Song key - Just Wow!

AndieZ

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bQouq9a_CA

This is brilliant. Ok, he went a bit fast one writing out the scale but the first part on how to find they key of a song - well it works. And that was the question i asked yesterday. I had no idea it could be this easy.

In both examples he shows here, I got it straight away. So i know i can be confident that I can do this every time.

As to working out the rest of it, i know I will have to work a little more but this is just fantastic for me. And it may be good for others too so I decided to share it.
 
Thanks Andie! Very interesting and useful. It works for me too.
 
He's right that the note you intuitively pick is likely to be the first (tonic), third or fifth of the key, but that still leaves you with four choices and the mode to determine.

Yes ok. He's wrong and i didn't get it how he got from the tonic note to choosing the minor key either but the fact of finding the tonic note and what it means is still pretty amazing to me.

Can you explain in an easy way, how to get from the tonic note to determining the right mode of the key? I would say that 99% of what you write above went right over my head though others here may have fared much better. If you have the answer, could you please try to make it ultra simple for the likes of me and if not, then others may benefit anyway.

I mean, is there a simple answer? At this stage, a complex type of answer such as the above is completely wasted on me. :)
 
I dunno - this is hard for me to accept.

such claims of shortcuts seems like snake oil
 
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Just one problem: he has it wrong on the first song. He says D minor, when it actually switches between G Dorian and Bb major (technically, Bb Lydian). His D is the fifth of G minor/Dorian, and the fifth is frequently used as a drone note because it fits with both the I and V chord (the tonic only fits with the I, IV and VI chords)—also, the fifth fits the III chord, which is prominent in this song. He's right that the note you intuitively pick is likely to be the first (tonic), third or fifth of the key, but that still leaves you with four choices and the mode to determine. Why four? Because the third could be either major (four semitones above the tonic) or minor (three semitones above the tonic), depending on the mode of the piece.

The scale as I hear it runs G A Bb C D E F G: G Dorian. (Dorian mode is like minor mode except that the sixth note is a half step higher, as in a major scale.) This same set of notes matches Bb Lydian and D minor (relative modes). So it's not surprising that he fixes on D minor as the key, as it's familiar to his limited way of viewing keys (they're just major or minor—or blues—right? Wrong.)

The piece begins on the tonic chord, G minor, and the chord sequence, repeated over and over and clearly heard in the bass, has the following roots: G Bb D C Bb—I III V IV III in G minor, with the first three tracing the G minor chord. The singer and accompaniment begin with a very clear G minor chord—she starts on the root and drops to the fifth. In fact, throughout, she's basically singing notes in the Gm7 chord—remember, this is trance music, which tends to be minimalistic. And although she does end on a D, the chord underneath her is Bb (major), of which D is the third. Given how protracted this chord is, there's a tonality change here to Bb major (technically Lydian)—songs often do this kind of tonality shift between relative modes, and it can be hard to pinpoint just where the shift occurs because the piece usually sticks with the same set of notes and same set of chords in common. In fact, you could view the entire progression from the standpoint of Bb Lydian: IV I III II I. But I think it's more correct to view this as a modally ambiguous song that flips tonality between the two relative modes. What is pretty clear, however, is that the tonality (key) is not D minor, even if the scale pitches happen to conform to D minor, too.

He's also wrong about 90% of (modern) songs being in minor mode. Major mode (and its close variant, Mixolydian mode) dominate most pop music. Lydian isn't a common mode, but Dorian is used more frequently than people realize. Minor mode may dominate the genres of music he listens to, but that's another story.

For me, this post is a perfect example illustrating the phrase, "ignorance is bliss". My eyes were crossing by the 2nd sentence. If this is what was going through my head every time I listened to or played music, I don't think I could enjoy it anymore. Viva la ignorance! :D
 
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For me, this post is a perfect example illustrating the phrase, "ignorance is bliss". My eyes were crossing by the 2nd sentence. If this is what was going through my head every time I listened to or played music, I don't think I could enjoy it anymore. Viva la ignorance! :D

I think you can enjoy music just fine even if you have all the theoretical knowledge like Ubulele does. :) I only speculate here, but I believe it may be similar to what happens when I read short stories and novels, especially translations, where part of my brain analyzes the structure and how the author constructed the individual parts (characters, plots, scenes, etc.), or, if it's a translation, what the original phrases and expressions were, but it doesn't take away from the enjoyment. In a way, it deepens the appreciation because it adds another dimension.
 
