Playing 2 different keys at the same time....

N

newpassword

New member
Dose anyone ever do this.
For example, having a piano melody and a string melody together
Say, over 4 bars the piano plays 4 notes and the string plays two.
Is it acceptable to have the two notes being played by the string to be different from the notes the piano is playing.
This is probably not "correct", but it sounds good in my ears.
So, is this acceptable or I need to stick to the same notes.
 
well if they are in the same scale it usely sounds pretty good but don 't think about it cause if it sounds good then it doesn ' t matter .
 
Well depending on what the 4 and 2 notes are, respectively, you might be:

1) Playing in the same key (as someone mentioned)

2) Experimenting with polytonality.

It's a fairly common 20th-century technique in the classical and jazz worlds (e.g. Prokofiev and Dave Brubeck), but I can't think of any popular music artists who have incorporated it. I'm sure they're out there, but I'm not aware of them.
 
Last edited:
lol, Shizo sounds like a man who knows. Listen to him. Do whateva the hell you want, seriously.
 
This is called bitonality (two keys) or polytonality (many keys). If it sounds good, screw rules, just do it!

However for the more theory-minded, there may be a musical reason
it sound good. There is a mediaeval mode called Lydian, which is the major scale with a sharpened fourth (for example, C Lydian would be C, D, E, F#, G, A, B). If the keys are next door to each other harmonically (for example C major and G major, or Eb major and Bb major), then this will give the impression of the Lydian mode.

Say you are playing melodies in C major and G major simultaneously. The leading note in the key of G major is an F#, which would just happen to be the sharpened 4th in the key of C Lydian!

So there you go.
 
also if you use for example one progression that only has perfect fifths and mix in a progression of major thirds you can make new full cords when they are played together.
 
Hmmmmmm. Yes, they are new chords. Other than that, what you suggest is nonsense! It depends whether the thirds are harmonically related to the fifths.

G+D is a perfect fifth.
Ab+C is a major third.
How could they possibly fit into normal triads?
 
newpassword said:
This is probably not "correct", but it sounds good in my ears.
So, is this acceptable or I need to stick to the same notes.
Click to expand...
No such thing as correct, or "correct". Anything that sounds good is acceptable.

If you didn't know, music theory is not a set of rules. It's a set of definitions. It doesn't tell you what to play, it only defines it. In other words, you could play any combination of notes and music theory can identify it for you.

Don't confuse diatonic theory with music theory as a whole.

Like Abeja said, play what ever the hell you want.
 
Someone earlier posted that they didn't know of any popular artists who do bitonal stuff. I think a lot of Bjork's artier music does this kind of thing- a bassline in one key and keys or melody in another.

Also, back in the old days of manipulating samples with record players, if you wanted to fit two samples of different tempos together, you had to change the pitch. I feel like I hear a lot of dancehall music that sounds bitonal, maybe because people got used to it back in the day.
 
[Shizo] said:
You MUST adhere to playing the same notes as your piano! It's a RULE god dammit!!!
Click to expand...

lmao.


yo main poster. do whatever sounds good to you. if youre a good producer you should have good taste. and if you have good taste what you like your audience will like.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top