Key of If I Could Fly

@FretDancer69 6032 wrote:

hey guys, i just wanted to know in what key is If I Could Fly in. Seems to me that its E minor but i dont know.. im not good at determining keys of songs, i want to know the give because i want to play the song and add some improvisation in-key to it.

Thanks! 😀

Hi FretDancer69, 🙂

I did this analysis as part of that thread involving Satch suing Coldplay for the melody of this song. So here it is:

Song Title & Artist: “If I Could Fly” by: Joe Satriani

Relative Progression: __iim___V_____I_____vim___

Actual Progression: ||: Emin | Amaj | Dmaj | Bmin :||

Key: “D” Major

BTW, I could see why you thought this song was in “E minor.” In fact, you could think of it as being in “E Dorian” mode, since it starts on the “Emin” chord as the iimin chord in the key of “D Major.” You see, if it were really in “E Natural Minor’s” key, then the “A maj.” chord would’ve been “A min. chord (the difference being that “A min. has a “C Natural” while “A maj.” has a “C Sharp” note in it. BTW, the only difference between Aeolian (Natural Minor) and Dorian is that “Dorian” has a Major 6th interval, while Aeolian (Natural Minor) has a b6th interval.

“E” Minor (Aeolian Mode): E F# G A B C D

“E” Dorian Mode (iim of “D Major): E F# G A B C# D

“E” Pentatonic Minor: E G A B D

BTW, I included the Pentatonic minor scale simply to show that any minor mode (of the same root) that is derived from the major scale, shares the same pentatonic scale! That’s great to understand for a simplified approach to soloing over modal progressions,(but I digress…) :rolleyes:

I hope that helps! 😎

~Bill Meehan~ 😀