Key Changes – Part three: Stealing Ideas from Iron Maiden

Who says key changes are just for boy bands?

Yes, I’m abandoning any hint of respectability I might have retained. I like cheesy heavy metal. Love it. And in this post we’re going to see a very different use the basic key change idea we talked about before.

First a little background

Last post I mentioned the interview I did with Sean McGhaughey. During that interview, I talked about the dissertation I wrote when I was at Uni. It was about genre distinctions in Heavy Metal. (Don’t laugh)

This reminded me of Aces High by Iron Maiden, a song that fits neatly into our little series on changing key.

So many keys…

Iron Maiden songs are often built on the chord progression i VI VII in the aeolian mode. What does that mean? It means Em C D in the key of E minor. Or in the key of A minor Am F G. I’m sure you’ll recognise it if you play it.

Just as embarrassingly cheesy boy bands can change key by taking the same progression and leaping into another key, so can heavy metal bands:

Aces High

Intro: The aeolian i VI VII progression in F#.

First riff: the same progression, but now in A. The guitar parts are different, but listen to the bass line and you’ll hear what I mean.

Verse and Bridge: We don’t have the same progression here, but we have changed to E minor.

Chorus: this is the fun part, the first half is the progression in E, then half way through it leaps up and plays the same thing in G.

Break: A riff in A minor

Solo: a similar chord progression, first in A, then B

Break, Verse, Chorus, Main Riff again and we’re done.

So by the end of the song you’ve gone through the aeolian mode in F#, E, G, A and B. And they managed it without a single longing gaze into the camera.

Who said key changes were just for boy bands?