I dunno - this is hard for me to accept.

such claims of shortcuts seems like snake oil

I typically use my official Factaculator PitchTastic Machine and it works fine. got it in a cereal box when I was a wee one, hasn't failed me yet. :)

Did you try it? Open the link and start doing it with him. You have time to hum the note before he does. Then finding that note on the piano is easy. It's the tonic note. That much is very nice and since i did it twice perfectly, I was convinced by it.

After that it seems to get more complicated but i think just finding the tonic note and now understanding what significance that is, for me, is a major advance on my knowledge.
 
I think you can enjoy music just fine even if you have all the theoretical knowledge like Ubulele does. :) I only speculate here, but I believe it may be similar to what happens when I read short stories and novels, especially translations, where part of my brain analyzes the structure and how the author constructed the individual parts (characters, plots, scenes, etc.), or, if it's a translation, what the original phrases and expressions were, but it doesn't take away from the enjoyment. In a way, it deepens the appreciation because it adds another dimension.

I agree iwth you Mivo. If this is your sort of thing, then its not going to reduce your enjoyment. But for the rest of us who may not yet share such a deep understanding of music theory, it might not be so much fun.

But my example of this is when looking at art, I like to look how a picture (photo, painting, whatever) to see how it's mounted, framed, and put together and likewise for other aspects of the construction of art. People who never studied art are not likely to look at an art work in the same way. Even though I am not a painter, having learnt a little bit about it, i do love to study the paint up close. Its a lot more than a mere picture to art students. Artists like to know how a work is made, writers, how a book is written, musicians how a composition is ... um, er, well, you know, composed.
 
I think you can enjoy music just fine even if you have all the theoretical knowledge like Ubulele does. :) I only speculate here, but I believe it may be similar to what happens when I read short stories and novels, especially translations, where part of my brain analyzes the structure and how the author constructed the individual parts (characters, plots, scenes, etc.), or, if it's a translation, what the original phrases and expressions were, but it doesn't take away from the enjoyment. In a way, it deepens the appreciation because it adds another dimension.

I don't know, I experience and enjoy music on a visceral level not an analytical one. It makes me think of a story Prince told of a time he was at a performance of some kind and sitting next to Esperanza Spaulding. After listening to the music for a while one turned to the other and asked if they were rearranging the song in their head and the other admitted that were too. I wouldn't like that. I'd rather accept or reject something musically based on how it moved me in some way. A rudimentary understanding of certain aspects of music theory is handy in figuring some things out but I don't think I'd ever want to go beyond that.
 
You peeps can't even imagine how much you are making ubulele's blood boil. He/she lives and breathes music theory and loves to expound about it.

I'm not sure what you wanna know, AndieZ, but maybe I can help. I'm sure ubulele has the answer though. :eek:ld:
 
I don't know, I experience and enjoy music on a visceral level not an analytical one. It makes me think of a story Prince told of a time he was at a performance of some kind and sitting next to Esperanza Spaulding. After listening to the music for a while one turned to the other and asked if they were rearranging the song in their head and the other admitted that were too. I wouldn't like that. I'd rather accept or reject something musically based on how it moved me in some way. A rudimentary understanding of certain aspects of music theory is handy in figuring some things out but I don't think I'd ever want to go beyond that.
The problem is that most times there is no easy explanation. I try to get by with just what I need to know to do what I'm doing, but it always seems to me that as soon as I think that I have a rudimentary understanding of some aspect of music, if realize that I have no real understanding of it at all. It is hard to be rudimentary when everything runs so deep, and my understanding runs so shallow. Music is complicated, and a lot of times there isn't an easy answer.
 
I wonder though, when I hear a song and I want to play it, what does it matter to me what key they are doing it in?
 
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Dick, I almost cannot remember what my original question about keys was because of the diversions above. But I am sure the question will come up for me again and again. And eventually I will find the answer. It probably had something to do with figuring out the key of a song by some means or other for some reason or other. But...

Did you ever see the Life of Brian? Please don't ban me but you really must watch this one more time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K8_jgiNqUc
 
I wonder though, when I hear a song and I want to play it, what does it matter to me what key they are doing it in?

There seem to be some advantages. If you know the key, its easier to find out the chords. If you want to change the key of the song so that its easier to play or sing or whatever, then knowing the key its in to begin with will make it easier to find a more suitable key and thus the chords. I'm almost ahead of myself here but I this is what i seem to finding out.

