Silverback,

That's a great idea of Jim's. Multiriff is a Realband feature that I use regularly.

In relation to your chord pattern B E A D, it's interesting because it does have at least one temporary key change. What the key change is, depends on how one looks at it - it's a little bit confusing in this regard. Let me explain...

The chords that are associated with a particular key are called diatonic chords and these are built on the scale of the key. I always use C major as my reference key for all major keys.

Here's the C major scale. I've put the note numbers under the scale. That is, 1 = first note, 2 = second note, etc.



To get the basic diatonic chords for C major, I simply add two notes above each note in the C scale. (If the note is on a line, I add two notes on the next two lines above the note. If the note is between lines (i.e. a space), I add the two 'space' notes above.) This gives...



In the above image, I've included the name of the chords formed by doing this.

This shows me the pattern that applies to every major key. That is, the chord built on notes 1, 4, and 5 are major chords. The chords build on notes 2, 3, 6 are minor chords. The chord built on note 7 is a diminished chord (this has limited usefulness).

Back to your chord progression. You said it's been set to the key of A. Since the notes of the A major scale are...

A(1), B(2), C#(3), D(4), E(5), F#(6), G#(7), A(1)

Translating your chord progression into numbers means that B E A D becomes chords based on notes 2 5 1 4.

From the key of C reference above, the chord based on note 2 (I'll call this chord 2) is minor and the chords on 1, 4, and 5 are major. Therefore, if you want your chord progression to be exclusively in the key of A, it would need to be...

Bm E A D

The fact that your progression has B for chord 2 instead of Bm, indicates that you have temporarily left the key of A.

Alternatively...

If I consider the song to be in E major, then I have the scale notes...

E(1), F#(2), G#(3), A(4), B(5), C#(6), D#(7), E(1)

So if B E A D was a diatonic chord progression in the key of E, it would need to be B E A D#dim. Having the chord D instead of Ddim indicates you have probably left the key of E. In this case, though, D is actually a flattened version of chord 7. This is a chord that is quite common in popular music so B E A D could possibly work in the key of E. Change keys and test it to see.

Considering the above, if you want B E A D to play in the key of A, try setting the key of the bar that has the B chord to E (use F5 to access this) and then the bar that immediately follows this back to the key of A. It may or may not work... your ears will tell.

Hope this helps with some added insight.

All the best,
Noel

Last edited by Noel96; 12/19/15 04:49 AM.
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