Is C > Am > Em in the key of E minor or in the Key of E phrygian?
I am writing a song with the verse going from C > Am > Em > Em. . I can't think of any other pop/rock songs that use this progression and if anyone can think of any please share as this would be very helpful right now. So I suppose the progression could be either E minor or E phrygian. If the vocal melody above these chords was to exclude the F/F# note would the listener ever feel like there was an implied tonality?
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Seems more like C, although E Phrygian contains the same notes exactly. When it gets written on the stave, you need to decide what the key sig. is going to be, and to me no # or b fits better. At the end of the song, you'll find one particular chord will sound like it fits better than any other. That'll be the decider for the piece's key.
Even though the chords could be taken from E phrygian, it would be very uncommon to say that the given progression is in E phrygian. The reason is that the character note in phrygian is the b2, which would be F in this case, and since the note F does not show up anywhere, the most common interpretation would be to say that the progression is in E minor.
The story would be different if there were a melody over these chords which uses the note F. But if neither F nor F# are used in the melody, this progression is most likely in E minor.
Generally, a mode other than major and minor is only perceived if the chords and/or the melody feature the mode's character note. E.g., it doesn't make much musical sense to say that the progression C-G-C is in C lydian (with the #4 , i.e. F#, as character note), even though the chord tones are all part of C lydian.
Could be either. Or it could be useful to consider it staying in C major. What does the melody do? Any F# notes?
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