Is any professional music out of key?

[vurt]

Celine Dion is my mum.

cool story bro.

[Aloysius]

[Scrubbing Monkeys]

All of Bob Dylan and most of Hendrix seems out to me.

[jancivil]

Hendrix' strat abuse had that thing out of tune wildly a whole lot of the time.

Zappa used to say he would never hire himself to sing, he was getting maybe 75% intoned right. I was kind of in that range. I sang in tune a couple of times I think.

I've been a PITA stickler for tuning all my life as far as instruments. Guitar is never right, you cannot get full consistency, it's a set of compromises 'for the better average' basically.

But I'm making something all the normals will take as seriously OUT ("microtonal" and dissonant)

[anttimaatteri]

check out indian/carnatic music, especially with a veena, sarod or sarangi. the "not in tune" (for us westerners, but its more or less a constant dancing around "in tune" notes) is practically the basement of their melodic approach to music, next to their rythmical systems and their knack for the timbres of instruments.
i consider their music as the most "professional" worldwide

[jancivil]

I'm very interested in that, Ali Akbar Khan on sarod etc
I heard an Anoushka Shankar piece where part of the melody was three notes inside a semitone, ie., 3 from F to E including F. perfectly consistently.

[Ksamphos]

No, but sure... Astrud Gilberto was so bad at singing in key that her husband João wrote a song about it:

I didnt know about this legend. Do you know where this story came from?

The song is actually from Tom Jobim and Newton Mendonça.
The original lyric is of a man courting a woman that sings well and mocks him of his humbleness "lack of musicality". The famous final refrain is something as "you with all your music have forgotten the main thing, that in the breast of the "out-of-tune" people also beats a heart".

[dlandis]

Clarence Clemons (RIP) was badly out of tune much of the time. My guess is that his horns were out of tune with themselves (this is a "thing"; it's somewhat like a fret being slightly "off" on a guitar or bass). I do know what brand he was alleged to prefer and I know that brand to be notoriously bad for intonation (and I'd rather not mention the brand here). Other times, however, he just seems to prefer playing almost absurdly sharp. His live recordings were far worse than his studio stuff, but neither had what would be referred to as "good intonation."

Along the same lines, Wayne Shorter, when recorded live with Weather Report, could be grossly out of tune. When in the studio, this was not so much of an issue. It should probably be noted that, as with vocalists, monitoring in live situations is supremely important with horn players; without decent monitoring you certainly will have bad intonation, overplaying, and a generally unhappy musician. Horn players who cannot hear themselves in live performance just do not have a reference point.

[MadDogE134]

lol i was gonna say ALL of Bob Dylan's... Neil Young too come to think of it lol well... at least their vocals are a 'bit' or two off lol

[BertKoor]

I didnt know about this legend. Do you know where this story came from?

My wife told me this. She got it from a radio presentor decades ago.
Legend jndeed I have not got it first hand

[ARNK]

One's general impression of that with no sign of it being satirical or facetious is how utterly f**king clueless

I don’t mean about vocals, I mean all of the instruments including the drums.

This doesn't clarify what you meant by "in key".

pretty sure they don't know, themselves

"In key" supposes a tonal center. Drums in key, ie., <this drum kit here is in 'G Major'>, yeah, no.

So why don’t you correct me in a constructive manner instead of being a smug prick?

I’m here to learn, not to be chastised by you.

[ARNK]

I don’t mean about vocals, I mean all of the instruments including the drums.

This doesn't clarify what you meant by "in key".

Well, set the record straight then. I’m not scared to not understand unlike some smug assholes, it’s how you grow.

Are you saying that you can’t look up basically any song to find its key? If so, would that not mean that the song mostly uses notes from that key or scale? Maybe my terminology isn’t on point, what’s a better way to say it?

From my hobbyist perspective, say my song is in F Major - I try and use the notes available in F Major, however, some of those notes don’t sound right while others, those not in key, do sound right in context. Maybe technically “wrong” but to my ear sounds better. I’m curious if others shift those notes so that they’re in key or leave them if they sound interesting…

And again as a hobbyist, I find it that a little confusing at the moment.

[imrae]

Right. Well, we all start somewhere, and it looks like you get to learn some cool stuff!
I think this means your question was "is all professional music strictly diatonic?" which is a "no" with plenty of examples available.

Chromatic notes have been used to add tension to phrases in otherwise "in key" music since at least the Renaissance. This was written in the 1550s and has three "accidental" sharpened notes in the first four bars: (William Byrd, Mass for Five Voices)

Some pieces of music modulate from one key to another, if the keys are not "related" by the same diatonic scale this will involve using more notes. That is quite likely to happen in any serious composition that is more than a few minutes long from the classical era onwards, and modulation is a requirement of sonata form.

Some music uses all 12 tones of the chromatic scale; this hasn't really taken off in popular music but does turn up in some soundtracks. (And is of great academic significance, with the techniques developed being applied more widely.)

I would strongly suggest to look for some kind of structured/formal teaching material for music theory; this stuff can be confusing if it is taught with inconsistent notation or with assumptions made/broken in the wrong sequence.

[imrae]

From my hobbyist perspective, say my song is in F Major - I try and use the notes available in F Major, however, some of those notes don’t sound right while others, those not in key, do sound right in context.

This might be a clue that, despite your best intention, the melody is not really in F major. This happens to experienced musicians as well! A bit of theory knowledge is helpful for figuring out what is happening in such situations; for example, it can reveal which other keys are consistent with the parts that sound "right".

And this is, really, what theory is for; not for saying what you should do, but for understanding what is already there, what might traditionally be done with it, and why.

[ARNK]

I think this means your question was "is all professional music strictly diatonic?"

Yes