Key of D

[Vernon B]

When I see videos they say “key of D” does that always mean D major? When I see a riff on a video, its says for example Key of D, so I whoop out my D major scale and follow the TAB, but there are notes being played that aren’t in the scale, that confuses me so much.

[charjo]

The key of D does imply major but rock and blues riffs are often a combination of the major and minor pentatonic played over a major or dominant progression. The “bluesy” sound is the minor 3rd or minor 3rd nudged toward the major 3rd and the flat 7 over major chords.
Even beyond that, the “blues scale” adds the flat 5 or blue note. So you may be hearing a minor 3rd, flat 5 and flat 7 beyond your major scale and likey no major 7.
If the D progression is actually 3 dominant chords, ie. D7, G7 and A7, those are actually the 5th or dominant chords of three different keys (although still referred to as the key of D with respect to the tonic D7) and a riff might include notes of more than one key. For example a turnaround lick in bars 11 and 12 might include notes from each chord (often some combination of it’s root, major 3rd and flat 7) in three different keys.
You will probably learn to hear what’s going on in time.
John

[Author]

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