Explain Keys to me...

[DayoftheGreek]

Hi,
Sorry if this question has been answered over and over again, but I am having trouble understanding keys and key signatures. If anyone can redirect me to a great website, that would be cool.

Otherwise, I just don't understand why you would need to include a key signature. It doesn't change the way the notes laid out, so why would changing the key change anything? Why would playing the same piece of music in two different keys change the way it sounds?

I had a really hard time trying to ask this question to my bass instructor, but we kinda ran out of time. If you need more details post, I would be happy to try and explain my question more.

Thanks!

[MonetBass]

Take a piece you would ordinarily play in G Maj. and play it in, say, Bb Maj. and tell me it doesn't sound different. OK, it does to me. Composers and musicologists have debated this for hundreds of years. I even did a paper on the characteristics of keys for a Music History class. The Greeks associated modes (not keys) with celebrations, war preparations, etc. and the Chinese used certain scales to represent certain colors, planets, and seasons. Some composers believed that various keys had certain moods or feelings, and other didn't. (Darn it, I wish I had a copy of that paper here at work. I'd love to quote it.)

Here's a good reference: http://www.library.yale.edu/~mkoth/keychar.htm

I guess I don't understand your statement "it doesn't change the way the notes laid out". Explain.

[homercaholic]

I guess i'll ask pretty much the same thing because I really have no idea and have tried to figure it out many times. What I want to know is how do you figure out what key a song is in? For any song your all over the fretboard but are you still in the same key? Take for example californiacation (song im currently trying to master), how do you know what key its in?

If you want you can explain it painstakingly slow because I truely am an idiot when it comes to this sort of thing

[arcellus]

homer- how familiar are you with modes? do you understand how they work?

[DayoftheGreek]

Well, I mean like lets say you have a piece of music, in a certain key.

Now, when you change the key at the begining of the piece, its still all the same exact notes on the staff..... right? Well, why would it sound different, if its still the same notes?

Why is an A in say Bminor, any different than an A in DMajor?

(I hope my example are correct musically, because I'm still kinda new to theory in general)

[theshadow2001]

Originally Posted by homercaholic

I guess i'll ask pretty much the same thing because I really have no idea and have tried to figure it out many times. What I want to know is how do you figure out what key a song is in? For any song your all over the fretboard but are you still in the same key? Take for example californiacation (song im currently trying to master), how do you know what key its in?

If you want you can explain it painstakingly slow because I truely am an idiot when it comes to this sort of thing

This is where knowing your scales come into to play. A lot of common pop and rock songs it can be quite easy to determine the key. One big indicator is the the note that the the song ends on usually indicates the key. (not always of course)
What I would do is start figuring out pieces of a song. Then see if the bass line would fit into a scale that I know. More often than not it would and I would be able to determine the key. Knowing a bit about chord theory helps as well how chords are constructed from scales and so forth. If you know your A minor scale you should see that the main parts for the bass line for californication fit into that scale nicely

[arcellus]

greek - the same A chord "functions" differently depending on which key you're in.

When you get familiar with how modes work and how to use them, it makes more sense. For example, if you play a D major scale starting on the 5th note of the scale, you're playing the "5th mode" of D major. You can build a chord from this 5th mode, and if D major is your "home" or "tonic" chord - the one that the song returns to over and over again - then the 5th mode, or A in this case, functions as D major's "dominant" chord, the one that most strongly leads you home to D.

If the song is in B minor (a scale which can be constructed from D major, by the way - it would be the 6th mode), then the same A scale functions in a different way. It's no longer "dominant," leading strongly back to B minor. Now it becomes more of a passing chord.

I hope this makes sense - we might be jumping in a little deep here without establishing some fundamental ideas. I love discussing this stuff, so ask away.

[arcellus]

i've got a pretty good discussion of this stuff on my website, btw:http://arcellussykes.com/html/ex/modes_intro.html

[MonetBass]

The key is determined by the number of sharps or flats (or lack of) in the song or piece. I would advise learning (1) the circle of fifths (good reference: http://www.carolinaclassical.com/scales/circle.html) and (2) all scales associated with each key (major and minor).

So I'm playing along with a song (let's say Dragon Attack by Queen -- great bass riff) and I start on a D. (The riff is D-C-A-C-D-F, D-C-A-C-D). Since I'm spending a lot of time on D, and the third is F (as opposed to F#), I'd say I'm in D minor. Confused? Learn a little more about scales and keys and it will start to make sense.

Originally Posted by DayoftheGreek

Now, when you change the key at the begining of the piece, its still all the same exact notes on the staff..... right? Well, why would it sound different, if its still the same notes?

Why is an A in say Bminor, any different than an A in DMajor?

It isn't -- it's the same note. And they may NOT be the same notes depending on the key you changed to. Say you switch from C major to A major, the F and C become F# and C#, different notes. But it also may sound different depending on what notes preceded and followed it. For example, A-C#-E-G is a A7 (major), but F-A-C is Fm. Sounds the same note, but overall it sounds different because of the context and sonority of the chords outlined.

