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There are very few hymns that are in a minor key! Hehe, which one did you try PianoStudent? Today I played Happy Birthday, and couldn't get the IV chord for awhile cause I was playing it in F Major and the IV chord was built on the Bb.. until I figured it out and was like.. oh duh!

How about "Be Like the Blue Bird" -- start about 1:37

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1COiBhdUAM

Be like the blue bird who never is blue

For he knows from his upbringing what singing can do...

Turn Back O Man -- the version from the Episcopal hymnal, not the Godspell version.

I found that Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence is in a minor key. Also, our hymnal has quite s few Lenten hymns in minor. It makes Lent an interesting time at church -- other people will say "why do we have to sing all these dreary hymns?" and I'll be thinking "they're not dreary, they're beautiful!" I like minor keys a lot.

I've just discovered a little gem on youtube. Listen to the first ten minutes of this guitar lesson by Barney Kessel, in particular to the part where he talks about interval sense.

He talks about playing what you hear in your mind and externalizing the thought first by humming or whistling. You then transfer this thought to your instrument.

I've also discovered a couple of interesting things. First, the first note for "Love Story" in Bb Minor, as Greener said, is Db. I think it sounds better starting Db!

The other is this video where we are explained how to find the Key of a song. He basically tells us to listen to the song, hum it after a while, and find the general tone of it...THAT note will be the Key. I have only tried it with 3 (the ones in his video and one more) but it might work. In any case, it looks like fun to experiment with it. The video Warning: many people there on the YouTube page are saying the first song is in another key...

The conversations there only make me realize how difficult this is. Some of them look like experienced musicians and it is not clear what's the key or how many keys there are!

One that agrees the Key is correct and explains lots of things:




I usually like this type of mysteries...maybe I'll get addicted to Theory some day?

Are we going to have separate threads for each song, or lump all the discussion into this single thread?

I would prefer separate threads, because it would make it easier to find discussion in each song, and also to keep this thread from getting too unwieldy. But what do the rest of you prefer?

Adding John Sprung's suggestion, we have:

100 melodies

1. Sat 10/15, Sun 1/16, Mon 10/17
Happy Birthday

2. Tue 10/18, Wed 10/19, Thu 10/20
Old MacDonald

3. Fri 10/21, Sat 10/22, Sun 10/23
Love Story

4. Mon 10/24, Tue 10/25, Wed 10/26
Joy To The World

5. Thu 10/27, Fri 10/28, Sat 10/29
Be Like the Blue Bird -- start about 1:37
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1COiBhdUAM

Unless anyone thinks differently?

I think it's probably better all here. That way people can read the interesting comments others left there, and we don't feel the obligation to say something with all the songs, just whenever we want. But anything is ok for me.

Love Story


It is not a mystery to me. I am not sure where the above quote came from, but it is wrong. It is bad information and all of these chords suck. Don't use them, they will poison you. It is as if they are trying to force a minor tune into a major key. It doesn't work and is not how the tune goes. That is, if we are talking about the same tune "Love Story". . Otherwise, it's great.

If it will please you, I think the bridge may go major, but it wouldn't matter anyway and we are not that far yet. Just the verses for now.

Yes, Andy Williams sings it in Bbm, but the original soundtrack (according to what I found on Google) was in Gm. That is where we will go over it now. If you are not comfortable playing the chords in LH, just follow the bass line

Melody starts on Bb (3rd degree of Gm) and toggles down to D (5th degree of G minor) and the bass is G. There lies the Gm.

Gm - Where do I begin, to tell the story of how ...

bass moves down chromatically now, and melody (the 6th intervals) move down following the scale of Gm.

D7/Gb - greatful love can be, the sweet love story that is

Bb6/F Older than the sea.

F,E, (Bass)

Eb6 - that sings the truth about the
D-love she brings to me.

Where do I start - Gm

Notice the V, I ending. V7 will work fine here.

With this you can figure out which degree of the base chord or the scale the melody is on as it descends through the verse.

It is minor.

@Greener The chords @Albunea is referring to are from this video where they talk about the song Need to Feel loved.

Hence, my last minute edit.

Anyway, hopefully they do know what they are talking about. Sounds like they do, but it does not apply here. Well, finding the tonal center of first chord does and probably much of the video (just skimmed it), but not changing key from Gm to D for Love Story.

