So far our discussion on determining a key of a song has been
somewhat biased towards major keys. There are, obviously, songs
that are in minor keys and this is where developing your ear can
be a great asset. Remember when we talked about key signatures a
few posts ago? Well, truth be told, even key signatures can fool
you. For instance, that bit of notation with the three flats?
Yes, three flats does indicate a key of Eb major, but every
major key has a relative minor and the relative minor of Eb is C
minor. So is that particular snippet of music in Eb major or C
minor? The trouble is that we really can’t tell, at least not
given what we were given to work with in that particular
example. Having some information on harmony would give us some
help. For instance, if Eb major was supposed to be played over
the first two measures and Bb or Bb7 over the second, then we
could (relatively) safely say it was in Eb. If Cm were the chord
over the first two verses and Bb over the second two, then we’d
still be a little