When I first started playing piano in church I'd be asked to change key by the worship leader and often times I couldn't do it. If you have had trouble transposing then maybe what I'm going to explain in this post is for you.

Most people know the C scale so for for explanation purposes I will use that scale.
Ok, say your playing a song in the key of C, and you need to transpose to the key of D. How should you go about doing this?
Well we all know that there are 8 notes in the C scale, if we don't count the octave note then its seven. Now we know each of these notes are the root note of a specific chord which contain notes from the C scale.

For Example:
C: CEG D: DFA E: EGB F:FAC G:GBD A:ACE B:BDF

You might say well I know that already, how can this help me transpose. Wait the best is yet to come. Now in the example I was talking about at the beginning of the paragraph, I needed to transpose to the key of D. The easiest way of doing this is to think of the chords not as individual notes but as numbers, thats right numbers. Let me show you.
C: I Dm: ii Em: iii F: IV G: V Am: vi Bdim:vii

If the chords of your song are C, Am, F, G, C, then it follows logically that the corresponding numbers are I, vi, IV, V, I. Now all we have to do is apply those same numbers to the D scale in order to transpose. Now lets take a look at it.

Whats the "I" chord in the Key of D: D
Whats the "vi" chord in the Key of D: Bm
Whats the "IV" chord in the Key of D: G
Whats the "V" chord in the Key of D: A
Whats the "I" chord in the Key of D: D

And there you have it. Now you can take this same principle and apply it to any other key. Heres a video that demonstrates what we just learned.

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