Writing songs to meet vocal abilities, using sharp or flat keys

[Robin, Wales]

I saw an interview with Adam Price on a history of the blues DVD. He said that the first time he met Muddy Waters he was the young session pianist at a studio in London. Muddy did a blues track in F# and Adam said it was a bit tricky as a session musician to lay down the blues piano part in one take in that key. A good few years later, when Adam had his own band, he met Muddy again on tour. Adam said he got chatting with Muddy and apologised for his playing when he was that young session musician. Muddy said to him "You should have told me that the key was difficult for you on piano; I'd have just moved my capo!"

[BoneDigger]

Thanks everyone! I do understand about capoing up or down to fit your singing voice and I do it all the time. I was just wondering if there is inherently anything considered less desirable by writing/playing/singing songs in a sharp/flat versus a standard note, as is Ab is less desirable than A, etc. I know it's strongly looked down upon in bluegrass circles due to more issues playing in those keys by banjos, mandolins, dulcimer, etc.

[Robin, Wales]

Originally Posted by BoneDigger

Thanks everyone! I do understand about capoing up or down to fit your singing voice and I do it all the time. I was just wondering if there is inherently anything considered less desirable by writing/playing/singing songs in a sharp/flat versus a standard note, as is Ab is less desirable than A, etc. I know it's strongly looked down upon in bluegrass circles due to more issues playing in those keys by banjos, mandolins, dulcimer, etc.

Good grief! Whoever told you that would never had got a slot in Bill Munroe's Blue Grass Boys. Bill would play a song on his mandolin in any key that suited his voice (and he wasn't strict about playing the same song in the same key every time) and the band members just had to keep up or get sacked! And I've been at plenty of bluegrass sessions here in the UK where a song's key has been a # or b. Like I said earlier, it is the singer who picks the key, the musicians are expected to keep up!

[loco gringo]

The key of B minor and the key of E flat major are 2 keys that to me really have a feel to them and set a mood. The below information is quoted from Wikipedia and other sources.



"In baroquetimes, B minor was regarded as the key of passive suffering. The theorist Christian Daniel Schubart regarded B minor as a key expressing a quiet acceptance of fate and very gentle complaint, something commentators find to be in line with Bach's use of the key in the St. John's Passion. By Beethoven's time, however, the perception of B minor had changed considerably: Francesco Galeazzi wrote that B minor was not suitable for music in good taste, and Beethoven labeled a B minor melodic idea in one of his sketchbooks as a "black key"."





"The key of E-flat major is often associated with bold, heroic music, in part because of Beethoven's usage. His Eroica Symphony, Emperor Concerto and Grand Sonata are all in this key. Beethoven's (hypothetical) 10th symphony is also in the key of E-flat major. But even before Beethoven, Francesco Galeazzi identified E-flat major as "a heroic key, extremely majestic, grave and serious: in all these features it is superior to that of C."[1]

Three of Mozart's completed horn concertos and Joseph Haydn's Trumpet Concerto are in E-flat major and so is Anton Bruckner's Fourth Symphony with its prominent horn theme in the first movement. Another notable heroic piece in the key of E-flat major is Richard Strauss's A Hero's Life. The heroic theme from the Jupiter movement of Holst's The Planets is in E-flat major. Mahler's vast and heroic Eighth Symphony is in E-flat and his Second Symphony also ends in the key.

However, in the Classical period, E-flat major was not limited to solely bombastic brass music. "E-flat was the key Haydn chose most often for [string] quartets, ten times in all, and in every other case he wrote the slow movement in the dominant, B-flat."[2] Or "when composing church music and operatic music in E-flat major, [Joseph] Haydn often substituted cors anglais for oboes in this period", and also in the Symphony No. 22 in E-flat major.[3]

For Mozart, E-flat major was associated with Freemasonry; "E-flat evoked stateliness and an almost religious character."[4]

Elgar wrote his Variation IX "Nimrod" from the Enigma Variations in E-flat major. Its strong, yet vulnerable character has led the piece to become a staple at funerals, especially in Great Britain.

Shostakovich used the E-flat major scale to sarcastically evoke military glory in his Symphony No. 9 .[5] "

[Robin, Wales]

The key of B minor and the key of E flat major are 2 keys that to me really have a feel to them and set a mood. The below information is quoted from Wikipedia and other sources.