[Silversorcerer]

Originally Posted by homercaholic

I guess i'll ask pretty much the same thing because I really have no idea and have tried to figure it out many times. What I want to know is how do you figure out what key a song is in? For any song your all over the fretboard but are you still in the same key? Take for example californiacation (song im currently trying to master), how do you know what key its in?

If you want you can explain it painstakingly slow because I truely am an idiot when it comes to this sort of thing

First let me challenge the normal thinking about keys and music;
Music is not in keys, keys are in music. One is a subset of the other, and a particular song is not a subset of a key, even if all the notes in the song are in only one key, that is just a coincidence, although it may be a frequent one.

Keys are just a kind of universally agreed upon way of talking about and writing down music, so like spelling is a convention for written language, keys are like the rules for written down music, and these are a structure for indicating relative pitch and harmonic intervals. It is the pattern of notes in a song and their relative intervals that determines the key.

In western music another convention is equal temperament. It is an approximation of harmonic relation, but it is not accurrate harmonically. We use it so instruments with different fundamental notes can play together. On a stringed instrument there is one fundamental pitch per string, so a stringed instrument is like several different instruments with several harmonic series, one per string. Frets are laid out in equal temperament intervals.

The common intervals in western music are half steps and whole steps. The whole step is derived from the harmonic ratio of 8:9, which means if the frequency of of one note is 40 Hz, the note one whole step up will be 45 Hz. In equal temperament the interval of the octave was defined to be 1:2 and then that interval was divided into 12 equal ratios (half-steps) so that each note is related to the one a half step above it by the 12th root of 2. If you take a frequency and multiply it by the 12th root of 2 12 times, you arrive at twice that frequency, or the octave. Multiplying a frequency by the 12th root of 2 twice is very close to the harmonic ratio of 8:9. Just harmony or untempered harmony uses absolute harmonically related intervals. Fretless instruments are capable of this.

Historically there were modes that were used and a single "scale" had several modes. The Ionian mode and Aeolian mode are what we now call the Major Key and the relative Minor Key. The Ionian mode consists of a pattern of notes in a series: fundamental, whole step (2nd), whole step (M3rd), half step (4th), whole step (5th), whole step (6th), whole step (M7th), half step (octave). Recognizing that pattern of steps within a composition places the composition in a Major key. If one starts with the (octave lower) 6th instead of the fundamental, the same notes (pitches and frequencies) will yield this pattern of steps (6th), whole step (M7th), half step (fundamental), whole step (2nd), whole step (M3rd), half step (4th), whole step (5th), whole step (6th an octave from the beginning), this is the Aeolian mode or relative minor of the same scale. There is a mode defined by every beginning point in that same scale The "Dark Star" mode often used by Jerry Garcia is the Mixolydian for example. Which note one starts on determines the mode or whether it is a Major or Minor key. So it is fluid. A minor runs right into C major or G Mixolydian.

Before you can thoroughly understand this, you must be thoroughly confused. I hope I have at least accomplished that. You do need key signatures, because sharps and flats result in 3 notes (different pitches) being assigned to only one line or space in the grand staff otherwise. Early on, the grand staff indicated true just harmony, so that Bb was not the same pitch as A#. If we had a grand staff that indicated equal temperament, we could just use twelve lines and spaces and everything would have a slot and we wouldn't need a key signature. But the fretless orchestra instruments still play in just harmony. To indicate the proper notes and pitches, one needs a key signature. The key signature tells you what note is the fundamental of the just harmonic series that the scale is based on.

If you play guitar there is an easy illustration of the failure of equal temperament on a fretted instrument. Try to tune the B string to both the major 3rd of the G string and the just harmonic 5th of the E string. It will never happen. Why? Because the M3rd of G (just harmony) is not the same pitch as the 5th of E. We try to make them the same note with frets, but the harmony is off. Fretless instruments can get over this difficulty.

A good book: Basic Materials in Music Theory, by Paul O. Harder. It presents these ideas sequentially in a more easily digested format. Yes, it is a thick book. No, there is no easier way to learn it, Yes, you do need to understand this to play at the most professional level, and the name "Harder" is totally appropriate. Good luck!

[thehamsterman]

what helps me in theory is to picture it on a keyboard. i'm not a keyboard player, but especially with the modes. you can go through the modes by playing on all the white keys. for instance, the ionian (major) mode is all the white keys starting on C, the aeolian (minor) is the white keys starting on A... i guess this requires a knowledge of scales and whatnot..

plus things sound cool when they're in phrygian mode.

