I’ve had this one saved for awhile as I found it very hard to solo over. But now after more experience I am thinking this is not A minor at all and is C major?
Could anyone with good ears enlighten me. I think perhaps the way it’s composed is really throwing me off. Sometimes I feel the A and others C as the root. I know it’s changeing between the two, but it’s hard to get a grip on for me.
Only listened for the first minute and then I got bored, but A minor.
@WhammyStarScream I can see why it sounds ambiguous to you. There aren’t really strong harmonic cadences for either key. In A minor, we’d normally have a lot of movement from an E major chord to the A minor (which yields harmonic minor). We never get that. In the absence of that chord movement, next up I’d expect a lot of movement from G major to A minor, and there is a little bit of that at the end of the phrase.
If it were C major, we’d get a lot of G major to C major, and I don’t hear that either. The loop is
Am C | F | Dm F| Am G|
I agree with @Fossegrim’s assessment though. The phrases center around A minor.
@joebegly with that you can just say it’s a more modal Amin since you don’t have that leading tone that would result in a strong V-i cadence. The relation of FM to Amin is a strong indication of its inherent modal quality, and there’s not really anything that is pulling towards Cmaj being the tonic. But one thing to mention is that music like this (more on the easy listening pop side) doesn’t really adhere often to tonal era harmonic guidelines nor does it really have to. And often the vocal lines contain a lot of the missing information you need to establish a tonal center.
Yep, all great points.
Though, jus to make the obvious point, as far as what pitches you can play here, A minor and C major are identical, so it’s a matter of what chords you’re resolving to, more than is choice of scale.
I’ve jammed over a number of backing tracks on Youtube that might describe themselves as being in the key of the relative minor, but to my ears sound more like its major equivalent, but in practice it’s not really a huge deal.
Ok thank you guys. I find playing with C as the focus works for me and A doesn’t. Thats why I struggled with it. And @Fossegrim yeah it is a bit dull, though thats the reason I practice over it from time to time. The tracks that have more going on are much easier to solo over for me. (probably cus the backing track is doing the work)
I think I should have a go at adding those tones in my lead that will make it a stronger A minor.
Well it may be more useful if you use a chord tone soloing approach over some of those chords rather than just think of it all being in one tonal center. It will enable you to use perhaps some more interesting note choices that otherwise wouldn’t seem available if you just stuck to the key signature.
To builds on fossegrim’s point… Maybe, if you have a way to record yourself, do a couple choruses of you playing over it in C, and then do a couple of you playing over it in Am, and then go back and analyze what you were playing, and see what notes you were favoring over what chords when it was “working” in C vs when it wasn’t, in Am, and see how those notes relate to those chords, and see if you can learn anything from this.
Thats something I never do, so yeah I should probably set up an easy way to record n play back. I have a looper pedal perhaps I can load up the track on that and then record over it. I think I can put tracks on the boss rc3, I’m not sure about just a track off youtube though?
I also think the higher melody line is resolving back to the c a lot? So You’ve got the bass resolving to A and melody to C? Is that correct? How come it can’t be classed as CMajor if the melody is constantly in C?
Because it’s the harmony that dictates that, not the melody line. You can play a c major scale fingering over an A minor progression and it will still sound like Aminor, because that’s what the harmony is implying. C is an important note in A minor, the minor third so landing and emphasizing the root 3rd or 5th of that chord is all fair game. You have to analyze each voice as a composite to one another.
They’re relative so does it matter a ton?
Yes and no. They are relative in that they contain the same exact notes, but it’s what you emphasize, how you phrase and how it relates to the harmonic backbone that makes it one and not the other.
If you were playing really fast runs over it all the time, it wouldn’t much matter because not one thing is really emphasized.
I guess I’d say that, if you find it DOES matter in your playing whether you’re soloing in C major or A minor, thats a good sign that you could probably develop melodically as a player by spending some time thinking about note choice, cadence, and resolution. 
I find that the melody in C is overpowering the A minor bass, and for most of the song C as a resolution is in my head as thats what the melody is constantly enforcing.
Is there a musical term for this kind of a thing? Where the melody is taking over the backing? Or visa versa?
I remember that Victor Wooten lesson on how if he plays something with enough confidence or whatever he can change the perceived key.
I don’t hear anything like that in this case. I hear the “c”, but it’s function is the minor third of Amin, the harmony.
It’s all about note function. The melody could resolve to A, C or E, the root, third and fifth of an Am triad. It won’t change the harmony to resolve to any of these pitches.
As a general rule, harmony dictates the notes function.
As it was mentioned before it’s mostly A-minor. Though when dealing with relative natural major/minor it’s not that obvious sometimes. In such cases it’s just a major-minor scale for me, another words I don’t distinguish them as separate scales. For example let’s take often used in fantasy movie scores to chord motiff like Cdur - G-moll. Is it I-v or IV-i? Also even well known ii-V-I-vi sometimes sounds more as iv-VI-III-i, and sometimes as both.
In general everything that sounds at the moment is a part of harmony. So it’s not like the melody is taking over, more like this combination of low and high notes creates perception of this or that triad… in case there is a triad, since I can use some ambigous quartal harmony or even dive into dodecaphony.
I guess it’s pretty subjective sometimes. Music is about perception after all.
Finally listened to this, by the way. Definitely has a minor feel. The only thing I can think is maybe C is “working” for you more than Am because every chord in this progression aside from the “tense” G at the end that sets it up to repeat has a C as a chord tone? C is the minor 3rd of Am, the root of C, the 5th of F, the m7 of Dm (and 'm getting more of a Dm7 vibe than straight Dm here, it was a fairly ambiguous sounding chord in the progression), and then back to the 5th of the F, before it’s the 4th of the G which just begs you to drop it a half step to B.
If you’re playing this and resolving to a C note a lot, you’re going to get lines that feel "resolved’ over every chord but the last.
Didn’t follow all the responses in detail — sorry in advance 
but even though on paper it’s probably Am, I do get some brighter vibes in certain parts of the progression, it doesn’t feel “I am 100% sad all the time” like a more in-your-face natural minor progression would 
Could it be that because it’s using A and C regularly as a root, A for bass, C for melody, that you can highlight either with your lead?
I’m quite a noob at theory and ear training so it could also just be me being uneducated. I appreciate all the replys as is helping me understand whats going on 