Yet another ignorant question - Keys

[Palmetto]

One of my favorite movies is 'Singing In The Rain'.  (Friends tell me I've seen way too many musicals for a 'straight' guy.)  Late in the film, the Lina Lamont character is forced to spontaneously sing before an audience.  The conductor of the accompanying orchestra asks her what song, and then follows up by asking, "In what key?"

That question has always confused me.  Aren't pieces written in a specific key?  Can a work be played recognizably in a key other than the one it was written for?

I'm STILL trying to comprehend exactly what it means when a work is said to be 'in a key'  Leon provided this link:

http://www.dolmetsch.com/theoryintro.htm

but I hit the wall on Lesson 9 when it starts talking about key signatures and 'Circle of Fifths'.  I'm hoping answers to my question will further my (mis) understanding.  Maybe I should just quit worrying about it and listen, but I'm sure it wouldn't be mentioned in the title of most works if it wasn't significant.

[Scarpia]

A piece of music is written in a specific key, but it can be "transposed."   If you take every note in the piece and and replace it with a note, say, one tone higher the piece will sound essentially the same, but at higher pitch.  Transposing is often necessary if you want to play a piece on a different instrument which has a different range, or if a tenor wants to sing a song written for a baritone, etc.

[westknife]

It's very hard to explain with just words and diagrams, but very easy to explain with a simple musical example. Here:

http://www.4shared.com/audio/hemlU9qs/mary_sample1.html

The first time I whistled "Yellow Submarine" it was in the key of G. That's a bit too low for my whistling range as you might have noticed, so the second time I shifted it up a few notes to the key of C. Much more comfortable. I think you'll agree that both are recognizably "Yellow Submarine." I do not know what key the original Beatles' version is in, nor does it particularly matter if you are simply whistling or humming it without hearing the recording—whatever is in your range will sound the best. So when singers request the accompaniment to play a song in a certain key, it's because they know what notes are in the song, and which key will be just right for their vocal range—not too low, not too high.

[Palmetto]

The first time I whistled "Yellow Submarine" it was in the key of G. That's a bit too low for my whistling range as you might have noticed, so the second time I shifted it up a few notes to the key of C.

Without getting too far off topic, how did you know what key you were in each time?  Do you play an instrument or have some other exposure to knowing what named note corresponds to the sound you're making / hearing?

I whistle a lot but couldn't tell you what notes I'm generating, much less what key I'm in.  Part of my problem comprehending keys may be that I don't recognize individual notes by name.  It's like l'm looking at paintings but don't know what hues correspond to the names 'red', 'green', etc.

[westknife]

I didn't know at the time I was whistling, I just picked two arbitrary notes. After I did the recording, I checked them against a piano 

[Scarpia]

Without getting too far off topic, how did you know what key you were in each time?  Do you play an instrument or have some other exposure to knowing what named note corresponds to the sound you're making / hearing?

I whistle a lot but couldn't tell you what notes I'm generating, much less what key I'm in.  Part of my problem comprehending keys may be that I don't recognize individual sounds by name.  It's like l'm looking at paintings but don't know what hues correspond to the names 'red', 'green', etc.

The ability to hear a tone and know what note it is is called "perfect pitch."  It is a fairly rare skill.  With training most people can develop "relative pitch" meaning they can recognize the relationship between two pitches they hear (i.e., how much higher one pitch is than the other) without knowing absolutely what notes they are.

[Mirror Image]

(Friends tell me I've seen way too many musicals for a 'straight' guy.)

My friends tell me I listen to way too much classical music for a jazz guy. This is when I tell them I'm not a jazz guy anymore, I've converted.

[Palmetto]

I didn't know at the time I was whistling, I just picked two arbitrary notes. After I did the recording, I checked them against a piano 

Oh, a piano!  That's what I'm missing; I'll get one this afternoon when I'm at Wal-Mart. 

If I'm following you and IBS, you made the physical movements you know produce a given note on an instrument, then used trial and error until you hit one that matched what you whistled?  What note in your whistled segment did you match?  The first one, the last one, or some other?