[RiddimKing]

Days of the Greek and Homer,

One simple way of understanding the answer to your question is to think of the key as being a tonal center. The reason that the key of a song is often the same as the last note (or chord) played, is that that represents the natural resting or resolving place of the song. Once that tonal center is established in a song, we hear the notes a certain way (we may hear the same notes a different way in a song in a different key) and we expect certain notes to come at certain times. Change the key (tonal center), and you change the relationships of those intervals to the tonal center. This is independent of our knowledge of music or theory (theory explains all this, and allows us to apply it), and the reason that even a drunk in a bar can tell if a singer or guitarist has hit a sour note. I hope this helps.

[Silversorcerer]

Originally Posted by RiddimKing

Days of the Greek and Homer,
Change the key (tonal center), and you change the relationships of those intervals to the tonal center. This is independent of our knowledge of music or theory (theory explains all this, and allows us to apply it), and the reason that even a drunk in a bar can tell if a singer or guitarist has hit a sour note. I hope this helps.

Given that the drunk could hear the difference when he was sober... There's some who couldn't tell either way. Sometimes we call those people "drummmers" ....

[DocBop]

Try looking things up at Wikipedia it has lots of answers. Here is just a small piece of their explanation.....

A key signature is not the same as a key; key signatures are merely notational devices. They are convenient principally for diatonic or tonal music. Some pieces that change key (modulate) insert a new key signature on the staff partway, while others use accidentals: natural signs to "neutralize" the key signature and other sharps or flats for the new key.
For a given musical mode the key signature defines the diatonic scale that a piece of music uses. Most scales require that some notes be consistently sharpened or flattened. For example, in the key of G major, the leading-note is F sharp. So the key signature associated with G major is the one-sharp key signature. However, there is no causal connection; if you see a piece with a one-sharp key signature, you cannot be certain it is in G major. Many other factors determine the key of a piece. This is particularly true of minor keys. The famous "Dorian" Toccata and Fugue by Bach is so named because, although it is in D minor, there is no key signature, implying that it is in D Dorian. Instead, the B flats necessary for D minor are written as accidentals as and when necessary.
Two keys which share the same key signature are called relative keys.
When musical modes, such as Lydian or Dorian, are written using key signatures, they are called transposed modes.

[DayoftheGreek]

Originally Posted by Silversorcerer

Before you can thoroughly understand this, you must be thoroughly confused. I hope I have at least accomplished that. You do need key signatures, because sharps and flats result in 3 notes (different pitches) being assigned to only one line or space in the grand staff otherwise. Early on, the grand staff indicated true just harmony, so that Bb was not the same pitch as A#. If we had a grand staff that indicated equal temperament, we could just use twelve lines and spaces and everything would have a slot and we wouldn't need a key signature. But the fretless orchestra instruments still play in just harmony. To indicate the proper notes and pitches, one needs a key signature. The key signature tells you what note is the fundamental of the just harmonic series that the scale is based on.

Ok, after that post I am 100% confused. In a good way. However, I think I get it now.

So lets say I am looking a piece of music in D major. It has an F# and a C#. (I think...)

Thus, the piece of transcribed music will not indicate where the sharps are on the actually notes, but by placing the sharps right after the cleff, it implies that those notes are sharped through the rest of the song.

I always thought you just wrote the sharps right next to every note that they applied too.

Do I get it?

[seanm]

Originally Posted by DayoftheGreek

Ok, after that post I am 100% confused. In a good way. However, I think I get it now.

So lets say I am looking a piece of music in D major. It has an F# and a C#. (I think...)

Thus, the piece of transcribed music will not indicate where the sharps are on the actually notes, but by placing the sharps right after the cleff, it implies that those notes are sharped through the rest of the song.

I always thought you just wrote the sharps right next to every note that they applied too.

Do I get it?

Yes. The key signature saves you putting a # with most (if not all) the Cs when playing D. This helps the player in two ways: one, the music is less busy and two, notes that are sharp for that key show up better. So it really aids readable, once you know your keys.

[DayoftheGreek]

Holy crap I get it.

Thanks a lot guys, you have all helped me understand.

Now, for the next question. Lets say you would want to play a C natural in D major. Would that be written as a Cb on the staff? A flatted C# would be a C right? Or would you use the natural symbol? Does it make a difference?

[theshadow2001]

Now I can't read music but I believe that the if the key signature shows the C as a sharp. It's understood as always sharp unless you put a natural symbol on it. If you do that then its C natural. I believe its understood to be natural for the rest of the bar unless you stick a sharp back in front of it in which case its c sharp again.

Now im not 100% on that 1 so don't kill me if i'm wrong

[seanm]

Originally Posted by theshadow2001

Now I can't read music but I believe that the if the key signature shows the C as a sharp. It's understood as always sharp unless you put a natural symbol on it. If you do that then its C natural. I believe its understood to be natural for the rest of the bar unless you stick a sharp back in front of it in which case its c sharp again.

Now im not 100% on that 1 so don't kill me if i'm wrong

Yup, you use the natural sign. Shown below are sharp, flat, and natural.

[RiddimKing]

<<Given that the drunk could hear the difference when he was sober... There's some who couldn't tell either way. >>

Haha...my drummer gets steadier with each additional beer...