Hi there, I'm Tomas from Real Guitar Success. I recently did a live Question and Answer
session and one of the first question I answered was what are most common keys for guitar players?
Now one of the main reasons this is important is the piece of the puzzle to determining
what's the best chords to learn first and what's the best path to learning those chords
so you can play songs and sound good.
So with that I'm gonna show you my answers to that question. If you have any more questions,
feel free to leave them in the comments below the video.
I know when I first started, I tried to open a whole book and just learn one chord at a
time starting with the ones that looks easiest to me and you know, that didn't do me any
good really. It's kinda like trying to learn a language like Russian by memorizing the
alphabet. It just doesn't work but what I found over time is that students need to learn,
myself included not only the chord but how to use the chord in some kind of context.
You'll need to be able to finger chord quickly and be able to play it in time with other
chords going to other chords preferably in a small group or in a key is that words I'm
gonna use over and over.
What I noticed down to is what are the most common keys for guitar and again that's the
little groups of chords that you're more likely to use when your starting up playing guitar
and would give you kinda of an edge both in terms of practicing something that you gonna
use a lot as well as keeping people from getting overwhelmed with just trying to learn all
the chords all at once .
I made a little graphic that will show you the 5 most common keys and the things on the
right I'll explain in a minute. So on the left, I've written the 5 most used keys in
the beginning of playing guitar.
The keys are C, G, D, A and E not necessarily in that order but that's the best order to
memorize it, now we will talk about that in a minute.
These keys are useful for beginners for one reason is because they are used a lot. When
your learning songs, these are often the songs are written in this keys. if it's a guitar
song. Sometimes songs are written in a piano and translate to a guitar. It doesn't necessarily
follow but a guitar song is gonna generally written 80% are in these keys.
The other reason and maybe the most important for beginners is these keys generally will
allow you to play simple songs with three chords without having to use bar chords from
the very beginning so starting with the key of C, the three chords are C F and G. Now
F is normally a bar chord and for that reason I often don't start students with that key.
I start at the second one, the key of G which is G C and D then go on from there using D
A E and somewhere along the lines learning the key of C either at the end or somewhere
in the middle once you've learned the F bar chord. It's not the chord most students wanna
start with for good reason.
Now C is an important chord. I mean C is an important key that is why I do included in
there and you're gonna wanna learn that and it is so the very first good reason to learn
bar chords because of the F chord.
On the right, I have a graph called the Circle of Fifths. Now I like to hear that name but
don't worry about that. The most important thing is it shows you a way to remember the
five most common keys. So if we start with the key of C right there at the top and you;re
going around you just count of 5. You will see a little fifth there. So from C to G it's
5 so C D E F G, it's the fifth. Now start over from G and count to 5 G A B C and D.
You keep doing this D E F G A then we start with A A AB C D so I would start with the
key of G learn those 3 chords so G C and D that's kind of a --- G C and D in the keys
it is common by the way. I'm gonna say this in particular way this doesn't make sense
yet. Let me explain it.
The 5 chords is often turn into 7th chord. What I'm talking about when I say the 5 chord,
when you look at the scale and count 5 up from the beginning like G A B C D - D is the
5 chord You can just think of it if you have the scale counting up the numbers. A would
be 2 B would be 3 C would be 4 D would be 5. So I'm gonna go back now. I said the 5
chord can turn into a 7th chord so you could play a D7. I wouldn't worry about that but
I want you to know that if you see that in a song. It is particularly helpful when you
get to the Key of E because B is a hard chord but if you turned it into a B7 and it is much
easier. It's an open chord as opposed to a bar chord so that makes all 5 of these keys
playable without a bar chord except maybe the F. There are cheat ways to play F that
are you know semi didn't sound like a full bar F but it sounds okay if a bar chord is
particularly hard.
Now one more thing I want to mention if you want to up this a little bit, you might wanna
add some minor chords and I wouldn't do that until you learn at least few of the keys and
try them with some songs. So in the key of G, the first minor chord would be the one
after D after the 5. I call this the 6th chord, again you just count it from G 1 2 3 4 5 6
E minor. The 6th chord is always gonna be minor but now it opens up a whole another
set of songs. The progression G E minor the 6th chord, C and D such a common progression.
So certainly the oldies like - - -
Woah, my love, my darling I've hungered for your love and so on but its used I know we
just look the other day and its used by Ed Sheeran song. Aimee will show me an Ed Sheeran
song or point it out that the chord is exact same progression as these old rock and roll
songs 1 6 4 5 if we are using that numbering system but you can just say it's a G E minor
C and D so 3 chords. Can you play songs with 3 chords? Heck, yeah. heck of songs. So many
songs are written in just 3 chords that could keep you busy for the rest of your life really
and a variety of type of songs to a certain country and rock and roll but even in popular
music so here's one that comes to my mind. I'll do it in a key of G.
Leavin on a jet plane. Well, I'm leavin on a jet plane, C
Don't know when I'll be back again Oh babe, I hate to go
Now that's just the chorus but the full song you can play those three chords and there
are many many songs like that. Learn the three chords in a key, practice changing from one
to the other trying to do it so you have to do it in time and see the rhythm or at least
tap your foot because if you can't do it in time jumping to a song is gonna be really
hard but once you can do it even slowly in time, you can try a simple song like that
and just as a way of practicing the chord progression.
I don't necessarily recommend learning just songs as a way to play guitar but it is a
good addition to help you practicing and learning and makes it more fun on the way to playing
more and more chords, more progressions and learning more techniques on the guitar different
strums.
Thank you for joining me. I hope you found that helpful and if you'd like to join in
on my Question and Answer sessions it's on the first Thursday of each month and you can
sign up so I can notify you. I'll put a link in the description down there.
Take care. I'll see you again hopefully soon. Bye for now.