[karlhenning]

A piece of music is written in a specific key, but it can be "transposed."

And in musicals (to a lesser extent in the woolier days of opera) numbers are often transposed to suit a particular actor/singer's voice.  Since the accompaniment for a song in a musical tends to be oom-pah on chords I-IV-V-I (a generalization, sure, but you perceive the truth in it), little violence is done to the musical warp and woof.

The woof is especially preserved . . . .

[Luke]

Oh, a piano!  That's what I'm missing; I'll get one this afternoon when I'm at Wal-Mart. 

If I'm following you and IBS, you made the physical movements you know produce a given note on an instrument, then used trial and error until you hit one that matched what you whistled?  What note in your whistled segment did you match?  The first one, the last one, or some other?

the concept of being in a key is that one note is of central importance - the key note or tonic - and it is this note which most often will end a melody, giving it a sense of reaching 'home'. To work out what key a piece is in, you are essentally trying to find the name of the note which matches this 'home' feeling - 'this piece feels as if it is at home on the note g, therefore it is in the key of G''. You don't have to do this by matching the last note of what you whistled to a note on the piano because a) that last note may possibly not be the tonic, though it probably is, and b) with experience you can match other notes in the tune and from their feel work out mentally what the key is - e.g. 'that note was D, so the tonic must be G' - but essentially the match-the-last-note method is usually the easiest.

[westknife]

Oh, a piano!  That's what I'm missing; I'll get one this afternoon when I'm at Wal-Mart. 

ok smart-ass, I actually didn't use a physical piano, but this website which is the first google hit for 'keyboard': http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks2/music/piano/index.htm

[Palmetto]

Fascinating.  I knew there were software apps that would simulate keyboard instruments.  It never occurred to me there were web sites that did it, or to search for the same.

[jochanaan]

...The woof is especially preserved . . . .

Especially if you've got a subwoofer!

[eyeresist]

This reminds me of a time years ago when a friend and I entered the band comp at uni. Because we had time, they asked us to do an extra song, so we picked Anarchy in the UK (this with two acoustic guitars, mind). I asked my friend what key we would play in, and he said C. It was only after we'd begun the piece that I realised he didn't understand keys - the song STARTED on a C chord but was actually in the key of G.

So, yeah. The key is the home chord of a piece of music (or section thereof), but not necessarily the note you start or finish on.

[Palmetto]

I asked my friend what key we would play in, and he said C. It was only after we'd begun the piece that I realised he didn't understand keys - the song STARTED on a C chord but was actually in the key of G.  So, yeah. The key is the home chord of a piece of music (or section thereof), but not necessarily the note you start or finish on.

You just had to drag chords into this, dincha?    I get that one is three or more notes played together; is the lowest of the three the one the chord is named after?  If so, aren't there multiple combinations that use that same note as the lowest?

I seem to spend more time studying concepts and building a vocabulary than actually listening to music.  Maybe there's a message there.

[karlhenning]

You just had to drag chords into this, dincha?    I get that one is three or more notes played together; is the lowest of the three the one the chord is named after?

Depends on if you're talking to a jazzer ; )

Take your traditional triad, a three-note chord built on the interval of a third: e.g., C E G, a C major triad.

Think of that as the "dictionary form" of the triad, sort of like the infinitive of a verb. C is the root of the triad, however it is voiced.

If as it "appears" in a given piece of music, C is the lowest note, the triad is said to be in Root Position. If E is the lowest note, the triad is said to be in First Inversion. If G, then in Second Inversion.

[mc ukrneal]

This may be of interest. At around the 1 minute mark, Costello (the one trying to sing) will start changing the key he is singing in. Every time he starts again, he is changing keys (more or less). I thought an example might help!

http://www.youtube.com/v/KM7Wj7FVIoY

[Grazioso]

That question has always confused me.  Aren't pieces written in a specific key?  Can a work be played recognizably in a key other than the one it was written for?

