what are key signatures ?

D

dylanf

Guest
and are they important for composition of melodies and chords etc?
 
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The scale or key your song is in...a group of notes that 'work' together to put it easily. If you still dont know what I'm talking about theres no point in explaining it to deep, you're pretty much on square one. Look into learning music theory and it'll be one of the first things you learn.

And yes your scale or key signature is the most important. Cant really start a project without one. And if you do start, odds are you won't finish. And if you do finish..its gonna be garbage..if nots not garbage, it'll take you about 6 months of trial and error getting it to sound good. You get the point..learn what they are haha.
 
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hi man , thanks for the reply , so i know all my scales , majors and minors etc , so what your saying is that key signatures are in otherwords the notes in that particular key ?
 
The scale or key your song is in...a group of notes that 'work' together to put it easily. If you still dont know what I'm talking about theres no point in explaining it to deep, you're pretty much on square one. Look into learning music theory and it'll be one of the first things you learn.

And yes your scale or key signature is the most important. Cant really start a project without one. And if you do start, odds are you won't finish. And if you do finish..its gonna be garbage..if nots not garbage, it'll take you about 6 months of trial and error getting it to sound good. You get the point..learn what they are haha.

Close, but not quite right.

Key signature is the number of accidentals within a particular key. For example, in the key of C major/A minor, we have no sharps or flats. The best way to remember key signatures is to learn the circle of fifths by heart. Key signatures ARE NOT JUST THE NOTES OF A PARTICULAR KEY, in a sense, but the number of sharps or flats of a particular key. You wouldn't say the key sig of Eb Major is the Eb major scale, you would say the key sig of Eb Major is three flats. I seriously suggest learning the circle of fifths.

Also, key signature isn't necessarily important to establish or know when starting a project, Yumid. If you were playing by ear on a blues tune, you wouldn't be thinking about key signature at all, really until you had to explain it to the other musicians and then in most cases, you would be talking about key in roman numerals ("lets play a Bb blues" or "Play I, IV, V in Bb"). Generally, I start with an idea from ear and then work backwards to figure it out. For example, when writing a melody, I don't really take key signature into consideration until the end when I am working out chords.


The importance of knowing and understanding key signatures cannot be overestimated. For example, in a situation where I am playing with other musicians and someone calls a blues in F major, I need to know immediately what chords I am working with and what the key sig is. If someone says, "lets play a ii-V vamp in G", I need to have such an strong understanding of key to know that the two chords I am playing over are Amin and D7, and F# is the key sig. It is also VERY important to know when reading music.
 
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Close, but not quite right.

Key signature is the number of accidentals within a particular key. For example, in the key of C major/A minor, we have no sharps or flats. The best way to remember key signatures is to learn the circle of fifths by heart. Key signatures ARE NOT THE NOTES OF A PARTICULAR KEY, but the number of sharps or flats of a particular key. You wouldn't say the key sig of Eb Major is the Eb major scale, you would say the key sig of Eb Major is three flats. I seriously suggest learning the circle of fifths.

Also, key signature isn't necessarily important to establish or know when starting a project, Yumid. If you were playing by ear on a blues tune, you wouldn't be thinking about key signature at all, really until you had to explain it to the other musicians and then in most cases, you would be talking about key in roman numerals ("lets play a Bb blues" or "Play I, IV, V in Bb"). Generally, I start with an idea from ear and then work backwards to figure it out. For example, when writing a melody, I don't really take key signature into consideration until the end when I am working out chords.


The importance of knowing and understanding key signatures cannot be overestimated. For example, in a situation where I am playing with other musicians and someone calls a blues in F major, I need to know immediately what chords I am working with and what the key sig is. If someone says, "lets play a ii-V vamp in G", I need to have such an strong understanding of key to know that the two chords I am playing over are Amin and D7, and F# is the key sig. It is also VERY important to know when reading music.

I get all this but I dont really think its what OP wanted so i just kept it simple. I assumed, and I could have been wrong, that all about was talking about/is interested in right now is what scales are and how he can start using them to make music. I was just assuming he knew zero theory whatsoever so I was just answered what I thought he needed to hear right now. Odds are lots of what you said isn't gonna make a lot of sense to him haha. Assuming he doesn't know what accidentals or anything were if he hadn't heard of a key signature before.