Oh dear! I can see a rabbit hole opening that I'm quickly being sucked into when I should be doing house repair jobs!

I do wonder if the "feel of a key" theories can miss the pragmatic? I'm no music expert, and I'm not trained in music, and have not studied music formally. So my comments are those of an outside observer.

Concert pitch, in Hertz, changes. At present it is generally standardized at A4=440Hz. But it has varied to levels like 415Hz in the Baroque, 380Hz in English churches in the 1700s, 457Hz in the USA during the Civil War era etc etc. That's well over a full tone sound in difference. So, at various times and in various locations the key of Bm we hear today would have sounded like Bbm in some locations/times and Cm in other locations/times. The composers mentioned in the Wiki examples in the above post would have each had different sounding Bm and Eb keys.

I wonder if there are a few more pragmatic reason for witting in those keys alongside evoking a "feel" to the piece? For example: Bm is the relative minor for the key of D. A lot of older folk derived instruments are based around the key of D, so Bm actually "falls to the fingers" on those instruments. Bm also falls in the middle of the treble clef and is written as the key of D, so it is familiar reading for musicians and a plagal tune could well have fewer ledger lines. Natural horns are made pitched in Eb, so if you were writing a "heroic" piece of music that featured horns, well, you'd write it in Eb. In fact, I can't think of an instrument, except a keyboard, that is built with C being the most obvious key?

I am a music philistine, but if I was to study this "feel of the key" phenomena in classical music then I think I would look for the pragmatic reasoning first and the esoteric reasoning second.

Coming back to the guitar, I see a similar thing with bluegrass flatpicking. The sound of bluegrass guitar, its rhythms, voicing and the augmentations that define the music are based around the "cowboy" chord shapes using the nut or capo as a backstop to the open strings. There are a lot of short chord forms, double stops, hammer-ons and pull-offs from or back to the nut or capo. That's the style of playing and the timbre of the music. Now look at the instrument that style was developed on. Dreadnaught guitars with large belly prone tops, with "medium" gauge strings and non-adjustable truss rods, and no humidity control for the instruments - played standing up in a string band setting. I would say that it was those pragmatic constraints that led bluegrass guitar music down the path it took - and that path then became the "sound" of bluegrass guitar.

I've probably not explained it that well, but hopefully you get my drift.

[Silly Moustache]

Regarding Robin's concerns about the rabbit hole of the quality of different keys, there was a wondrous BBC radio series called "Key Matters" where they investigate each key and its general emotional aspects.
It is fascinating.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00...s/Musical_keys
NOTE: This may require registering with the BBC website and, of course, paying your radio/TV licence!

[Robin, Wales]

Thanks for the link Andy,

I have just listened to the Key Matters Bm programme over a coffee. And I can't believe that differences in concert pitch came up, as I mentioned above. Also, the pragmatic aspects of key regarding the instrumentation (human voice in this case). And the use of Bm as the relative minor of D. There you go - I should have been a genius.

However, my wife says that I'm a "lighthouse in the desert". i.e. very bright but of no use whatsoever to shipping!!!!!

[loco gringo]

My attraction to B minor and Eb major didn't come as a result of knowing that they were historically used for certain emotional responses. In fact, the opposite occurred. I found that I really liked songs that were in those keys, so I went looking for information about keys and emotion. I am going to listen to the BBC programs that Andy posted later. I find this subject very interesting.

Robin, your point about concert pitch changing is one I thought about, too. I don't know the answer to that question. I wonder about the possibility of it being intervallic more than pure tone based? I'm out on a limb here, for sure. Is it possible that the interval of those keys from our "tonal center" is the cause? This idea (I hesitate to call it a theory) would suggest that whatever combined aural/neural mechanism that causes the reaction is "calibrated" over time to some sort of tonal center. In my life time, I have only known 440. I was calibrated to it from listening to music from the time I was in the crib, then singing at a very early age, and then from playing instruments starting at 11 or 12 years of age. If I had been born and lived during a time when 380 was used, would I have developed a tonic center based on that tuning, and if so, would the intervallic relationship of these keys trigger the same response?

I think it is a subject that encompasses a number of science disciplines. Could it have to do with certain neural "wirings"? Is it a combination of physical/biological and psychological? Do people with perfect pitch perceive it differently than those with less than perfect pitch? What about tone deafness?

