Transposing means changing the key of a piece of music. This can apply to a scale, a riff, a short melody, or an entire song. The ability to transpose is a very important skill for all musicians to develop. The easiest way to transpose is to write the scale degrees under the original melody and then work out which notes correspond to those scale degrees in the key you want to transpose to. Written below is a short melody played in the key of C and then transposed to the keys of F and G. Play through them and notice that the melody sounds the same, but the overall pitch may be higher or lower. Transpose this melody to all the remaining major keys shown in the key cycle on here.
Here is the song from the previous lesson transposed to the key of E. Learn it in this key and then transpose it to all the other keys. You should make a habit of transposing everything you learn to as many keys as possible. You should aim to eventually be able to play any song in any key at a moment’s notice. This is essential for professional guitarists, as they are often working with different singers, horn players, keyboard players, etc, all of whom may prefer to play any song in their own favorite key. If the guitarist they are working with doesn’t know how to play in that key, they will call someone else instead.