Start with the Key Signature
When defining the term “Key Signature” in music it helps to describe it with an analogy. Let’s imagine you’re creating a paint-by-number picture. The key signature would be the special coloring rules that you must follow. It might tell you something like “every time you see the number 3, you might think the area should be painted green, but we want you to paint it blue instead.” You want to follow the rules so that your finished piece looks like the picture on the box.
That’s what a key signature does in music. It appears right after the clef at the beginning of a line of music and it tells you which notes are sharps (♯) or flats (♭) throughout the piece. That means that if there’s a sharp mark on the F line in the key signature, it’s simply telling the musician to play F sharp every time they see the F note in the music.
For a piano player, this means striking the black keys (mostly) and for a wind student, it means using a different fingering.
By following the key signature, your music will sound the way its composer intended.
Think in the Key
For twenty years, we’ve been teaching our students to “Think in the Key.” This is when you have the key signature committed to your mind and fingers, so you don’t have to think about it when you are playing your music. This is a very tricky thing for most students.
Learning to Think in the Key takes time and reinforcement. We teach students to Think in the Key by practicing what we call Playing by the Numbers. Playing by the Numbers is like hot-wiring the brain to speed up the Think in the Key process which then gives students confidence in their music reading skills.
Just for Jazzers, or for Everyone?
The first time I saw Andy doing these kinds of exercises it was when he was practicing his “licks” — a short, catchy phrase of notes — on the saxophone. At the time, he was playing in a number of big band jazz groups and a small jazz combo. He would take a short melody like You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch or Hava Nagila and play the short lick 12 times in a row, changing the key signature each time before moving on to the next lick to do the same. I learned that this kind of key signature switching is done for the purpose of improvisation.
Musical improvisation is not purely as spontaneous as the untrained listener might think. Musicians who play improvised solos have a playbook in their brain that was built over time with licks that integrate with the vast knowledge of music theory. This enables them to move fluidly through the key changes of a song. The change of key signature can happen practically every measure or sometimes within the same measure.
You might wonder why we introduce Playing by the Number exercises to students within their first year or two of playing if it is an advanced jazz player exercise? It’s because we are growing and nurturing brains, and this is like High Intensity Interval Training for the mind!
When we start a student on the path of Playing by the Numbers, the first thing they need to learn is the two-octave chromatic scale on their instrument. That provides them with enough space to do a single octave scale in all 12 keys. Once they can do this, it’s time for the Majors!
Major Key Exercises
The first three exercises students will undertake are Three Blind Mice, Pop Goes the Weasel, and Happy Birthday. Over the years we have done one exercise at a time, so students play all 12 Major Keys three times consecutively before moving on.
Recently we have been assigning all three songs and moving through all 12 Major keys in 12 weeks instead of 36.
The Playing by the Numbers exercises look like this:
Three Blind Mice
321 321
543 543
887678 55
887678 55
321 321
Pop Goes the Weasel
11 22 3 5 3 1
11 2 4 3 1
11 22 3 5 3 1
6 2 4 3 1
Happy Birthday
5565 ^17
5565 ^21
55 ^5 3 1 7 6
^44 3 1 2 1
Once we have moved through all 12 Major keys, it’s time to move on down to the Minors.
Minor Key Exercises
Major and minor scales share a key signature. We say they are related. That’s why knowing our Majors gives us a foundation to work from to find the key signature. When we move into the minors, we want to make sure that students know all three minor key scales.
- Natural — no deviation from the key signature
- Harmonic — raises the 7th step going both up and down
- Melodic — raises the 6th and 7th steps on the way up and returns to the natural minor on the way back down
Each key takes four weeks to learn as we practice the scale and a Play by Number tune for each of these scale types. The first week consists of just playing the scales with the parallel major. Then the remaining weeks focus on just one scale type with a song.
When we notate these Minor tunes, we use flat symbols (♭) in front of the numbers to indicate that it is minor.
Major Scales: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (8/1)
Natural Minor: 1 2 ♭3 4 5 ♭6 ♭7 (8/1)
These exercises look like this:
Spider Man — Natural Minor
1 ♭3 5 4 ♭3 1
1 ♭3 5 ♭6 5 4 ♭3 1
4 ♭6 8 ♭7 ♭6 4
1 ♭3 5 ♭6 5 4 ♭3 1
5 5
4 4 ♭3 4 ♭3 1
Hava Nagila — Harmonic Minor
5 5 7 ♭6 5
7 7 ^2 1 7
^1 1 ♭3 2 1
7 ♭6 5 ♭6 7
You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch — Melodic Minor
♭3 4 5 1
♭3 5 4
♭3 5 1 6 2 7
5 5 5 ^1 ♭7 ♭6 5 ♭6
4 4 ♭7 ♭6 5 4 5 b3 ♭3 1
7 7 6 7 ^1
Going through the minors does not take 48 weeks because we do not go through all 12 key signatures. We only do four keys: Cm, Gm, Dm, and Am
These scales and their order were carefully considered when we built this curriculum.
We begin with Cm because the three flats in the key signature align with the flats in the number songs making it the easiest way to jump into this complex skill riddle.
The following scales take away a flat each time. As the flat is removed you have to understand how the flats in the number song translate to the notes in the key being played. Suddenly, these notes are natural note fingerings.
Does It Make a Difference?
Big time! It makes a huge difference in not only the student’s ability to read music with multiple sharps and flats (like Pit Orchestra music) but also prompts a faster response as the students are able to navigate their instrument with more precision, speed, and ease.
Students that successfully complete this coursework have developed their chops and built their confidence, making the transition to intermediate or early advanced material far less intimidating.
Just for Fun
Robot Chicken, Season 9, Episode 7:
3 2 1 2 333 222 3..66?
If the title of Robot Chicken Season 9, Episode 7 is not funny to you, let me explain the joke.
It’s Mary Had a Little Lamb.
If you assign a number to every step of a major scale and then play the numbered notes in the order of the title, it sounds like Mary Had a Little Lamb. Except the last two ..66 with the question mark. That is a mistake. They screwed it up on purpose for music theory nerds like us to giggle at.
We thought it was hilarious because this is how we have been teaching our students to Think in the Key for over 20 years now. And Robot Chicken is just a stupid adult cartoon show, right? Or is it? Some of their writers know a thing or two about music theory or jazz improvisation. We respect that!
Questions about Key Signatures or Playing by the Numbers? Contact us! We’re happy to provide answers.
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