I was playing around with transposing and tuning the backing tracks to a song. To my surprise, a direct transposition to the next key on the keyboard doesn't sound nearly as good as a 50% tuning upwards. The problem is, there is no key or chord that actually corresponds to this "in between" key? But the song, sounds really good in it.

Is it considered unorthodox to go ahead and do a song in such a "key"? Are popular songs ever recorded and/or shifted and released in odd tunings resulting in the song being in some "in between" key (that doesn't exist on a regularly tuned piano for instance)? I mean, is this done?

I guess it's not too rare.. when transcribing I stumbled over quite a lot of tunes "somewhere in between two keys".

Led Zepplion stuff is quite popular and full of weird tunings.

This was actually quite common in the days of inconsistent tape speeds.

Well not only inconsistent speeds can do that.

A=440Hz is a relatively new thing, and even today it is not universal.
Several philharmonic orchestras tune their instruments to a different A, for historical reasons.

So yes, "off" tuning standards are very possible. Also, in chamber and solo music, musicians sometimes use just intonation.

A while ago, I got curious and researched the heck out of this, mostly in my attempts to answer the question "Can you write music that is in something other than the twelve-tone equally tempered system without it sounding xenharmonic" (xenharmonic meaning sounding like cats shrieking or other non-musical non-in-tune things)

Tuning is an approximation. The whole essential core about our modern musical system is that it's a equally-out-of-tune system based around what you can do with real instruments and without favoring any particular key.

So back in the days of yore, you might have one or two keys that sounded right on a given piano. But if you wanted to play in the key of B flat, it would sound wretched and you'd get howling dissonant notes.

I'm not sure what you mean by 50% upwards. If you were to take a sample and adjust it's playback rate exactly upwards by 50%, you'd get a perfect justly-intoned fifth, which can be quite different from a normal fifth. Whereas if you are playing at 500 cents up... halfway between notes... that's odd, but not completely uncommon, especially considering how new the standard of A being exactly 440 Hz really is.

(am having issues with the filter, so multiple parts)
Now, in jazz and blues, there's major use of the 'blue note'. And the blue note is not a proper note on the 12 tone scale, it's always going to be slightly flat. And I've found that, as a guitarist, I've really internalized the use of this blue note, such that when I'm playing leads in the pentatonic scale on my keyboard, I'm always feeling the need to reach for the pitch-bend wheel.

Also, a lot of non-western music works in different ways, so the tuning of Indian music depends on the Raga and some Islamic music uses quarter tones.

And some rock music has been tuned to a quarter-down. IIRC, Eddie Van Halen was tuned a quarter note down on some of the early albums.

There are two interesting areas that merit some thought and consideration. First, going back to just intonation instead of equal tempered, potentially requiring you to re-intone your instrument with each key-change. Easy on the synth -- just use the top or bottom octave to select the just intonation root note. Harder on guitars unless you've got a fretless guitar or movable frets like the sitar.

Or, consider 19-TET music, where there are 19 notes in the octave instead of 12. Essentially, take the black keys on the keyboard and split them in half, so that A sharp is a different note than B flat. There are a couple different divisions you can make (like 10 or 22 or 29 or so on) but 19-TET has the notable property of being fairly easy to produce with both real and synthetic musical instruments.

I dono, I mostly felt that constraints build art, like gravity forces architects to be more creative. So it didn't feel too much like something I really wanted to jump in on and explore.

A blue note is a proper tone from the 12 tone system. It often refers to the flatted 5th.

As for EVH,
He did tune the guitar down a half step. But guess what so did everyone else in the band. (michael anthony, david lee roth)
As for microtonality in playing he would often produce a "curl" which is a slight quarter step. As to many blues guitarists when playing. It's an embelishment that's all. There are some things one can get away with when there aren't other instruments cluttering up the harmony.

Just a thought, but this is happening constantly around the world in clubs every night where DJs create continuous mixes of music. Nobody seems to mind!

The only problems I could see with this are potentially alienating people with perfect pitch (an old acquaintance of mine had perfect pitch, and I remember him squirming throughout Loveless by My Bloody Valentine ) or annoying people trying to learn your tracks on an instrument/remix them.

Generally, I should think you'll be fine.

edit: Another thing to bear in mind is that, as any DJ will know, even very small changes in pitch can disproportionately change the 'spectral signature' of your track. If you've post speed-change EQ involved, I guess that effect would be multiplied even further. The effect is also magnified if you're speeding up sampled material as the formant structure of the sounds becomes slightly corrupted. Maybe these factors contribute to why you're hearing something that sounds good when you pitch up slightly.
Last edited by cron on Mon Apr 16, 2012 5:06 pm; edited 2 times in total

It alienates the hell out of me when someone can't bother to tune a guitar or any instrument is wildly out of tune with the rest of the band.

As for DJ clubs. No one goes there for the music. It's just an excuse to bury themselves in the noise while looking for something. If the audience was really into the music they'd applaud.

Well, they might dance to show appreciation instead. There are shit clubs where what you say applies pretty precisely to be fair, but there are a ton of DJ led nights where people go because they love the music. I might add that applause and other ways of showing appreciation are a pretty damn regular ocurrence! How else is the DJ to know a superb new track needs to be played again? .

Ahh, the old days of FWD... jumpers for goalposts... etc.