Major & minor keys in swing music

[J-h:n]

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.

[Eyeball]

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?

[Campus Five]

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.

[Eyeball]

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

THanks.

[Cyrano de Maniac]

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]

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]

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.

[Haydn]

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]

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.

[Eyeball]

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.

[david]

"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.

[kitkat]

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.)