# Need Help.



## JesseCJ (May 3, 2012)

Hi all.
I just have a few questions I would like to know.
I have been playing music for a fair time now, but I do not understand why different music are played in different keys.
I understand what the different keys are and what not, but I do not understand why songs are played in them. Like is a specific key for specific genre? 
Also, for example, why does the scale F major, have only a B flat? I mean, if the scale is called F major, should it not have an F sharp/flat? So why is it called F major?

Thank you for your time everybody.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

The history of keys is a long and complex one, but I can give a couple of summary points targeted to your questions.

First of all, the key a piece of music is played in _used to be_ largely dependent on what instruments were being used. Back before valves were invented for brass instruments, for example, they had a very limited capacity to play in different scales, therefore a particular key had to be selected bearing in mind the capabilities of the instrument. Nowadays, this isn't such an important consideration, as most instruments are capable of playing in any key, and to all but those with perfect pitch, they sound the same. Some instruments, such as string instruments (violin, cello, etc.), may sound better in keys with sharps, as this provides the opportunity to play open-string for greater resonance, but these are minor, technical considerations. A more common reason to choose a particular key for a piece is when you're accompanying a singer, as singers have particular ranges and therefore must sing a piece in a key that is suitable to their range. Otherwise, many pieces are simply written in whatever key the musical idea first comes to the composer in.

With regards to the namings of keys, equal temperament was developed so that the chromatic scale had 12 tones with their frequencies all equally spaced (i.e., the distance of a semi-tone is the same between each note), as this creates a system that lends itself extremely well to modulation (moving between different keys). All major scales in this system thus have the same tone contour, but this means that you need different notes for each scale. For example, if you take C major as your archetype - all the white notes (C D E F G A B C) - you find starting on C that you play this, where the numbers signify how many semitones separate each note: 2 2 1 2 2 2 1. If you play the same 2 2 1 2 2 2 1 pattern starting on F, you find that you play F G A Bb C D E F. So the key is called F major because F is the tonic - the tonal centre and starting note and end note - but the Bb signifies which accidentals are required for a standard 2 2 1 2 2 2 1 scale.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Why there are sharps or flats:

The major scale (hope you can look at a keyboard) has the same pattern of whole and half-steps, regardless of what key, or pitch, you start the scale from.

The pattern: first pitch, a whole step, a whole step, a half step. 
Starting one whole step above the last note of the first group, the pattern repeats.

C, D, E, F: c-d = whole / d-e = whole / e-f = half .... one whole step above f = g
G, A, B, C: g-a = whole / a-b = whole / b-c = half.

The pattern is fixed, and can be started from any other pitch.
Using that pattern, _being sure that the scale is always spelled using all seven of the Alpha names_, you can then construct a major scale starting from any and get the accidentals right.

F, G, A, Bb, C, D, E, F -- the pattern, and the necessary use of all seven Alpha pitch names, yields the Bb.

It is the same with all the others, start on Db or C#, keep the whole-step half-step pattern, use all seven alpha note-names, and there are the key signatures as we know them.

The use of different keys:
If composing for voice and piano, there is first a real consideration of the range of the vocal line and the singer's working range. Often even a half-step up or down will allow for a good sounding performance, where if it were only a little higher or lower, the singer would not sound so good.

In earlier instrumental music, Renaissance, Baroque and Classical, the wind and brass instruments of those eras had very limited capacity of a number of notes that could be played well in tune, even the virtuoso player was stuck with those limitations, and so were the composers. 
That accounts for the handful of keys so often used by Baroque and classical composers when they composed for orchestra.

Later technological advances of both wind and brass instruments greatly expanded those instruments capabilities: it then became possible to write in other keys, those intonation problems of earlier times more or less no longer a problem.

With newer technology on the instruments, players developed greater technique. The limited use of brass, say in Mozart, was due to what the instruments of his time could do well, and composing for them meant knowing what keys would bring the most and the best from them.

The later romantic orchestra is greatly expanded, with more winds and a large brass section, because the newer technology allowed greater range and more available accurate pitches. Because 'they were there,' and players were available, composers of course took advantage.

If you can play a piece you are familiar with on a digital piano, try this with the transpose function. If you hit transpose, say up or down a perfect fourth, four half steps up or down past the original key, and then play that piece, you will hear a big difference.

All the note relationships stay exactly the same, but the body -- or 'weight' -- of the sound gets lighter and thinner as you go up, heavier and thicker as you go down. You can hear -- and feel -- a big difference in how that music then sounds to you. It can be very disconcerting, like recognizing a friend, all their features the same, but they have drastically gained or lost some weight.

[Or -- play a major triad from middle C, close position, that stack of thirds. play the same one octave lower, and one octave lower still. The acoustic phenomena, as it gets lowered, is for those close together thirds to sound muddier and muddier. This is due to harmonics, the lower you go the more there are which are heard, and they add to the sonority, 'thickening it up.']

Composers choose a key not only out of consideration for vocal or instrumental capacities, but very much because one will suit the 'weight' of their musical idea better than another.

There has been a concept and discussion of different keys having different 'emotional' import / impact: it is millenia old. Over those thousands of years, no one has yet come to a conclusive agreement as to which key is 'sad' 'triumphant,' etc. There is some tradition, say, of Eb being a 'heroic' key, but that is because there are a number of pieces with that character composed for orchestras using the older instruments with their limitations. If Mozart or Beethoven wanted the fullness of winds and brass, they partially chose Eb because it 'worked' for those instruments.

Other associations with keys are also based more on a similar history of music literature -- often in those keys because of those mechanical limitations of the instruments of the era -- than for any 'logical' reason.

F# major or minor, or any key for that matter, are not 'happy, sad, resigned, Naples Yellow, Red, Purple, Thalo Green, or any other abstract emotional quality or 'color' - the key signatures are neutral: it is what the composer writes in any key which gives us those reactions, not the key itself.


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## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

PetrB said:


> F# major or minor, or any key for that matter, are not 'happy, sad, resigned, Naples Yellow, Red, Purple, Thalo Green, or any other abstract emotional quality or 'color' - the key signatures are neutral: it is what the composer writes in any key which gives us those reactions, not the key itself.


I agree to some extent, however csharp minor/dflat major, and their relatives are very reactionary in my opinion, the triads sound more lovely to my ears then other keys.


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