Give Me 25 Minutes, I'll Save You 25 YEARS

[00:00:00]Hey, if you struggle to play in different keys, I want to share something with you I wish someone shared with me 30 years ago. If you know a song in C major, did you know that 50 to 75% of the chords in C will repeat in the key of F? And the same is true with the key of G. And I'm going to prove it to you with this nifty tool we call the circle of fifths. Now, I'm no singer, but consider this song in the key of C.

[00:00:22]Here I am to worship. Here I am to bow down. Here I am to say that you're my God. Okay, so those four chords, C major, G major, A minor, and F major.

[00:00:39]And don't worry, I'm going to break them down. Now, if we go to the key of F with this same song, worship, here I am to bow down. Here I am to say that you're my God. Right now, believe it or not, and we're going to break this down, but this chord F major, this chord C major, and this chord D minor are all found in the key of C. That's 75% of this chord progression. Four chords and three of them are from the key of C.

[00:01:12]Now, what if we consider the major key on the other side of this circular tool, right? The key of G, right? Here I am to worship. Here I am to bow down. Here I am to say that you're my God. Right? So in the key of G, G major here, this is found in the key of C. This E minor found in the key of C. And of course C major found in the key of C. So we've got three different keys, right? C major. Then we've got F major on one side. We've got G major, another key on the other side. But do you notice that they all share three of their four chords with C major? That's powerful.

[00:01:58]And a lot of musicians are doing it the hard way, learning key by key as if they're starting all over. When that really isn't true. When you learn your new keys according to this circle, you'll notice that one key will be yet another key, which will be yet another key. And you'll notice that the chords in your previous key are inherited in your new key. And that's exactly what we're going to delve into in this lesson. Now, to get started, we're going to figure out how to create these chords in every key. And we're going to start in the key of C. Now, you always start with the major scale. So, the major scale of C, C is the first tone of the scale, D is the second tone, E is the third tone, F is the fourth tone, G is the five, A is the six, and B is the seven. These are the notes of C major.

[00:02:46]Now, what we do to form chords is we literally take every other note of the major scale. Now, you'll notice when we move to F, we're going to do that based on the notes of F major, which has one black note. And when we move to the key of G, we're going to do the same exact thing in G major, which also has one black note. But here in the key of C, we're dealing with all white notes. Now, if you put your thumb on C, the first tone of C major, and you play every other note, so skip this note, play this note, skip this note, play this note, you'll land on C major. And that's true for the first chord of any key. You'll see this in F and G in a second. And if we just scoot our thumb over, do the same thing, play every other note, you'll get a D minor on the two. And I'm going to put all these chords on the screen. And that's true for any key. You go to the second tone of any key and skip every other note of the scale, not just notes, but of the scale, you're going to get minor on the second. Scoot your thumb over to the third tone of the scale, skip every other note of the scale, and you're going to get E minor.

[00:03:49]This is true for the third of any key.

[00:03:52]Right? Do the same thing on F, the fourth tone, and you're going to get F major.

[00:03:59]Do the same thing on the fifth tone.

[00:04:01]Right? Take that G, skip every other note of the scale. you're going to get G major. And this is true on the fifth of any key that you're in.

[00:04:09]Put your thumb on A, the six tone, skip every other finger, and you're going to get a minor. This is true minor on a six for any key that you're in. Now, this seven, this oddball here, this diminished, all right, BDF, this is B diminished. And this is also true for every tone of the scale. All right. So those are what we call the dietonic chords of a key. Right? Dia literally means passing through and tonic means the tone. So we're passing through the tones creating these chords. Okay? So the progression that I was playing literally played the first chord to the one two three four fifth chord.

[00:04:56]Right? So it's a one five. Then here you just look to your neighbor on the right.

[00:05:01]That's the six chord. And look to your neighbor on the left. That's the four chord. But I like to play it a little lower. So when I start here, instead of going 1 2 3 4 five up to the fifth chord, I like to go down because you can go down as well. Right? The same fifth chord here, you can play here. Right? So we can go 1 7 6. We can find our five down here. Once you know your five down here, look to your neighbor on the right, that's your six. And look to your neighbor on the left, that's your four.

[00:05:33]Now, one other thing I want you to do is mirror your bottom note in your left hand. Right? So, I'm going to play this C also on my left. And I can play it up here or I can play it deep. I like it deeper. Right? So, whether you do it here or here, once you get to this G, mirror that in your left hand. Once you scoot over to the neighbor on the right, this A, play that on your left hand. And this F, play that on your left hand.

[00:05:59]Okay, so that's the progression. Here I am to worship. Here I am to bow down.

[00:06:07]Here I am to say that you're my God.

[00:06:12]Now, if you're a little fancier, you can play the lowest and highest note. Mirror the bottom and the top in your left hand. So it'll get a little stronger, right?