Often enough you look up the chords for a song and they are either wrong or wrong for you so you see to be able to have the flexibility of changing keys easily sounds like a good idea.

Otherwise how do you normally go about figuring out how to play it a song that you hear if you don't have the chords for it?
 
There seem to be some advantages. If you know the key, its easier to find out the chords. If you want to change the key of the song so that its easier to play or sing or whatever, then knowing the key its in to begin with will make it easier to find a more suitable key and thus the chords. I'm almost ahead of myself here but I this is what i seem to finding out.

Often enough you look up the chords for a song and they are either wrong or wrong for you so you see to be able to have the flexibility of changing keys easily sounds like a good idea.

Otherwise how do you normally go about figuring out how to play it a song that you hear if you don't have the chords for it?
The first thing that I do is try to recognize a chord progression, keeping in mind that there might be a combination of them in a song. Then, when I think that I have at least some of the progression figured out, I'll play that in a key that I'm familiar with to see if I can pin down some of the twists and turns that don't quite fit into it. Most of the time that works for me. That's sort of a simplified explanation.
 
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There are two approaches to this problem. Either simply just play the TAB like many of the other UUers do, or buy a "Theories for Dummies" and learn what you wanna know.

If you pick a TABBED tune with the chords of C, F, Am and G7, it's in the key of C. If it's too low for you to sing, either whistle or find a different tune. Tunes with the chords of F, Bb (Ugh!), Dm and C7 are in the key of F and pitched higher. G has the chords of G, C, Em and D7 and is a bit higher then F. So, learn these and get down with your bad selves . . .

If you really wanna learn theory, figure what ubulele's talking about, or go to the library and check out a Therory book. :eek:ld:
 
Many times ubulele slides in, says something, then slides back out. Anybody catch his/her post besides me?

Sorta like a pop-up . . . :eek:ld:
 
I appreciate your posts, even if I admittedly only understand a fraction of the theoretical excursions. But it stimulates interest and I pick up bits and pieces. In that sense, yes, I'm a swine who can't fully appreciate the pearls, but I nevertheless do recognize them as pearls and the effort that went into producing them. I'm confident that many others feel the same way, and your effort is not wasted, even if few people here might have the knowledge to fully appreciate the conveyed explanations.
 
Yes, because it's clear that I'm casting pearls before swine, and the swine prefer the sound of their own snorts to articulated reason. The only people who think ignorance is bliss are the ignorant; the rest of us know that informed bliss is richer, more rewarding and more productive. How many aspects of music do people fail to appreciate because they're only able to hear the big picture or most overt features, without catching subtler movements and nuances? In contrast, those who have studied music can see not only the forest but the trees, branches, leaves and soil, and we find appreciation imbued with wonder at every level. Music doesn't have to slap us in the face to make an impression or sense.

Ignorance is not bliss; ignorance is obtuse, oblivious, superficial. It is no virtue. For example, even after my exposition, zztush's analysis ignored the pivotal bass, and so the chords in that analysis were completely wrong. I also explained why the original process was more likely to fix on the fifth of the scale rather than the tonic; AndieZ and zztush still insisted they were hearing the tonic because they bought into the superficial reasoning in the video. I remove my posts because if you're all so adamant that ignorance is better, you shall have ignorance.

I sorta agree with you, ubulele. I love to learn what I love to learn about music, and I've been doing it for 70 years now. But if I read something that's long and drawn out and that doesn't fit my needs, I just pass it by. Knowing theory doesn't necessarily make one a fun, interesting, satisfied musician. Some of us just wanna know how to play a tune or sing a song.

Some of the UUers are interested in what you're selling, and some are not, as you said. And that's life. Some of us just wanna enjoy our music and share that enjoyment with others.

Being pedantic and confusing and overly thorough is probably not gonna teach anyone anything. We all mostly have to learn the basics before we can delve deeply into theory. When one is trying to find out what key he/she is playing in, or what key they need to play so they can sing, they don't need info on the Dorian mode or any of the other modes or progressions. They just wanna play, and sing and have a good time with music, and they really just wanted to learn enough to do that.

Learning is the best part of my music, and it's probably why I play so many different instruments. A good teacher will teach what his/her students wanna learn, or at least make the other stuff interesting. Maybe doing it the other way is what turns so many musicians off to music theory.

Well, anyhow, ubulele, it's very nice of you to attempt to share your vast music knowledge with us--thanks. :eek:ld:
 
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