Yes, by transposition, where the starting note is different, but the unique number of steps between all the notes in the tune remains the same. So, if a melody that starts on C and jumps to D for the next note (=two half steps aka semitones=one whole step=two keys on a piano or two frets on a guitar) were transposed up to start on G, everything gets moved up, keeping the same interval relationships throughout. In this case, the second note of the melody would be A (G to A=two half steps, G to G#/Ab to A). And so on. So it will all sound the same, just higher pitched. Think of it like a ladder being ten feet tall but if you then put it on a 2-foot-high platform, it now reaches from 2 feet up to 12 feet from the ground, but the distances between rungs stay the same.

I'm STILL trying to comprehend exactly what it means when a work is said to be 'in a key'  Leon provided this link:

http://www.dolmetsch.com/theoryintro.htm

but I hit the wall on Lesson 9 when it starts talking about key signatures and 'Circle of Fifths'.  I'm hoping answers to my question will further my (mis) understanding.  Maybe I should just quit worrying about it and listen, but I'm sure it wouldn't be mentioned in the title of most works if it wasn't significant.

"In a key" means that a melody is centered/focused on one scale. A scale is a fixed series of steps between notes. A major scale follows the step-pattern of whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half, so a C major scale is CDEFGABC. The accompanying chords in basic traditional harmony are built from that scale by stacking thirds (another discussion). A melody in the key of C major will often start and end on the note C and have a series of accompanying chords built from the C major scale, such as C, F, and G (the I, IV, and V chords of the harmonized scale).

Things can get more complicated, though, when a composer decides to get fancy and modulate between keys, add in chromatic passing tones from outside the scale (say F# in a C major scale), use extended or altered chords, quartal harmony, etc.

One thing that should help makes sense of some of this stuff is to get your hands on a chordal instrument like guitar or keyboard so you can see and hear how it works.

[Opus106]

Yes, by transposition, where the starting note is different, but the unique number of steps between all the notes in the tune remains the same. So, if a melody that starts on C and jumps to D for the next note (=two half steps aka semitones=one whole step=two keys on a piano or two frets on a guitar) were transposed up to start on G, everything gets moved up, keeping the same interval relationships throughout. In this case, the second note of the melody would be A (G to A=two half steps, G to G#/Ab to A). And so on. So it will all sound the same, just higher pitched. Think of it like a ladder being ten feet tall but if you then put it on a 2-foot-high platform, it now reaches from 2 feet up to 12 feet from the ground, but the distances between rungs stay the same.

"In a key" means that a melody is centered/focused on one scale. A scale is a fixed series of steps between notes. A major scale follows the step-pattern of whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half, so a C major scale is CDEFGABC. The accompanying chords in basic traditional harmony are built from that scale by stacking thirds (another discussion). A melody in the key of C major will often start and end on the note C and have a series of accompanying chords built from the C major scale, such as C, F, and G (the I, IV, and V chords of the harmonized scale).

Things can get more complicated, though, when a composer decides to get fancy and modulate between keys, add in chromatic passing tones from outside the scale (say F# in a C major scale), use extended or altered chords, quartal harmony, etc.

One thing that should help makes sense of some of this stuff is to get your hands on a chordal instrument like guitar or keyboard so you can see and hear how it works.

I would certainly mod the post up if the forum had such a system in place.

[Grazioso]

You just had to drag chords into this, dincha?    I get that one is three or more notes played together; is the lowest of the three the one the chord is named after?  If so, aren't there multiple combinations that use that same note as the lowest?

I seem to spend more time studying concepts and building a vocabulary than actually listening to music.  Maybe there's a message there.

Learning theory helps you become a better listener and musician, so it's worth it in the long run.

Yes, there are multiple types of chords that could use the same root note, e.g., for C you can have C major, C minor, C7, C9, and numerous other permutations built off a few basic concepts, in addition to the inversions Karl explained.

Just fyi, technically a chord is three or more notes sounded together, but in rock/pop you regularly hear about "power chords" which are just two notes sounded together (root and 5th). The term is useful and has stuck.