[00:06:22]Mhm.

[00:06:24]You're my God. Now, we're not here to just learn this progression in the key of C. We're here to learn this concept of, well, how do I go to my next key on the circle? So, I'm going to put the circle of fifths up, and we're going to circle C. Now notice on the circle, we've got a key to its left going counterclockwise against time. And we've got a key to its right going clockwise according to time like like your clock would go. So G is clockwise, right? F is counterclockwise. Now, how is this circle created? Why are those notes the way they are? It's simple, right? When you're looking to the right or clockwise on the circle, you're just going up a fifth, right? 1 2 3 4 5. So G is the fifth of C. Another way is G is the fifth tone of C, right? And when you go down, right, 1 2 3 4 5. F is a fifth down from C, right? Not the fifth tone of the scale, but five scale degrees down. 1 2 3 4 5. So that's why you see F on one direction of the circle and you see G on the other. So if you think about it, it's like C's in the middle.

[00:07:39]This is creating a circle with C in the middle, G on the right, F on the left.

[00:07:45]Now any three keys on this circle are related in the same way, right? So we can go to the key of A flat. And if it's in the middle, right, E flat's going to be on one side of it, D flat's going to be on the other. And you can apply everything that we're doing today to any three notes on the circle. So here's the rule. As you look at neighbors on the circle, I want you to remember this.

[00:08:08]They are going to have majority of their chords the same. Okay? Again, they're going to have majority of their chords the same. Well, how many chords are there? There are 1 2 3 4 5 6 seven dietonic chords. What's majority? Is majority three? No. Three out of seven is not majority, right? Majority is four. They're going to share four chords. And I'm going to prove it to you because let's go to the key of F, right?

[00:08:35]The first thing we have to do in the key of F is understand its scale. Okay? Now F differs from C by one note. It's this B flat. Okay? Whereas C has all white notes, F has all white notes except for that B flat. So when you get to the B, you need to play a B flat in the key of F. So here's the scale.

[00:09:00]So notice that it looks it has the same notes as C except when I played this this I got to this B area I play B flat.

[00:09:10]So what happens when you do the same exercise you take every other note of the F major scale to create diietonic chords. What do we do? So we put our thumb on F. We skip this note. Skip this note. That gives us F major. Didn't I say the first tone of any key would always be major? It's true. Right now, when we scoot over and play every other note, see, you'd be tempted to play this B here, but B doesn't exist in the key of F. What did I say? Anytime you think of B, it needs to be B flat in the key of F. So, just with that one change there, that's why you get G minor in the second tone of F. But wasn't it D minor in the key of C on the second tone?

[00:09:52]Remember, the rules don't change. The second tone of the scale is always going to be minor. I'm just showing you how we got that. On the third tone of the scale, look, we just take every other note of F and we get a minor. Now, doesn't that look familiar? That was the six in the key of C. And wasn't this F the four in the key of C? So, we're literally, this is repeated in the key of F, the F. This G minor is new, right?

[00:10:19]Right? And we got that from the introduction of this B flat tone. A minor was repeated. So is it safe to say any chord that doesn't have the B flat in it is a chord that C also has? Cuz C doesn't have a B flat, right? So any chord that doesn't have the B flat in it in the key of F is basically a shared chord from the key of C. I hope you guys are getting it. So F major, first chord.

[00:10:46]G minor, that's a new one in the key of F. Second chord, A minor. That's not a new one. That comes from the key of C as well. On the third tone, of course, on the fourth tone, B flat is the four. We're going to take that tone, skip that tone, take that tone, skip that tone, and that's how we're going to get B flat major. Remember I said the fourth tone is always major.

[00:11:11]On the fifth tone, we get C major. We know that comes from the key of C as well, right? every other tone.

[00:11:20]And then from here, why does this look like the key of C? We're going to scoot over and on the sixth, we're going to play this D minor in the key of F. And then this is different because it has a B flat. This is going to be that diminish.

[00:11:33]Remember I said the last tone is always going to be diminished.

[00:11:37]Okay. So, let's talk about all the chords that are shared. F major shared, G minor's not shared. A minor shared. B flat's not shared. C major shared and D minor shared. So C major and F major have those four chords in common.

[00:11:56]And I'll put them on the screen. So if you want to play a 1564, here I am to worship in the key of F. Well, you have to identify what's your first chord in the key of F. It's F. And mirror your bass on your left hand. What's your five chord? Now here I am going to go up because as you move to the left it gets it gets pretty low right now if you like that sound go to the left but I'm just going to go to the to the right to my middle C here. Okay, so that's the five in the key of F, but we know that as the one in the key of C, but the chord is indifferent, right?

