In this video
This ‘Jamming’ section of the Intermediate course aims to answer any questions you have so far and consolidate your skills and knowledge you have gained. Here we Jam in the key of A Major.
We cover so much at an intermediate level that it can all become overwhelming and it can be hard to know what to use where.
What chords work together? What scale works over those chords? This jamming section aims to answer many of these questions. It will give you a practical example of every natural major key and allow to consolidate all the knowledge and skills for every section of this intermediate course.
We should know a fair few tricks likes and techniques on guitar by now, but where can we apply them and play them? The answer to all of this lies mainly in knowing what chords work in each key. After this, the answers become a matter of what genre you are playing and personal taste.
So here is my ‘cheat sheet’ guide to the chords in a key and some ideas and song suggestions for each key!
The key of A major
To find all the chords in any key, we first start with the major scale (in this case the A major scale) and number each note one to seven. This will give us the root notes of each chord in this key
A major scale
A – B – C# - D – E – F# - G#
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
The first, fourth and fifth chords always become major and the rest minor in accordance with diatonic harmony. When we refer to chords rather than scale notes, we always use roman numerals. Upper case roman numerals indicate a major chord, lower case indicate a minor chord. This then gives us all the diatonic chords in that key!
Chords in key of A
A – Bm – C#m - D – E – F#m (G also common in real songs)
I ii iii IV V vi
1 2 3 4 5 6
The vii or seventh chord is an issue. Diatonic harmony states that this should be a G# diminished chord, but this is never the case in real songs. Real songs would either use a normal G major chord (which is in accordance with the mixolydian mode and popular in rock songs) or an A/G# slash chord, which is quite rare and I wouldn't bother with it for now.
Interactive TAB - Essential Music Theory Points
Here we have taken the essential music theory points from the lesson video and synced them to tab for easy learning! This clip shows how the notes from the major scale give us all the chords in the key of A major.
Example chord progression 1
These are the most common chords in this key, aka the one, five, six four sequence aka a four chord song but in the key of A!
|A |E |F#m |D |
Example chord progression 2
A common songwriting trick is to use each chord in order either ascending or descending, which should sound pleasant on the ear.
|A |Bm | C#m |D |
It's important to remember that an inversion or voicing of these chords still apply, you do not need to stick to the basic chords for this concept to work. Here is my example from the start of the video above!
Real world ‘Pop’ song examples in the key of A major
The BIG exception - Rock and blues or Minor Pentatonic based songs
The big exception to this is for Rock and blues based music, as covered in my How to improvise lesson in this course
Rock and blues based examples
In blues and rock songs, the minor pentatonic can be used as the frame work to give us the root notes of the chords in that key, which we then convert in to power chords from these root notes (rather than major or minor). This isn't done in every rock song, many will use the 'pop song' concept from above, many will blend the two or do other things. This is just the classic example of why we use the minor pentatonic so much in rock and blues, as well as other genres.
As always, start with the scale on one string to give us the root notes of our key.
Convert these root notes into power chords using the stantard power chord shapes.
When the above is used for chord choices, the minor pentatonic works much better for riffs and lead lines as they as based upon the same set of notes.
Rock Song examples in the key of A (Pentatonic based chords A - C – D – E – G)
AC/DC – Highway To Hell - Whole Lotta Rosie & Shoot To Thrill
Aerosmith – Sweet Emotion
Interactive TAB - Key of A Jamming Examples
Here we have tabbed out the improvisation examples from the lesson video, which is synced to video for easy learning! These can be used as inspiration for you own jams, or learn them note for note to get you started.
Lead 1 shows an example improvisation as inspiration.
Lead 2 is simply playing the A major scale in note order, which STILL works well as a melody and is intended to show the power of this concept!
Keep Learning!
Want to learn more about how to improvise your own lead guitar lines?
When you finish this module, keep learning lead guitar with my new course Lead Guitar 1
> Click here to go to Lead Guitar 1
