A Songwriter’s Guide to Easily Changing the Key of a Song

Before we talk about changing the key, let’s talk about the major scale. The major scale is also known as the Ionian mode and has seven notes in it. If we were to play a chord for each one of those seven notes, we would have seven chords that are within the key.

For example, here are the notes in the C major scale:

C – D – E – F – G – A – B

Which means that each one of those notes has a chord in the key of C major. The chords in the key of C major are:

C – Dm – Em – F – G – Am – Bdim

In this notation, the “m” denotes a minor chord, and the “dim” denotes a diminished chord. It may seem strange that a minor chord (or a diminished chord) is in a major key, but it makes sense because all of the notes in those minor (and diminished) chords are in the major scale. For example, the Dm chord is in the key of C major. The notes in a Dm chord are: D, G and B. All three of these notes appear in the C major scale.

Technically, when a chord has three notes it in, as we’re referring to them here, it’s a called a triad. We’ll be referring to it as a chord throughout this book, despite the number of notes in the chord.

We can denote the chords within a key with roman numerals that relate back to the notes in the scale, instead of the actual chord names. So if we said I – IIm – IIIm – IV – V – VIm – VIIdim, that would correspond to C – Dm – Em – F – G – Am – Bdim for the key of C major (or C Ionian), which you saw above. The “I” chord is called so because it’s the chord that matches the first note of the scale. The “II” chord matches the second note of the scale, and so on. Sometimes the minor chords are denoted as lower cased roman numerals, but for the purposes of this article, we’ll notate the minor chords with an “m” behind the number.

Writing the chord names in terms of roman numerals can be helpful if you want to change the key of your song. If you have a song with the chords I – V – VIm – IV, you can easily transpose that into any key, as long as you know the chords in that key. I’ve got a handy list for you that will help you easily transpose keys.

I’ve listed all of the major keys below, in this order: I (the song’s key) II m III m IV V VI m VII dim:

G — Am — Bm — C — D — Em — F#dim

Ab — Bbm — Cm — Db — Eb — Fm — Gdim

A — Bm — C#m — D — E — F#m — G#dim

Bb — Cm — Dm — Eb — F — Gm — Adim

Cb — Dbm — Ebm — Fb — Gb — Abm — Bbdim

B — C#m — D#m — E — F# — G#m — A#dim

C# — D#m — E#m — F# — G# — A#m — B#dim

C — Dm — Em — F — G — Am — Bdim

D — Em — F#m — G — A — Bm — C#dim

Db — Ebm — Fm — Gb — Ab — Bbm — Cdim

Eb — Fm — Gm — Ab — Bb — Cm — Ddim

E — F#m — G#m — A — B — C#m — D#dim

F — Gm — Am — Bb — C — Dm — Edim

F# — G#m — A#m — B — C# — D#m — E#dim

Gb — Abm — Bbm — Cb — Db — Ebm — Fdim

When you’re transposing your song to a new key, an easy trick is to assume the first chord in your song is the key of your song. That chord will become your I chord, when you go to the chart I’ve provided. With that in mind, let’s look at the chord progression G-C-G-D, which is in the key og G. By looking at the list above, we’ll see that the G is the I chord, the C is the IV chord, and the D is the V chord. Now, we can write our progression like this: I – IV – I – V.

Now we can take the roman number version of our chords, enter the list and find out what chord to play if we wanted to transpose this song to any other major key. For example, with the list above, knowing our chords are I – IV – I – V, we now know that if we wanted to play this song in the key of C major, our new chords would be C – F – C – G. If we wanted to play the song in the key of A major, our new chords would be A – D – A – E. Try playing those chords to see what they sound like.

But why would you want to transpose the key of a song anyway? Changing the key of a song can help you get a song in a vocal range that’s comfortable for you. If you decided on a melody on top of a certain chord progression, but you can’t hit all of the notes in your melody, you can play the chords in a lower key. The melody will drop down along with the chord progression and then you’ll be able to hit the high notes, because now they’ll be in your vocal range.

Another reason to change the key of your song could simply be that chords in one key are easier for you to play than chords in another key. It could just be a matter of convenience.