Is there any legit reasons why only playing in one key on every song is a bad idea?

one of my favourites is this one...

Eb minor:
"Horrible, frightful" (Charpentier, 1692)
"Feelings of the anxiety of the soul's deepest distress, of brooding despair, of blackest depression, of the most gloomy condition of the soul. Every fear, every hesitation of the shuddering heart, breathes out of horrible Eb minor. If ghosts could speak, their speech would approximate this key" (Schubart, 1784)

Black Sabbath...tuned down a half step from necessity and stumbled on the perfect key for all their songs :)
 
I think one or two key changes are about my limit before it begins to feel too jarring. The consistency and predictability of one key just feels better.
 
A very interesting read, simeon! I wonder if there is some kind of synaesthetic link in the observations of the authors.
 
Strumzilla said:
I think one or two key changes are about my limit before it begins to feel too jarring. The consistency and predictability of one key just feels better.
Click to expand...

depends how it's done though. Penny Lane has 11 key changes. rather than creating "jarring" jumps from one key to another, McCartney uses them to subtly change the mood in line with the lyrical content.
 
guitarmanUK said:
I think what the OP is getting at is whether all the songs or tunes in a set should be written in the same key, such as E, not if they modulate to a different key mid way or use modes.

Personally I think that would be very bad from a playing perspective, as has already been mentioned, but also not good for the listener. Imagine a blues band playing everything in A, all the songs would start to meld into one after a while. You have to mix things up to keep the listener's attention.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's what I meant, to never compose any songs in any key other than E or E flat.
 
I do think it's a good idea to have a dramatic change of some sorts though within a song, whether it be a different key or tempo, especially after the second chorus before the 3rd chorus, because after you do the 1st two chourses the listener knows what's coming and they are getting bored, but play something different from the rest of the song, and then they forget about the chorus for a minute, and then when you take them back to the chorus the 3rd time they are excited to hear that familiar territory again. Enter Sandman is a good example of that technique.

But I meant in my original post to always write all instrumentals in E or E flat.
I mean when you are in E, but then play the harmonic minor in A, it's really the Phyrigian, so that's sort of like going from E to A within a song, but I just see as it going to a mode.

But, just seems like a waste of time/energy to master all the scales & modes and arpeggio patterns and sequences etc in every key, when it seems like E or E flat is most often used for shred instrumentals.

I guess kinda like how C seems really popular for Piano.

I mean I know it's only a matter of moving the shapes down another fret to go from key of E to F, but still, I'm just trying to think in terms of being the most efficient as a guitarist/composer.

You know kinda like the train of thought, not much use in mastering all the Jazz chords if you are a shred head, yeah sure maybe you could throw a few in there to be unique somehow, but really that time could be better spent truly mastering something that you could use 99% of the time.

I'm looking at it in terms of not being a well rounded musician, but instead being a true Master at a very small niche style of playing/composing.

Basically, Yngwie Malmsteen of course.

And I haven't analyzed all of his songs, but I'm curious to how many of his songs are not in A or E. (yeah I know A flat or E flat because he tunes down.)

But just as a few have already pointed out, to always write every song only in a specific key of E and no songs in other keys, can start sounding similar, and I have read many people write that Yngwies music starts all sounding like the same song over and over after awhile.

I think Yngwie mostly plays in the key of E, maybe also A sometimes unless I am wrong.

But people like Vai probably utilize every key often, and maybe that's why all of Vai's songs each sound so different from each other.

But at the end of the day, I am aiming more for the Malmsteen approach, whatever he is doing, more so than anything else.
 
like anything else, it's another tool in the toolbox. learning how to use key changes in a creative manner is important. effective songwriting can involve manipulating the listeners expectations and also more subtly manipulating the listener's experience of different sections within a song.

we're actually discussing two different topics here...using different keys as the basis for composing and key changes within compositions
 
Yngwiemalmsteen said:
Yeah that's what I meant, to never compose any songs in any key other than E or E flat.
Click to expand...

So let's play Hotel California, Stairway to heaven, The Pretender, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Ace of Spades, Slow Blues in C, Red House, Whiskey in the jar, etc. etc. etc. in E.
Forever. Every song in E. Brilliant plan. Let's do it.
 
BigD1977 said:
I think the op is on about changing tonal centre rather than the key.

This goes back to how we perceive music. A lot of the time playing with the same tonal centre can bore people especially over the course of a whole album. Also, the same line sounds different to me when it has a different tonal centre and this is part of the reason why Tommy Emmanuel uses a capo for some instrumentals. "Lewis and Clark" sounds a lot sweeter in F# than it does in E, and Mark Knopfler's "Marbletown" is muddy in D rather than G.

So I say that differing tonal centres are not just advantageous, but are extremely necessary to bring out the best in music, especially for instrumentals.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I was asking about.
That's the sort of information/opinions I am looking for.

So I guess it's interesting as to why one key would sound sweeter than another?

I've usually thought of changing key as just changing pitch lower or higher,

But in this perfect pitch course I had a long time ago, the person said each note sorta has it's own personality, like something is distinct from a E note vs a B note etc, something more than just a higher or lower pitch, that they each have some other distinction as well that makes them unique.