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Silly Moustache

Regarding Robin's concerns about the rabbit hole of the quality of different keys, there was a wondrous BBC radio series called "Key Matters" where they investigate each key and its general emotional aspects.
It is fascinating.

Yes, fascinating stuff - especially because it's all total BS in the end!

Whatever emotional connotations someone might attach to one key (and many classical composers certainly did believe all that stuff, or at least pretended to), it's pretty easy to (a) produce a piece in that key with quite different connotations, and (b) produce a piece with the same connotations in a different key.

The only real differences between keys (and they are real ones) are to do with instrumental range, ease of playing, and certain other timbral characteristics to do with acoustic instrument design (their different shapes and sizes, basically). And of course, any "emotional" effects connected with those practical differences will vary from instrument to instrument, and from player to player even on the same instrument.

Of course, people with perfect pitch, or synaesthesia, may attach their own emotional associations to specific keys, but they will be subjective too.

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by JonPR

Yes, fascinating stuff - especially because it's all total BS in the end!

You're like a musical Ayn Rand.

[loco gringo]

I guess I forgot where I was. Let me start over.

What strings are best for playing in the key of B minor? The ones I'm using hurt my fingers when I play a B minor chord.

[wguitar]

I generally prefer not to use a capo, so when I transpose songs to better match my vocal abilities I find myself learning new chords. It has really expanded my musical horizons, made me a better guitar player, and allows me to play and sing songs that I had previously avoided due to the key and certain chords. Flats and sharps are a key part of music.

All the best !

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by loco gringo

What strings are best for playing in the key of B minor? The ones I'm using hurt my fingers when I play a B minor chord.

The ones on the guitar in the other guy's lap. :-)

[Robin, Wales]

Originally Posted by JonPR

Yes, fascinating stuff - especially because it's all total BS in the end!

Whatever emotional connotations someone might attach to one key (and many classical composers certainly did believe all that stuff, or at least pretended to), it's pretty easy to (a) produce a piece in that key with quite different connotations, and (b) produce a piece with the same connotations in a different key.

The only real differences between keys (and they are real ones) are to do with instrumental range, ease of playing, and certain other timbral characteristics to do with acoustic instrument design (their different shapes and sizes, basically). And of course, any "emotional" effects connected with those practical differences will vary from instrument to instrument, and from player to player even on the same instrument.

Of course, people with perfect pitch, or synaesthesia, may attach their own emotional associations to specific keys, but they will be subjective too.

Yes it is subjective - that's the whole point! It's art. And it is quite valid to be subjective. Those BBC programmes cover both the subjectivity of the topic and the pragmatic limitations of instrumentation in the selection of keys. And you are hearing the insights of top composers, conductors and musicians of western classical music.

Originally Posted by loco gringo

I guess I forgot where I was. Let me start over.

What strings are best for playing in the key of B minor? The ones I'm using hurt my fingers when I play a B minor chord.

Well, I enjoyed your rabbit hole. I've just been playing around with that shift from Bm to Gmaj and fell in to Ride On. Then Bm to Amaj and fell into The Blackest Crow (which is a modal conundrum if ever there was one!).

BTW - I used a capo on the 2nd fret to play Bm - it saves the fingers

[jazzereh]

Originally Posted by JonPR

Yes, because either (a) it was best for his singing range, and/or (b) F was easier for the horn section in the arrangement, and Frank (who had a range which could easily accommodate that range in a few different keys) was fine with that.

The original (little known) Perry Ribiero recording (1962) was in G.

Joao Gilberto - on the more famous "original" (1964) - sang it in Db; moving to D some years later (in a live version).

Jobim himself sang it (and played it on piano) in F. (And played it on guitar in F when he accompanied Frank, of course.)

There's a whole myth (cultural habits) about the choice of key for that tune: https://youtu.be/OFWCbGzxofU?t=394

In brief, it's not so much that "Frank did that in F for a reason" - it's that most people since then do it in F because Frank did. (They don't care why Frank might have chosen F, it's just become the traditional key (in US jazz covers) because of that.)

Thanks for this ^ JonPR, I was going to respond but you did a great job here. Has always bugged me that people seem to think that certain tunes have to be done in certain keys. Use the key that works for YOU.

And to the OP, write a tune in whatever key works best for the feel of the tune you are writing. Secondly, the key that works for your voice.