No key?

Heyja.

Is it possible to write a song that is not in any key?
And if I do some picking that sounds good, how can I figure out the key of it?

I suppose you could WRITE a song in 'no key' however, when you share it with others it will be in some kind of key, esp if it has a consistency to it. There are some songs that change keys frequently (like the first part of Dance, Dance, Dance by the Beach Boys).

If you find a nice melody to pick, play it for a musician and they will let you know what key it's in.

In the end, random notes without a 'key' to hold it together will probably sound very dissonant and may not be very pleasing.

Not knowing the key you may be playing in and playing in 'no key' are very different things. You're probably actually composing
your song in a key whether you know what it is or not. Again, play, sing, hum, pick it out for a musician and let them tell you
what key it's in.

keep uke'in',

All songs are going to be in a key - "no key" would mean just throwing together any chords and/or any notes, which wouldn't sound pleasant

All right, ya guys, thanks! But how do I find out in which key this picking of mine is?

What notes are in it?

Actually, it is possible to have music that is in no key. It's called "atonal" music, and a lot of early 20th-century composers, in particular, tackled the idea.

And yes, it can sound pretty weird if you're not used to it. Check out this little Schoenberg ditty, for example.

Then again, musical history has shown time and time again that "sounds weird" often becomes normal after awhile. If you were to play "Take the A-Train" for someone from Bach's day, they'd probably think you'd completely lost your mind.

JJ

If you can 'hold' the melody in your head and work out some background chording,
you'll probably figure out what key you're in.

Play the melody in the presence of a ukulele player or guitar player and perhaps they
can help you identify the key. You may need some assistance.

Keep uke'in',

Ask Frank Zappa

i like schoenberg's music. when i was in my 4th semester of music theory in college, we had to write 12 tone (like schoenberg) and aleatory music. this was my favorite semester of music theory because those are the most fun to write. everything else felt too structured and i hated being graded on the rules. with 12 tone, you still have some rules (like you can't use a note twice before you've used all 12 notes in the chromatic scale), but it's not as bad as trying to make sure that you're not doubling the wrong notes and making sure there's no similar motion, etc, etc.

Markwell said:

All songs are going to be in a key - "no key" would mean just throwing together any chords and/or any notes, which wouldn't sound pleasant

Click to expand...

not necessarily, read my response above. in 12 tone, you can do different combinations of notes to make chords and it sounds good, but it's not in any particular key.

Thanks so much, everyone. I took a look at the scales and found out that this picking of mine was in C.

Cheers!