Key Of G Major: What We All Need To Know About The Key of G

Good morning, this is Duane. Today I’d like to take a look at the key of G, playing piano in the key of G major. When you play any kind of song in the key of G, of course, you’re basing your playing on the scale of G, which goes like this.

Now why does it have F sharp in that key? It’s because of the rule of half steps and whole steps. Every major scale has to have a whole step above the bottom note, above the root, and then another whole step, then a half, then a whole step, whole step, whole step, so that would be a half step, so we got to go up a whole step and then a half step. So if you don’t know the formula for major scale, be sure to memorize this, it’s very easy. Whole, whole, half; whole, whole, whole, half. Whole, whole, half; whole, whole, whole, half. So that’s a scale we are basing — are playing on in the key of G.

Now the primary chords in the key of G are the one, four and five chords, as they are in every other key. So what’s the one chord in the key of G? The first note in the G scale, we’ll take every other note, a root, third and fifth, and that’s a G chord.

What the four chord? One, two, three and four. That’s a C chord. And the five chord is the D chord. Again, why am I playing that note? Because that’s in the G scale, isn’t it? So that’s why I have to play that F sharp, and that’s why that chord is major, otherwise it would be minor, wouldn’t it? All three chords: one, four and five are major chords when you are playing the key of G. So if I play a song like this :

I was just using the primary chords in the key of G. And that silo is kind of a — what I was doing there is kind of a country twain kind of a style. I was playing the G chord but I was gracing off the second to the third like this. The melody was D at that point, so like that. But you can play in any style you want, of course.

In jazz it would have a different feel like that, wouldn’t it? It just depends on what style you are playing in, but the primary chords are always the same. The one chord, the four chord and the five chord.

Now there is three secondary chords too, aren’t there? The two chord, that would be A minor; the six chord, that would be E minor; and the three chord, it would be B minor. So we have three primary chords: one, four, five; and three secondary chords: two, three and six. With that we can do six chords in any key, we can play a ton of songs. You’ve heard songs like that. And that’s using the one chord, the two chord, the six chord and the five chord [effect 00:03:57].

Alright, that’s it for today, so learn those well and we’ll see you again tomorrow with a little tip about piano playing and music theory. If you like this sort of thing, come on over to playpiano.com and sign-up for a free newsletter on chords and chord progressions and all things related to piano play, so I’ll see you there. Thanks, bye-bye for now.

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