Do you know how to transpose chord progressions on the guitar? If you don’t, please spend a few minutes with me.
If you think you’ve got it figured out, you still might learn something new here.
I encourage you to catch the video version of this article while it’s available. It goes much deeper than I can with my typed words, and you’ll be able to hear the chord progressions too. You can find the video right here:
Here are three tips to make transposition smooth and effective.
1. We need to know all the diatonic chords in our starting key.
Do you know all seven chords in C Major? Wait for it…
2. We need to assign numbers to the chords.
Now, my background began in classical music, so I trained with Roman numerals. But just as effective is the Nashville Number System.
As you’ll see from my chart below with chords in C and A Major, there are specific cases and indicators for degrees that the Roman numerals and Nashville Numbers can guide you along with.
With Roman numerals, capital numbers are Major, and lower-case numbers are minor. With Nashville Numbers, we just use Arabic numerals, and we indicate the qualities of the chords with just a number to imply a Major chord, and a number followed by a lower case “m” to indicate a minor chord.
Using numerals or numbers, we need to be able to identify each chord as a number, but then also to identify each number as a chord. So, for example, in the key of C Major, what is the number for C? What about the number for F? Check the chart above to confirm your answer.
Let’s go the other way. In the key of C Major, what is the name of the minor vi chord? How about the minor ii chord? Again, you can check your work.
So, if I wanted to play the progression I V vi IV (or 1 5 6m 4) in C, what would the chords be? C G Am F. It’s a very popular progression.
Let’s do the reverse process. If I played the progression C Em F G, what would the chordal analysis be in terms of numbers? I iii IV V (or 1 3m 4 5). Another very useful progression. Lastly,
3. We need to know the chords and numbers in our destination key.
If we have a destination key we want to transpose to, it would be helpful for us to know those diatonic chords, and to be able to familiarize ourselves with them in the same fashion as numbers. For our purposes today, I’ve chosen the key of A Major (also reflected in the chart I’ve provided).
Now let’s put this knowledge to practical use.
Let’s go back to our first progression of chords in C with C G Am F and let’s transpose that progression to the key of A. If we know the corresponding numbers and chords in the key of A, we know that the chords for that progression would be…A E F#m D. Transposition accomplished!
Now let’s create a new progression in A with I IV ii V (or 1 4 2m 5). Those chords are A D Bm E. Based on how well we know the chords in C, we use numbers and transposition to crank out C F Dm G. Transposition accomplished again!
The accompanying video will add much more dimension and understanding to what you’re reading here.
Now there are a couple subtle ways to check our work. If we know the distance from A to C, which is up a minor 3rd, we can take each chord in the key of A, and move “vertically” to its corresponding chord in the key of C. (The video has more.)
Another method is to think “horizontally” from the tonic to the other chords within each key. The tonic is the home I chord, so this would be the A Major chord in the key of A, or the C Major chord in the key of C. (The video again has more.)
As you can see, this process is going to help us a lot. It’s just a matter of some simple memory work and repetition.
Want to go deeper? Please watch the video for a more advanced progression with some borrowed chords.
Are you ready for some application to validate these tools? Let me ask some questions, all of which end in a positive answer.
Can we transpose from the key of A back to the key of C? Of course!
Can we take a progression in a less guitar-friendly key that either requires lots of bar chords or a capo, and transpose it to a guitar-friendly key with fewer bar chords and more open chords? Yeah buddy!
Can we transpose from one minor key to another minor key? Yep!
Can we transpose from the Dorian mode with one key center to a Dorian mode with another key center? You betcha!
As you can see, there are all kinds of possibilities when we know how to transpose.
If you have a worship song and you want to transpose it, you can use this method. You can write out the transposition with numbers, or verbally call it out on the fly as you play with your band. There are digital tools that can do this for you, but if you want to grow in your ability to transpose, I encourage you to try some of this mentally and manually.
I’ve transposed more charts than I can count. And if you can analyze and learn a song by number, and you’ve got a good grasp of several keys, you can quickly transpose that song into any of those keys.
Transposition facilitates easier fingerings, preferred chord voicings, better vocal ranges, and more. See the relevance?
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Thanks for checking out today’s episode of Guitar Serious Fun!
3 Essential Transposition Tips