Closely-Related Keys for Guitar

Transcript included below…

Pro tip: please watch the short video version of this post that I link to here: https://www.guitarsuccess4u.com/closekeys.  It will give you a much clearer grasp of what I’m sharing here.

Today, we’re going to talk about how to leverage the Circle of Fifths to move seamlessly between keys.

Have you ever played several songs in a sequence? I’m quite sure you have, but if you haven’t, that time is coming. Maybe you’re leading a set of worship songs, performing a concert, or you’re thinking about a recording order for an album.

There are several factors to consider when we put songs into sets, one of which is the keys the songs are in. 

In my early years of worship leading from the guitar, I would put together a set of songs that were all in the same key, just to be “on the safe side.” But we shouldn’t ever be at the mercy of the key of a song. We should be able to choose the songs based on tempo, groove, and of course, theme.

With this in mind, I want to talk briefly about what’s involved with accessing closely-related keys.

Starting from a Major Key

Let’s begin with the commonly-used guitar key of D Major. I’ve provided what I like to call my Super Spy Decoder for the seven diatonic chords in this key. They are: D Major, E minor, F# minor, G Major, A Major, B minor, and C# diminished.

If you’ve played a song in D Major, you’ve likely used most of those chords…perhaps not the C# diminished chord as much, because it has such an unstable, dissonant quality to it. You’ll see that in my decoder, I’ve created an orange box with an “X” through that chord. But the other six chords, including the Major I chord, are all a part of the key of D Major.

Now, if you’re familiar with the Circle of Fifths, you know what a powerful tool it is. If you’re not, I’m going to provide a couple little slices of it to illustrate how to access closely-related keys.

As you look at my first little six-chord slide of the Circle, you’ll find five keys that are “closely-related” to D Major. What do you notice? All the chords in D are here except for the C# diminished chord. 

These chords are the starting chords of the closely-related keys. Moving counterclockwise from D to G, or clockwise from D to A, we are advancing by 5th along the Circle of 5ths. The relative minor keys for each of these three Major keys are inside the circle. B minor is the relative minor key of D Major. E minor is the relative minor key of G Major. And F# minor is the relative minor key of A Major.

So, if I’m leading a song in D Major, and I want to think about other keys I could play in after that song, I now have five immediate options. 

Why are these keys closely-related? Because they’re pleasing to the ear when we move to them. Why are they pleasing to the ear? Because they each start on a chord that is already in the key of D. Those closely-related keys again, in no specific order, are G, A, E minor, B minor and F# minor. So…that’s a Major key example.

Starting from a Minor Key

Let’s say we’re starting from the key of E minor. The seven diatonic chords in E natural minor are available here in a new Super Spy Decoder. 

They are: E minor, F# diminished, G Major, A minor, B minor, C Major, and D Major. At this point, you may know what I’m going to say, even before I say it. The diminished ii° chord (the F# diminished chord) is not going to be as accessible, so it won’t remain in the picture, thus my orange box with an “X” through the chord. 

Look at my second little slice of the Circle, with E minor as the key we’re starting from.

Again, we have five other keys that are within easy reach of E minor, and they all start on a chord that’s diatonic to E minor. These five closely-related keys again, in no specific order, are G, C, D, A minor and B minor. And…that’s a minor key example. 

So as long as we’re in close proximity to a key, we have access to any of five keys that share either the same key signature or a key signature that’s just one sharp away. 

Just to illustrate what happens when we don’t move to a closely-related key, but instead try to jump to a key on the other side of the Circle of Fifths, we could start from D Major, a key with two sharps, and without warning, we could attempt to play in A flat Major, a key with four flats. Even a non-musician who hears a guitarist jump to a new key like that will have a sense that something isn’t quite right.

Whether you need to jump across the Circle or not, you can see (and hear) that this is much less of a smooth transition. We of course have the freedom to pause and insert a spoken thought or a prayer to avoid an awkward key jump like this…but not typically on a recorded album.

We can also make our way musically to keys that are further away, but this often involves the process of modulation. And of course, there’s also transposition.

For now, though, remember that if you leverage closely-related keys, you’ll play song transitions that are much more pleasing to the ear. 

In terms of an example of a song order using closely-related keys from today, we could start with a song in D, followed by a song in G, then a song in E minor, another song in D, and end on a song in A. And again, if we have two songs back-to-back that are in the same key, no worries! 

Taking this Even Further

As we wrap up, I want to mention the fact that closely-related keys are accessible around the entire Circle of Fifths, as you might imagine. Any of the 24 keys will have five closely-related keys that can be easily found and accessed using this method.

So, put this strategy to use, and watch your options for song sets unfold in wonderful, highly musical ways. 

And if you want to see the complete picture with my unique approach to discovering – and leveraging – the Circle of Fifths, I encourage you to join GuitarSuccess4U.  This is where knowledge and application converge. 

Thanks for taking time with me today to explore another topic that can lead to serious fun on the guitar.

I hope this was helpful, and I look forward to next time!