Out-Of-Key Notes And Key Changes

Out-Of-Key Notes

Often, you will find notes in songs that don't belong to the key the song is using. These notes are considered out of key notes. These notes aren't just randomly hit, as you will see.

For an example, we will choose a song that we know, Nothing Else Matters, by Metallica.

Remeber the chorus? C A D? The chorus used the A chord. Now where did that A come from?

The A chord came from a key which was very closely related to the E Minor Key. Meaning, The two keys shared a lot of notes. Which keys would be related to Em?

For this, we will have to take a look at the circle of fifths (For minor keys). We will look at the keys closest to E Minor. One of them is A Minor, and the other is B Minor. Which one of these have an A chord?

A minor has an Am chord. Nope. This aint it. B minor has an A chord. Yep. B Minor is the key we're looking for. The A chord in progression C A D came from the B minor key.

Now note, the song never changed to the key of B minor. It just picked a chord from the key, played it in the middle of a progression in E minor, and that's it.

Similarly, we can also hit out-of-key notes in the middle of solos. This will be covered in a bit more detail in soloing lessons.

Just remember the rule, we can throw in a few notes or chords in our song that belong to a key that is closely related to the key the song is originally in. The key does not need to be the most closely related key. e.g. we can be playing in G major, or any of its relative keys, and include a note or chord (or even a phrase) from F major. However, it is easier to switch to the most closely related key. Switching to a key that is not very closely related to our current key can be a difficult job.