What's the point of key?

[AdmiralQuality]

AdmiralQuality-



Of course! Bb is, what? 58 Hz?

That's been bugging me for years.

Thanks.

I hate fluorescent lights. They use them a lot here in California because apparently you can recycle them. But I swear after a few years in art school drawing under fluorescent lights, my 20/20 vision went to hell.

Getting OT here but I don't think it's so much that you CAN recycle them. Rather that you SHOULD, as they have mercury in them. So no surprise if California enforces it or something like that.

And... not sure off the top of my head but I know 60 Hz isn't QUITE Bb. Let's look it up...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_key_frequencies

The closest to 50 are:
G♯1 51.9130 Hz
G1 48.9995 Hz

and 60:
B1 61.7354 Hz
Bb1 58.2705 Hz

Neither frequency make really good tuning references -- they'll actually put you roughly right inbetween correct concert pitch. (Unless of course you have VERY perfect pitch and absolutely NEED to hear the "key of electricity" ).

Speaking of perfect pitch, I'm blessed/cursed with it. And I'm very sensitive to changes of key. I can love a song in one key yet be totally disinterested if it's transposed even a halfstep. It's hard to explain, but once I'm used to hearing a song in one key the song gets that "color" and, if it's changed, it sounds like a whole different song to me. That's the curse part. Especially when you grew up with a piano tuned a half step flat due to old strings.

[duncanparsons]

he must have beethoven hooked up to some kind of turbine to generate energy when he spins.

DSP

[tamahome]

My point was to make B exactly 60 hz.

[bugs]

The point of having different keys is for the sake of vocal range ("could you bring that up (or down) a step" is often heard) or the peculiarities of certain instruments like brass and strings (which are more comfortable in some keys than in other.)

Another consideration is timbre. Sharp keys tend to have more brilliance and flat keys.

Keys developed during the time just intonation where the further the key was from C major, the more out-of-tune it was. We now use equal temperment where all keys are equally "out-of-tune" as compared to natural acoustical properties.

There is more...check WIKI musical tuning.

[Tony Ostinato]

im one of those fortunate/unfortunate guys who can tell you what key the songs in, and i do a lot of transcribing for the largely cover bands i play in.

i dont like the term perfect pitch cause i dont know anyone who can tell 440 from 440.00000001.

anyways its sort of like digital pitch shifting you can only go so far away till some instrument will have to fold back down or revoice things, even then with some care you can probably make any song sound good in any key. thats the art of arranging. im a mediocre arranger but some guys are really good at it and do magic with voicing in different keys, mainly im a "just like the record" transcriber and i have to admit i get annoyed with different singers in different bands doing the same songs in different keys cause then i have to have charts for each key times how many horn players.

my other current gripe about keys and bands is that i use the wx5 windsynth and a laptop with nuendo and chorder into vsti's and you map a harmony map in chorder and the band wants to change key you cant just "shift" key in chorder you have to start over and do a new harmony map. blurg.

things are so much better now than pen and paper, and i used to hate manually transposing a book of charts cause its annoying mentally and drudgery on your hand, what would take a week i can do in an hour in finale.

guitarists seem to take to transposing pretty fast cause much of it is just shifting the hand position up or down a bit, again until that revoicing has to be done and some things just dont "lay" well at certain points, and what were open strings are now not etc.

when i play trumpet or tenor and im reading off the piano book you have to add 2 semitones up to play the right notes, because trumpet and tenor sax are built in Bb, not C like piano and guitar and bass, so if the songs in G for the band its in A for the horn section, except for the trombone which is "self transposing".

gets weirder still for alto sax which is built in Eb. i lerned tenor first so when i play alto im thinking in Bb so im an alto sax player who has to read alto sax parts by transposing them to tenor sax in my head.

love to go back in time and stop the guy who came up with the whole mess and make all instruments self transposing to c.

anyways i babble, the last story i have is this keyboardist i know who had to rent a keyboard for a gig and it was a yamaha kx88 and it was transposed and nobody had a manual and this was pre internet and noone could figure out how to reset it so he had to play the gig transposing it back to the right key in his head, there was no way the 2 guitar players and bass player were gonna be able to do it so he was outnumbered, and like many bands the keyboard parts were much more intricate.

he did great, but hes never been the same....

[AdmiralQuality]

he did great, but hes never been the same....

[tapper mike]

Transposing on the guitar is not always a treat. especially not on the fly and when you used to playing songs in specific keys.

I used to play jazz jams all the time and for the first few years it was a bitch. Someone would always call out a song and the band would just start up with no clue to key before hand. I'd be saying come on throw me a bone at least. Then the piano player would be throwing out inversions so I couldn't just get a clue from his left.

The experience left me more bitter then better for it. While I still like playing jazz and listening to jazz I could care less to sit in Which is why I moved from playing standard rythum lead to more soloist chord melody.

[rifftrax]

Another consideration is timbre. Sharp keys tend to have more brilliance and flat keys.

I have no clue where you get this idea from. We're talking about equal temperament scales, right? The whole thing is relative.

[tamahome]

Transposing on the guitar is not always a treat. especially not on the fly and when you used to playing songs in specific keys.

? Just move up one fret? I think transposing on guitar is easier than on keyboard (except for something like an axis keyboard).

[bugs]

Another consideration is timbre. Sharp keys tend to have more brilliance and flat keys.

I have no clue where you get this idea from. We're talking about equal temperament scales, right? The whole thing is relative.

Only keyboard instruments and melodic percussion have equal temperment.

[rifftrax]

Another consideration is timbre. Sharp keys tend to have more brilliance and flat keys.

I have no clue where you get this idea from. We're talking about equal temperament scales, right? The whole thing is relative.

Only keyboard instruments and melodic percussion have equal temperment.

Oh. So violins don't?

[tamahome]

Of course with no frets you can play any scale you want, except those fretted electric violins.

[bugs]

Another consideration is timbre. Sharp keys tend to have more brilliance and flat keys.

I have no clue where you get this idea from. We're talking about equal temperament scales, right? The whole thing is relative.

Only keyboard instruments and melodic percussion have equal temperment.

Oh. So violins don't?

No, they don't. They are tuned in perfect 5ths and the temperment is dependent on the player.
String player often play notes a little sharp or flat in relationship to equal temperment to accentuate harmonic direction or timbre.

[zircon]

Just on a side note, I think the term "perfect pitch" is appropriate even if you can't tell "440" from "440.00001". I compare it to your sense of sight. I can look at red and green and know that they are red and green, respectively. If you only increased the brightness of the red hue fractionally, I would not be able to detect that. The human eyes have a threshold for that kind of thing. However, that does not mean I can't see perfectly. Likewise with perfect pitch.

[osiris]

Keys open locks....