I know that each of the Modes have different personalities, that's easy to hear. But I've never thought that playing a song in a different key would totally change it's personality, just thought it'd sound higher or lower pitched.

I've always thought modes & keys are two totally different things, unless I'm wrong on that.

However, I know that Chopin a classical pianist for example wrote many of his instrumentals in different keys, and perhaps that's the main reason why his songs sound so distinct from each other, because his style sounds so similar on many songs but yet they sound different, I'm thinking the different key may have the most influence on the reason why they sound different.
 
yek said:
So let's play Hotel California, Stairway to heaven, The Pretender, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Ace of Spades, Slow Blues in C, Red House, Whiskey in the jar, etc. etc. etc. in E.
Forever. Every song in E. Brilliant plan. Let's do it.
Click to expand...

Well, that wouldn't work well with those songs, I think mostly because they have singers.

And also they are not the neoclassical shred instrumental style I'm asking this question in regards of.
 
Yngwiemalmsteen said:
However, I know that Chopin a classical pianist for example wrote many of his instrumentals in different keys, and perhaps that's the main reason why his songs sound so distinct from each other
Click to expand...

Using different melodies and chords and tempos also may have contributed. ;-)
 
As Yek mentioned...........keys and chords definitely create different moods, we all know the easy example-diminished chords create tension\excitement\apprehension when used for that purpose. They build to a climax.

I have always been the guitar player in my bands of the past but I also was the lead male vocal in most all of them.

singing in different keys certainly gives me much more freedom and avenues for expression.

One key IMHO is not allowing music to blossom to it's full potential ...............different keys create different moods. Plain and simple.
 
I guess I prefer dark and sad moods.

But you can play Aeolian Minor and Harmonic Minor or Phrygian in any key and they still sound sad and dark.

So is there particular "keys" these modes of the minor scale will sound saddest in???

It almost seems like we are getting to a point of Spinal Tap where what was it, D was what Nigel said was the saddest? :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: yek
A great tool for modulation:

http://dt7v1i9vyp3mf.cloudfront.net/styles/news_large/s3/imagelibrary/m/music_04a.jpg?itok=SZqbucwK

Modes and keys..... therein lies a huge discussion and much of it is based on subjective opinion on perception and mood. I tend to think more in terms of mood, which is also affected by a lot of other factors. For instance, major keys can sound incredibly melancholy.

It's down to the nature of music theory. Like any theory, it exists to explain an actuality and predict. Therefore the actuality comes first. For instance I always think of Sympathy For The Devil in E Mixolydian rather than the more popular E major.
 
I did that perfect pitch course way back too... I remember that Eb was the "smoothest" note, and F# the "edgiest" ... each tone has it's own feeling or personality. I guess that could be compared to colors... "warm" red and orange, "bright" yellow, "cool" green and blue. Can't say I ever really learned perfect pitch, but I get his point.

And besides, who can argue with the maxim that Dm is the saddest of all keys?

On another note, my band recently put a couple of setlists together, and then we realized we had 4 songs in a row in C. And they're all kind of amorphous jammy Meters-type songs where unless you know the songs/main melody line you don't really recognize one from the next, so to the audience it might just sound like one 20+ minute jam. Decided we'd better re-do the setlist ;-)
 
simeon said:
and different keys actually sound different. Eb is quite "dark" and B is quite "bright", for example
Click to expand...

I think this has merit.

Western music is based on 12 tones .. each tone being approximately 6% higher in pitch than the preceding one. A Major key uses 7 of those tones with a prescribed set of frequency jumps (W W H W W W H) to reach the octave tone which is 2x the frequency of the starting tone.

So even though the % jumps in playing a melody or tune in a given key is the same as the % jumps in any other key, the actual frequency jumps will be different depending on the key and I think this is what may give each key its own unique flavor. For example, playing octaves of A will hit the frequencies 440, 880, 1760, 3520 ... . Each A is 100% higher than the previous A but the frequency spreads are 440, 880, 1760. If this sequence would start on a different note than A, the % jumps would be the same but the actual frequency jumps would be different and will affect us differently.

The same is true of the modes of a given key. Each mode of a key uses exactly the same notes (frequencies) as any other mode of that key, but the way they are arranged - i.e. the specific frequency jumps from note to note - gives each mode a unique flavor. The formation of "chords" based upon a key brings in even more complexity that would be also dependent on frequency differences and not just percentages. Playing 1,3,5 together in A brings in a different set of frequencies and interactions than playing 1,3,5 in Eb.

The OP's question is an interesting one and I should add that the above "explanation" is basically a conjecture/guess on my part and there may be better explanations out there.
 
Last edited:
Using pitch axis theory you could sonically sample all of the mode flavors available in the key of E easily and compose, but I would definitely use different keys if recording an entire album for contrast. Also different keys force you to use varied fingering styles for the same things which completely change the way they sound.
 
My advice would be that you do YOU think sounds good, while always making sure you are expanding as a listener.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom