Key Signature Tips for Guitar Chord Voicing

Video Transcript

"In this segment we've learned our barre chords, as well as how to use a capo if we prefer that. At least you've tried the barre chords we hope. Now you can play a combination of major and minor chords of almost any value. F sharp, G flat what have you. All the chords are a game now. So now we have to start figuring out when we're playing these chords, well what key are we playing in? Say you're reading a set of chords that a friend wrote for you and they want you to try it out. Well what key does this mean and what you can you do with this. How could you solo in it for example using one of your scales. If we look at the paper here, we have a setup that uses our whole step and half step pattern. Remember for any major scale as well as for any major key, we have a step pattern of whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. In this case we'll be separating chords. So say remember we have a C major here, I'm going to write it right up here like this. Well this would be D. D would not be a minor chord, we have a progression with our chords of major, minor, minor, major, major or seventh. This is always a dominate or most always it doesn't have to be. Minor and then diminished, we'll get to diminished. Now this is a D minor here, okay! Then we have E a whole step away from D is E right? From E is F from F whole step is G. Whole step from G is A remember, there's no H. Then whole step from A is B and a half step B, we're back to the octave of C which will be a major chord again. E is minor, our F is a major, our G is a dominate, our A is minor and our B would be diminished. We're going to be making the diminished shape just yet. Something you could look up, but it is difficult and it's usually, you can use a five seventh in place of the diminished."