Changing Keys in Rock Guitar Lessons in Oklahoma
Hi, this is Andrea with another podcast on the joys and the delights of playing music in a little bit of behind the scenes of what we teach at Curtis Music Academy. And today’s podcast is going to be about changing keys. So in all of the rock guitar lessons in Oklahoma that we do at Curtis Music Academy, ultimately this will be brought up if a student continues on the path of learning their instrument during their rock guitar lessons in Oklahoma. So what does it mean to change keys? This might be hard to explain in the form of a podcast, but I’m going to give it my best shot. So basically, any time that you play a song on the piano, you’re playing in a specific spot on the piano. That means there is a specific starting point.
And that starting point is usually a letter. In fact, it’s always a letter. So you could be playing in the key of C, D, E, F, G, and you could also be playing in the key of A and B, you could also be playing in the key of C, sharp, D, sharp, F sharp, g sharp, sharp. So I go through all that list kind of in a funny way, but there’s really 12 different keys that you could be playing. And so a person who’s not familiar at all with music might be like, well, if you play it the same song in two different keys, is it still the same song? Yes. What it is, is its transpose is the key from the original key going either lower or higher. So the intervals between the notes of the melody always stay the same.
So whether in piano or rock guitar lessons in Oklahoma, the tune therefore stays the same. But what is changed is just the high or low part. So you can kind of think about this as like being in an apartment. So if you live on the third floor, everything is relative to the third floor. So that means you still walk on the floor, you still have chairs. You still, you know, can walk through the living room in the bedroom and it’s on the third floor. We’ll think of if you moved to the fourth floor. Everything is still relative. You still have a floor, you still have a table, you still have a couch, all of these different things. But it’s just at a different starting point. And everything is relative to that starting point. Hopefully that helps make sense of what’s really happening with transposing us on, whether in piano or rock guitar lessons in Oklahoma.
So if you have Mary had a little lamb in one key, if you transposed it a whole step higher, it would still sound exactly like Mary had a little lamb. It would just have a higher starting point. Let’s say we transposed Mary had a little lamb down. So that means that it would still sound like exactly the same song. It would just have a different starting point in and therefore sound low or so. That’s what’s going on with transposing. And for many students, transposing is a really difficult thing. But once you get the hang of it and understand the whole process as a whole, as a general skeleton, I think the process becomes a little bit easier. So I like to start transposing to a different key using easy songs, whether in piano lessons or rock guitar lessons in Oklahoma.
So if you take the song Mary had a little lamb and you try to play it, you can actually play it very easily at two or three different spots on the piano or on the guitar during rock guitar lessons in Oklahoma.
Taking Rock Guitar Lessons in Oklahoma
And so that kind of opens up students’ eyes to see, oh, OK, I understand what’s going on. I think that singers in general will understand the concept of changing keys more naturally than a person who’s not really a singer, because every singer has known the frustration of trying to sing a song accidentally started too low. And so they can’t reach the low notes. So then they say, I’m going to take the same song. I’m going to start at a higher pitch and sing the same song at that point. And so that’s how they do it during their rock guitar lessons in Oklahoma.
The same thing could happen accidentally starting too high, which in my opinion is worse because I have been there during a performance. So I’ll just pause and tell this kind of a funny story. But when I was in high school, we went on like a nursing home outreach type of a thing, and we just played music at a nursing home. And there was one student who had a guitar and we were going to sing a song and he started the song. We just picked up the chords from the Internet. Sounded good. Probably the key of G. He’s like, cool, I’m good. But he did not think about how it would affect the singers. And so we were singing in the rafters for like. Pretty much the second half of the song. It was really funny. So I just always think about that story when I think about changing keys and how important it is, especially for singers or during piano or rock guitar lessons in Oklahoma.
Now, if you’re playing the guitar during rock guitar lessons in Oklahoma or if you’re playing the piano, the most important thing for you is playing in a key that you’re comfortable with. Not so when you’re a singer. The singer might choose the key of a flat that works really great for their voice. But for a guitarist, it’s a little bit of a challenge because that’s not necessarily an easy key to play in. So there’s so many variables when you get together and you’re playing in a band setting. And so I hope that answers some questions about changing keys. So when I was probably leaving high school and just still learning so much about music, I actually made it a point to really understand the four most important chords and every single key I’d play them, I’d practice them.
And it really enabled me to be able to play in any key and to play it predominantly really well, even if it was a new song or even if it was in the key of a flat, I could navigate my way through it, whether during piano or rock guitar lessons in Oklahoma. And I think that that’s a really good rule of thumb for every musician, including the guitar, is to just be really comfortable playing in a variety of keys. If you really can only play in the KFC in the key of G, that’s good for a beginner. But ultimately you’ll want to continue to learn more. So that way you’re versatile and can play any type of song in any type of setting. So that is just a brief kind of a synopsis of changing keys. I hope it was understandable. And I will look forward to seeing you at the next podcast. Thanks for listening to this podcast about rock guitar lessons in Oklahoma.