be based on any major or natural minor scale.

How Many Keys Exist in Music?

To answer this question as accurately as possible, we should start at the very beginning. You probably already know that the number of major scales in music is 12. This means that we have 12 major keys.

Similarly, there are 12 minor scales in western music, which correspond to 12 minor keys. So, up until this point, we’re looking at a total of 24 keys existing in music.

There are 3 of the 12 major keys that have two different ways of naming — one is using names of sharp notes, and the other is using names of flat notes. Now, we have 15 different spelling ways for major keys.

For example, consider the keys of F# major and Gb major. They encompass the same exact notes, but the F# major is spelled with names of sharp notes (F#, G#, A#, B, C#, D#, and E#), whereas the Gb major is spelled using equivalent names of flat notes (Gb, Ab, Bb, Cb, Db, Eb, and F).

Sometimes, choosing one way of naming is more preferred than the other, but that’s a story for a different article.

As with major keys, there are also 15 different spelling ways for minor keys. Therefore, we can conclude there’s a total of 24 keys in music, with 30 different ways to spell them.

These numbers can seem overwhelming for someone hoping to memorize all 30 key spellings. But don’t worry, the reality of the process is a lot less scary than your head makes it out to be. You just need some effort plus patience and you’ll get the hang of things in no time.

Keys and the Tonic

If you’re of those who are familiar with the concept of the tonic and think that it shares many similarities with the concept of keys, you’re absolutely right. These two go hand in hand when it comes to figuring out the center of a piece of music.

You see, any key has a root note that serves as the key’s center. As with chords and their root notes, each scale possesses a root note around which it revolves.

In the C major scale, for example, the root note would be C. Also, in the Eb minor scale, the root note is Eb. In terms of keys, we call the root note of a certain key “the tonic”.

To better understand the relation between the tonic and the key of a piece of music, think of the two concepts like gravity where all elements of the song are constantly pulled toward them. Sure, these elements can move away, but they’ll eventually make their way back down.

In the same way, when a song is played, the music is always gravitating toward the root of the key or the tonic in search of the time when it’ll become “complete” and reach a resting state. So, we can say that the tonic is the center or resting point of a key — it’s the most resolved note of a key.

When music gets pulled away from the tonic and moves back to it, the interest of the music is born. This fluctuation is what makes a song pleasant and exciting for us, much like a gravity-defying moment that takes your breath away but gives you life once the build-up resolves.

This brings our discussion to a musical quality known as tonality. This is when a piece of music possesses a centered sound to it, it’s said to be tonal or have tonality.

Tonality is a feature of almost all of the music. l we listen to nowadays. This makes sense because songs that lack tonality don’t sound very pleasant. In this case, the music is called an atonal piece.

How to Identify a Song’s Key

You’re going to want to pay extra attention in this next section of the article as we tackle the ins and outs of identifying the key of a song. This is one of the most important skills a musician should master, whether they’re composing a piece, playing an instrument, or singing.

There are two main methods that you can use to figure out which key a given piece of music is in. We’ll discuss each one in detail below:

1. Using the Key Signature

This is the simplest way you can use to pinpoint the key of any given song, all you need is its key signature. Just count the number of flats/sharps in the key signature and you’ll be able to tell what the song’s key is.

If you come across a key signature that doesn’t have flats or sharps, then the key is C (or A minor). The following guide is a good way to summarize the key signatures:

• Flats —
  • Key: C, Number of b: 0
  • Key: F, Number of b: 1
  • Key: Bb, Number of b: 2
  • Key: Eb, Number of b: 3
  • Key: Ab, Number of b: 4
  • Key: Db, Number of b: 5
  • Key: Gb, Number of b: 6
  • Key: Cb, Number of b: 7
• Sharps —
  • Key: C, Number of #: 0
  • Key: G, Number of #: 1
  • Key: D, Number of #: 2
  • Key: A, Number of #: 3
  • Key: E, Number of #: 4
  • Key: B, Number of #: 5
  • Key: F#, Number of #: 6
  • Key: C#, Number of #: 7

2. Without Using the Key Signature

There’ll be times when you won’t have a key signature to rely on for identifying the key of a music piece. In such cases, you’ll need to resort to a different method.

Sure, it’s going to take some more effort on your part, but following the steps I’ll explain below can make things go a lot smoother.

Step 1 – Determine the chord where the song ends

Oftentimes, the chord where the music piece ends is also the song’s key since that’s where the song achieves its final resolution.

Still, this may not always happen, and so, you might need to map the chords to observe what key they fit.

Step 2 – Chart the chords to fit a particular key

Most of the time, you’ll find yourself charting out the song’s chords to see which key they fit. Such a reference is indispensable if you don’t want to go through the hassle of memorizing keys by heart.

For example, let’s consider the chords: C Am D G. Upon checking the key chart, it’s clear that these chords are sourced from the G key.

Step 3 – Put your ear to use

Charting out the chords may not be enough to determine the song’s key, which is why putting your ear to use is rather important to the process.

Building on the same example of chords, you may have noticed that these chords also exist in the key of Em (relative minor of G). In such a case, your listening skills will be the deciding factor.

Carefully listen to the song to pick up its tonal center. If you sense a sadder feel to the music, then consider it in the Em Key. On the other hand, a happier vibe would be a sign that the song is in the G key.

Step 4 – Find a pattern to speed up chord mapping

The final step is for those in a hurry. You can get the process of chord mapping moving faster by trying to find patterns in the chords. For example, check the following major/minor keys’ qualities:

Take a moment to study the patterns. You can spot two successive major chords representing the fourth and fifth degrees of a major scale as well as the sixth and seventh degrees of a minor scale.

So, let’s say you’re playing a chord progression that features two major chords — a C and a D chord. According to the pattern you noticed, these two chords would correspond to the fourth and fifth degrees of a major scale as well as the sixth and seventh degrees of a minor scale.

Building on this conclusion, count 3 notes higher from the fifth to identify the major key. Alternatively, you can count one note up from the seventh to determine the minor key.

As such, the major key is G and the minor key is Em.