#MUSIC KEYS MEANING SERIES#
More elaborate pieces may establish the main key, then modulate to another key, or a series of keys, then back to the original key. A typical pattern for a simple song might be as follows: a phrase ends with a cadence on the tonic, a second phrase ends with a half cadence, then a final, longer, phrase ends with an authentic cadence on the tonic. Short pieces may stay in a single key throughout. Even cadences that do not include the tonic note or triad, such as half cadences and deceptive cadences, serve to establish key because those chord sequences imply a unique diatonic context. Ĭadences are particularly important in the establishment of key. A scale is an ordered set of notes typically used in a key, while the key is the "center of gravity" established by particular chord progressions. Languages other than English may use other key naming systems. Music can be described as being in the Dorian mode, or Phrygian, etc., and is thus usually thought of as in a specific mode rather than a key. Most often at the beginning and end of traditional pieces during the common practice period, the tonic, sometimes with its corresponding tonic chord, begins and ends a piece in a designated key.
For example, the key of G includes the following pitches: G, A, B, C, D, E, and F ♯ and its corresponding tonic chord is G-B-D. Though the key of a piece may be named in the title (e.g., Symphony in C major), or inferred from the key signature, the establishment of key is brought about via functional harmony, a sequence of chords leading to one or more cadences, and/or melodic motion (such as movement from the leading-tone to the tonic). The key usually identifies the tonic note and/or chord: the note and/or major or minor triad that represents the final point of rest for a piece, or the focal point of a section. Perfect authentic cadence (V-I with roots in the bass and tonic in the highest voice of the final chord): ii-V 7-I progression in C (Such instruments are called transposing when their written notes differ from concert pitch.)Ī key relationship is the relationship between keys, measured by common tone and nearness on the circle of fifths. For example, modern trumpets are usually in the key of B ♭, since the notes produced without using the valves correspond to the harmonic series whose fundamental pitch is B ♭. to A, might be described as "in A" to indicate that A is the tonal center of the piece.Īn instrument is "in a key", an unrelated usage that means the pitches considered "natural" for that instrument. A piece using some other type of harmony, resolving e.g. Pieces in modes not corresponding to major or minor keys may sometimes be referred to as being in the key of the tonic. Occasionally, a piece in a mode such as Mixolydian or Dorian is written with a major or minor key signature appropriate to the tonic, and accidentals throughout the piece. It does not discriminate between a major key and its relative minor the piece may modulate to a different key if the modulation is brief, it may not involve a change of key signature, being indicated instead with accidentals.
The key signature is not always a reliable guide to the key of a written piece. However, the chords most often used in a piece in a particular key are those that contain the notes in the corresponding scale, and conventional progressions of these chords, particularly cadences, orient the listener around the tonic.
Methods that establish the key for a particular piece can be complicated to explain and vary over music history.
Longer pieces in the classical repertoire may have sections in contrasting keys. Popular songs are usually in a key, and so is classical music during the common practice period, around 1650–1900. The key may be in the major or minor mode, though musicians assume major when this is not specified, e.g., "This piece is in C" implies that the key of the song is C major. Notes and chords other than the tonic in a piece create varying degrees of tension, resolved when the tonic note or chord returns. The group features a tonic note and its corresponding chords, also called a tonic or tonic chord, which provides a subjective sense of arrival and rest, and also has a unique relationship to the other pitches of the same group, their corresponding chords, and pitches and chords outside the group. Tonality (from "Tonic") or key: Music which uses the notes of a particular scale is said to be "in the key of" that scale or in the tonality of that scale. In music theory, the key of a piece is the group of pitches, or scale, that forms the basis of a musical composition in classical, Western art, and Western pop music. For the DJ Khaled album, see Major Key (album).
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