[00:12:36]This D minor here, right? This is now the six. I'm looking at my neighbor to the right of C. And then of course this B flat, this is a new chord that F introduces because of this this B flat, right? So one to the five to the six to the four, right? And then if I want to, I can mirror my lowest and my highest note in my left hand. Power it up.

[00:13:11]Right. So I was doing God is able to do just what he said he will do.

[00:13:21]Oh. Oh.

[00:13:24]Oh, he's aable.

[00:13:29]Right. So, what have you accomplished?

[00:13:31]You've learned a progression in a new key using 75% of the chords in your old key. Right? This F major isn't new. This C major isn't new. This D minor, if you learned the diietonic chords of C, isn't new. This B flat is the only new chord.

[00:13:54]So why are you scared of F if you know C, right? Or why are you scared of G flat if you know D flat, right? Why are you scared of B if you know E, right?

[00:14:04]These are neighbors, right? If you know one of the neighbors, by just adding a few more chords, you can tackle the next neighbor. These keys are related. Let's go to the key of G. The other neighbor to prove it even further. So, if we go to the key of G, its major scale is very similar to C major. It has all white notes except for one black note. And that black note is the last tone of the scale. This F sharp here, right? So literally the scale is G A B C D E F sharp G right so all white notes but when you get to this F sharp right you you play F# instead of F right that's the only difference between G major and C major is that F is in the key of C F sharp is in the key of G so Germaine what happens when we build dietonic chords how do you build dietonic chords chords, you just start on your thumb and skip every other tone of the scale. So if I did that, right, skip A, play B, skip C, play D, I get G major on the first tone. Am I surprised that the first tone is major, right? On the second tone, I get a minor, right?

[00:15:20]Because the minor is on the second tone of any key, not just G. And I'm skipping every other note. Notice that this third chord has an F sharp involved. That's different from the key of C. This is what makes this chord B minor, right?

[00:15:36]Because of that F sharp there. Fourth chord. If I skip every other tone, C major. That should look familiar. That was not only in the key of C, that was in the key of F.

[00:15:49]The fifth chord is major. And notice that F sharp in there. So that's different from both the key of C and the key of F.

[00:15:59]But this E minor, doesn't that look familiar? That's in the key of C. All right, skipping every other tone of G major.

[00:16:07]And this final chord, F sharp diminish.

[00:16:09]Remember that last tone is always a wild card. And that's because F# is the seven tone of G. So that's new in G major. So since neighbors share majority of their chords, can you find the chords that C and G major have in common? Well, they have G in common. They have this A minor in common. Not the B minor, but they have this C major in common. Not the D uh major, but they have this E minor in common. So, G, A minor, C, and E minor.

[00:16:46]And then the other ones are unique to the key of G because of that introduction of F sharp. So, if I wanted to play the same one, five, six, four in the key of G. Well, what's my one chord?

[00:16:58]And I'll mirror that in my left hand.

[00:17:00]All right. What's my five chord? It's that D major. Once I get to the five, I look to my neighbor to the right, E minor, and I look to my neighbor on the left, C major. And if you're a little bit more advanced, play the lowest and highest note in your left, right? Lowest and highest note.

[00:17:22]Right. Lowest and highest note.

[00:17:28]Right. So we can do I give myself away.

[00:17:33]I give myself away.

[00:17:37]I give myself away so you can use me. I give myself away.

[00:17:47]I give myself away.

[00:17:50]I give myself away so you can use me. Right. So, we've now played the 1564 in the key of G using 75% of the chords that were in the key of C. Was this G major? Not in the key of C. Now, this D major wasn't in the key of C, but this this E minor, this is the three in the key of C. And come on, I know you know what C is in the key of C. It's the one of C. So, you see how this works. Now, I've created a nifty little PDF for you guys to follow. And what it is is it's the diietonic chords in every key colored. So, as you can see, C major here, and you can see the one chord in that color, the two chord, the three chord, four chord, five chord, six chord, seven. And then on the next page, you'll see it in F major. Right?

[00:18:52]Notice this F. It's from the key of C as well. This G minor is new. This A minor is from the key of of C. This B flat major, of course, is new. C is from the key of C. The C major. And this D minor is from the key of C. This E diminish being new. And then it goes to the key of B flat. But the cool thing about it, because you're going in the pattern of this circle, you're going to notice the same commonalities, right? Between the key of B flat and F, you should notice four common uh chords, right? Isn't B flat major the same B flat major from the key of F? Yeah, it's the four in the key of F. It happens to be the one chord in the key of B flat itself. Right now, C minor, that's new. that wasn't in the key of F, but this D minor was in the key of F, right? This E flat major is new, but this F major, of course, is in the key of F, the previous key. This G minor was in the key of F, right? And then this A diminished is new. So, as you can see that there's four common chords. When you move from the key of F to the key of B flat, what do you think happens when you move from the key of B flat to E flat? You get the same commonalities. As you move from E flat to A flat, you get the same commonalities. As you move from A flat to D flat, same commonalities. So, I'm here to show you how to unlock these formulas, these patterns. You shouldn't be learning one key at a time like this.

