Major & minor keys in swing music

Everything about the swinging music we love to DJ

Moderators: Mr Awesomer, JesseMiner, CafeSavoy

Message
Author
User avatar
J-h:n
Posts: 193
Joined: Wed Mar 14, 2007 6:09 am
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden

#46 Post by J-h:n » Fri Oct 19, 2007 3:19 am

Campus Five wrote:The first four bars of Blue Skies ARE minor, and then it resolves to major in the next four bars. It starts in D minor and moves to F major - which are of course the same group of notes. I Found a New Baby does the exact same move.
Never thought about that, but of course you're right, and it adds a lot to the ambiguity of the mood.

User avatar
Eyeball
Posts: 1919
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 5:11 am
Contact:

#47 Post by Eyeball » Fri Oct 19, 2007 4:10 am

So, over at the piano, if I play the melody of Blue Skies begining with the note "D", I can play the first 16 bars of the song using only white keys. The release contains only two accidentals and the final eight bars are all white keys with the tune ending on an "F".

My 2 years of music theory are failing me. This is still a minor key song?
Will big bands ever come back?

Campus Five
Posts: 251
Joined: Mon May 31, 2004 12:57 pm
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Contact:

#48 Post by Campus Five » Fri Oct 19, 2007 8:55 am

D minor and F major are the same - all white key, except for the Bb. And no it has nothing to with what note the melody begins on.
"I don''t dig that two beat jive the New Orleans cats play.
My boys and I have four heavy beats to the bar and no cheating!
--Count Basie
www.campusfive.com
www.myspace.com/campusfive
www.swingguitar.blogspot.com

User avatar
Eyeball
Posts: 1919
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 5:11 am
Contact:

#49 Post by Eyeball » Fri Oct 19, 2007 9:41 am

Ok, so what key am I playing it in if I begin the tune on "D"?

THanks.
Will big bands ever come back?

User avatar
Cyrano de Maniac
Posts: 97
Joined: Tue Mar 21, 2006 2:11 pm
Location: South Saint Paul, Minnesota
Contact:

#50 Post by Cyrano de Maniac » Fri Oct 19, 2007 10:06 am

Travis wrote:Maybe I'm just hungover and pissy today but I think you probably could've made your point without the "ROFL" part which, to me, seems a tad insulting to the person to whom you responded.
Well, no offense intended. Apologies to anyone who was. The original comment really did make me chuckle though. :)

Brent

Haydn
Posts: 1277
Joined: Tue Nov 09, 2004 5:36 am
Location: London

#51 Post by Haydn » Fri Oct 19, 2007 10:09 am

I've been thinking about this. The key is the chord pattern that is 'home' for the music. As Johnathan says, the 'home' key for Blue Skies alternates between D minor and F major. As the whole song alternates between these two keys in fairly even amounts, I think it's difficult to say which key this song is in, which I think creates the ambiguous mood Johan mentioned. (If pushed, I would say it's in D minor because that's the key it starts in).

White notes aren't necessarily major and Black ones not necessarily minor - it depends on the key of the music.

If you start playing the Blue Skies on D, you are starting in D minor.

Campus Five
Posts: 251
Joined: Mon May 31, 2004 12:57 pm
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Contact:

#52 Post by Campus Five » Fri Oct 19, 2007 12:08 pm

The note or even chord you start on has nothing do to with it. Its the chords, and specifically the chord you end on that is the key.
"I don''t dig that two beat jive the New Orleans cats play.
My boys and I have four heavy beats to the bar and no cheating!
--Count Basie
www.campusfive.com
www.myspace.com/campusfive
www.swingguitar.blogspot.com

Haydn
Posts: 1277
Joined: Tue Nov 09, 2004 5:36 am
Location: London

#53 Post by Haydn » Fri Oct 19, 2007 12:45 pm

Campus Five wrote:The note or even chord you start on has nothing do to with it. Its the chords, and specifically the chord you end on that is the key.
So is 'Blue Skies' in D minor or F major (I can't remember which chord it finishes on)?

julius
Posts: 818
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2003 11:30 am
Location: los angeles

#54 Post by julius » Fri Oct 19, 2007 6:08 pm

If the song or musical phrase feels "done" when it hits an E minor chord, it's in E minor. If the song feels "done" when it hits a G chord, it's in G. Both Em and G are the same "key" in the sense that John is thinking of: One sharp, and the Em and G scales both use identical notes.

But they are really different keys (E minor or G) because the root notes of the respective scales are different.

"Blue Skies" A section is minor, while the B section is major. "I Love Paris" has a similar issue. Are these songs major or minor? Well, they both traditionally end on major chords, so I personally would say they are in a major key. But it can be ambiguous.

User avatar
Eyeball
Posts: 1919
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 5:11 am
Contact:

#55 Post by Eyeball » Sat Oct 20, 2007 12:26 am

The song resolves nicely as FACF or FADF when I've begun the tune on "D".

I'd like to see the original music as written to see what Berlin did and if there are key changes written into the tune.

I have a fake book around here somewhere - a damned if I just didn't toss out my hand written index to the tunes I liked in there last week after a decade or more of non-use.
Will big bands ever come back?

User avatar
david
Posts: 36
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 3:47 pm
Location: Uppsala, Sweden
Contact:

#56 Post by david » Sat Oct 20, 2007 1:04 am

julius wrote:"Blue Skies" A section is minor, while the B section is major. "I Love Paris" has a similar issue. Are these songs major or minor? Well, they both traditionally end on major chords, so I personally would say they are in a major key. But it can be ambiguous.
It is very common for songs to "change key" in the bridge. Often it is to the subdominant (If the song is in C major, the bridge will be in F major), but some times the change is from major to minor or vice versa.
Another well known example that is in a minor key but switches to major in the bridge is "It Don't Mean a Thing".

But those changes don't really count as a key change, since its part of the song. However, very often the arrangement of a tune has one or more real key changes where the whole melody and harmonies moves to another key. A common reason is to change the key during the vocals section to adapt to the singer.

User avatar
kitkat
Posts: 606
Joined: Tue May 27, 2003 10:34 am
Location: Minneapolis, MN

#57 Post by kitkat » Sun Oct 21, 2007 1:16 pm

Eyeball wrote:So, over at the piano, if I play the melody of Blue Skies begining with the note "D", I can play the first 16 bars of the song using only white keys. The release contains only two accidentals and the final eight bars are all white keys with the tune ending on an "F".

My 2 years of music theory are failing me. This is still a minor key song?
Here we go--to elaborate on, "It has to do with the chords," let me take a stab at explaining it:


When you end on "F" in Blue Skies, it sounds good to do so because the last underlying chord or few of the song were major F-related chords.

However, if the song hadn't switched its underlying chords to major F-related chords at the last minute, and had instead kept on with the minor D-related chords that figured so prominently in the parts of the song that sound "minor," you indeed would have wanted to end the song on a D, not an F!


So The reason most of the song is "in D minor" yet the song totally ends "in F major" is that someone wrote out the chords to do just that.



Oh, and one more question I can imagine you might ask: why can you hear some D-minorishness even without imagining the chords that you know from listening experience go along with the melody?

My suspicion, though I'm not sure, is that D-minorishness is evident to the ear because the first two notes of the song are the 1 & the 5 (bottom & top) of a simple D _____ chord. So the thing gets you thinking, "D something, D something, D something, D something!" and when, 2 notes later you hear an F natural, your brain fills in, "D minor!"

(Of course, since under that first long D & that first long A in the melody there are D-minor-related chords, with F naturals and such in them, that give it away to your brain long before the melody itself hits an F natural.)

Locked