Sorry.

Not about the key, but about my jumping to conclusion without fully understanding context.

Love Story: A A B A A' form. The A has a different ending each time.

Having been told that it starts with a minor sixth (which I can hear is descending), and that it's in a minor key, one question that I wanted to try to answer early on is: which minor sixth, relative to the tonic?

Something I have learned by experience is that a song that starts with a sixth may be outlining the tonic chord using 3 down to 5 (or 5 up to 3, as in My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean). So guessing that that's the case hear, and starting on, say, Bb down to D, that would imply that the song is in G minor. That makes it much easier to find subsequent notes because as I go through the tune I have a limited set of choices. For example, for the series of sixths, I don't have to grope around with my fuzzy sense of the tune, but instead can play whichever sixth is in key.

The final sixth of the verse attends to the leading tone (F#) rather than the natural minor subtonic (F). Here is a place where a little theory helps me: that it's not unusual to raise the seventh note of the natural minor scale, to create a leading time just a half step away from the tonic. Without that theory knowledge, this would just be a random accidental.

The first ending, "Where do I start?" ends in the dominant, D, which is a reassuring and common place to end a phrase. I would expect a verse more commonly to end on the tonic, but the dominant is a nice solid place also for this song, which floats and flows without really coming to s solid rest. And I can use the common-ness of the dominant to reassure me that I've probably gotten this phrase correct.

I don't know the song well enough to have worked out the bridge or the repeat of the final verse (where the melody is varied). I've tried doing some tone matching to the recording to suss out individual notes. I think time marching is good practice, even though I'd prefer to really know the song and work it out by knowing it.

I'm starting this next phase by trying to work out the endings of each of the verses, which all sound different to me, and also of the bridge.

I have a suspicion that the bridge moves to the relative major (Bb) -- another piece of theory knowledge that helps suggest notes to me (I.e. relation of relative major and relative minor).

I'm actually working this out in Bbm, following the Andy Williams recording, but Greener expressed a preference for Gm, so I'm translating to Gm for posting.

Thanks for the video! I watched the whole thing, and found it very apropos for things I'm trying to learn how to do. I liked what he said about interval sense (knowing in advance how far away the next note is) vs. sense of intervals (being able to name an interval after hearing both notes in it.

Was hoping someone would notice and explain this and glad you have.


Where do I start ... begins on the dominant, but resolves to Gm at the end of this phrase and is held for 8 beats (1st verse).

On the second A ending the melody goes up to B and the chord is Gmaj7 to G7.

She fills my heart Gmaj7

(chorus)
G7 she fills my heart Cm7 ...

just to get you started on the chorus. Yes, indeed it is major. Any harmony (almost all) in the RH is in thirds now, for the chorus.

I'm talking just about the melody note, not the chords. I'm not bothering with trying to figure out the chords yet; that's a whole different and much more difficult enterprise for me.

You do not need to figure out the chords, but you could include the bass line (only) as you are figuring out the melody, suggested. It will make everything make more sense and easier to hear the harmony.

Thanks for the suggestion about the bass line. It feels like that would make two melodies I have to figure out (the top melody, and the melody of the bass line). But that is a good suggestion for my next step to grow into.

Cole Porter singing his song "Be Like The Bluebird" here

I tried to find the Key with the "Hummmm" method but was not certain. Shall I say which I thought it is in this video?

Love Story (sung by Andy Williams)

Like @PianoStudent88 I have worked with the version sung by Andy Williams. I identified the key as Bb minor.

Difficulties
I have never practiced minor scales, so I didn't know which keys on the keyboard I could use. When I tried to play the melody I was often on the white keys instead of the black ones and hence made many mistakes. I'm also not used to playing such a big interval (minor 6th) by ear which also led to more mistakes.

Chords
After the melody I tried to identify the chords, and this is where the fun started. I've used the platform hooktheory to transcribe the first two minutes of the song. Here is the result:

http://www.hooktheory.com/hookpad/view/9OxzJaIyr9cS

I found the chords as follows:

- I listened carefully to the bass of the song. Then I whistled / hummed the three notes of the chord triad.

- I entered the notes in shortchord which gave me the chord names. This allowed me to enter the chords in hooktheory.