[00:20:18]Go in this format and you'll notice as you unlock a new key, it'll feel familiar to your last key because they share the same chords. Now, I also built a program called Instant Transposer. And guess how I got this PDF. I printed it from Instant Transposer, and it's something that thousands of students are using to learn all 12 keys. So, say I knew the diatonic chords of C, right? I can come right to instant transposer. I could highlight it in that color, right?

[00:20:47]Then I can move on, maybe change the color, and then I can do the D minor, the second chord of C. And then just scroll over a little bit, change my color. You don't have to change your color, but I just like it to be colorful like that. Third chord, E minor, right?

[00:21:02]And then fourth chord. And all you have to know is one key. And you'll see what it it's going to do to all the other keys. And by the fifth chord, right, change my color. GBD. And it's just every other note of the C major scale.

[00:21:14]By the sixth chord, see how fast this is? Sixth chord. I change the color.

[00:21:18]Highlight uh the notes of A minor. And then finally, my seventh chord, which is this B diminish. Oops. B diminish. And now this is the power of instant transpose. I set my key. This happens to be in C major. This will help me out.

[00:21:32]And then look, I go to transpose all.

[00:21:36]It's done processing. And as you can see, I've got all of the diietonic chords now in F major. Right? Look at that F row here. F. And then you got the G minor chord. Then you got the A minor chord right there on the second row. The B flat major chord. You got the C major chord, the D minor. It's all there. And if we zoom out, we can see it in all 12 keys. This is powerful. I could take a screenshot right there. But the really, really cool thing is that I can either print this straight to my printer or I can export this as a PDF and this will give me something to take to my piano to learn anything like whatever chord progression I put in that first row. So long as I go and transpose it, however I want to do it, to one or multiple keys.

[00:22:21]And now I'm learning in all 12 keys. And more importantly, I'm seeing the commonalities between one key and another. Now, I know people be asking, "Where do I get Instant Transposer?"

[00:22:32]Well, you can buy it outright, but why would you do that if we include it as a free bonus in the Gospel Music Training Center? So, you'll see it right here under bonuses. You'll see instant transposer as well as our song tutor software as well as tons of other bonuses. But here, you'll be able to download it. You'll be able to download on Windows, Mac. You can watch the tutorial here and it's the best way to learn all 12 keys and even just build reference PDFs for yourself. And since we're running a trial right now, you can get into GMTC for nothing and try it out and also download these bonuses. So, in closing, let's summarize the 1564 in the key of C, in the key of F, and in the key of G. Right? What a beautiful name it is. What a beautiful name it is.

[00:23:21]the name of Jesus Christ our King. All right. Now, let's change it to the key of F.

[00:23:30]What a beautiful name it is. What a beautiful name it is. The name of Jesus Christ our King. All right. What about the key of G? What a beautiful name it is. What a beautiful name it is. the name of Jesus Christ our King. All right, so we got one progression, three neighboring keys, and 75% of the chords repeated from neighboring keys. That's amazing. All right, so I hope you enjoyed this lesson. I hope it was mindopening for those of you who struggle, especially my beginners struggle to play in different keys.

[00:24:16]Understanding that these keys have commonalities, that these keys share the same chords. And with that understanding, now you can master each key chord by chord, especially with tools like the instant transposer. Now, if you're a beginner and you enjoyed this lesson, we do a weekly workshop that I want to invite you to. go over to hearandplay.com/cordworkshop and you can learn this same progression and all the songs that follow it. Now, if you really want to take things to the next level, I want to invite you to become a member of the Gospel Music Training Center. Not only can you get the PDF and the Instant Transposure Software, but our flagship course, the Gospel Grammar System, and over,200 lessons, we're the longest running platform for gospel music on the internet, having started over 25 years ago. So you get all of it, all of our VHS tapes from 25 years ago, our DVDs, our courses with Jason White, Mike Burrell, Jonathan Pal, David Jackson, Eddie Brown, and everything in between.

[00:25:15]So if you're a beginner, we've got the A throughZ roadmap. If you're advanced, we've got the masterclass courses, and we've got all kinds of things in there.

[00:25:24]And you can check that out at hereandplay.com/gosspelcourse.

[00:25:29]If you're a beginner, you want to check out that workshop again, herandplay.com/gosspelworkshop.

[00:25:35]So, it's been a fun lesson. This was a quick one compared to my other ones, but nonetheless, very beneficial for those of you who want to take things to other keys. I'm Germaine Griggs signing off.

[00:25:48]And remember, if you can hear it, you can play it.