Pretty sure all he wants to know is what a scale is and how he can use it. In his case he will want to know it from the beginning of a project so he can stay in key otherwise he's gonna be moving notes around the piano roll guessing.

Again, these are all under the assumption that he knows nothing about theory, terminology, or plays an instrument.

From a beginners perspective(which is still pretty fresh with me) I'm assuming all he's gonna use a key signature for is to figure out which notes are in his key. Which is why I pretty much left my answer at that. But yah, yours is better haha.
 
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I get all this but I dont really think its what OP wanted so i just kept it simple. I assumed, and I could have been wrong, that all about was talking about/is interested in right now is what scales are and how he can start using them to make music. I was just assuming he knew zero theory whatsoever so I was just answered what I thought he needed to hear right now. Odds are lots of what you said isn't gonna make a lot of sense to him haha. Assuming he doesn't know what accidentals or anything were if he hadn't heard of a key signature before.

Pretty sure all he wants to know is what a scale is and how he can use it. In his case he will want to know it from the beginning of a project so he can stay in key otherwise he's gonna be moving notes around the piano roll guessing.

Again, these are all under the assumption that he knows nothing about theory, terminology, or plays an instrument.

From a beginners perspective(which is still pretty fresh with me) I'm assuming all he's gonna use a key signature for is to figure out which notes are in his key. Which is why I pretty much left my answer at that. But yah, yours is better haha.

Problem with assuming anything is misinformation. Regardless of how much of a beginner someone is, nothing is more simpler than the correct answer. If the OP is confused, well, he should ask more questions until it makes sense. I don't understand why people think "avoiding the deep answer" is somehow supposed to be helpful to a beginner. If the OP does not understand, then there is absolutely a point in explaining it deeper-thats how you learn. Anything else is misinformation which doesn't do beginners any favors.
With that being said, I gotta edit my original answer, I read it over and its not quite accurate.
 
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Problem with assuming anything is misinformation. Regardless of how much of a beginner someone is, nothing is more simpler than the correct answer. If the OP is confused, well, he should ask more questions until it makes sense. I don't understand why people think "avpiding the deep answer" is somehow supposed to be helpful to a beginner. If the OP does not understand, then there is absolutely a point in explaining it deeper-thats how you learn. Anything else is misinformation which doesn't do beginners any favors.
With that being said, I gotta edit my original answer, I read it over and its not quite accurate.

On an irrelvant subject, this is the complete opposite of how you learn science. In secondary school, you learn science that is wrong, then at A-level they tell you you're wrong, and teach you a new theory, then at university they tell you what you learnt at A-level is wrong and teach you something else entirely.

Simplifying a concept and leaving out some things is a perfectly acceptable way to teach.
 
Simplifying a concept and leaving out some things is a perfectly acceptable way to teach.
There is a difference between simpflying a concept and misinformation. If the simplest answer is the correct one, then anything else is misinformation. The OP asked what key signatures are, and rather than assume the OP meant something else entirely like Yumid did, I took his question at face value and answered it in a simple, yet specific way. Misinformation, for sake of "simplicity", helps no one.
 
you're right, I did a lot of assuming.. All i had on my mind was remembering asking theory questions a few months ago and band coach would answer with completely legit and right answers, but i couldn't make ANY sense of them. I think that people who are so used to theory (like you) forget how hard it is for beginners to understand the simplest things about it..because once you know it, its straight forward stuff that a 5 year old can and does understand. But until you have that 'lightbulb' moment its like reading code, that feeling is still really fresh with me so I try answering stuff in how I would of wanted an answer a few months ago.

On the other hand i hate misinformation, so if I was you I probably would have replied to my post in the same way except I probably would've been more of an ******* haha. didn't really have misinformation on my mind i was just trying to say something I thought he could understand..But yes, I should've included the right information along with it..mis information spreads too fast online.
 
you're right, I did a lot of assuming.. All i had on my mind was remembering asking theory questions a few months ago and band coach would answer with completely legit and right answers, but i couldn't make ANY sense of them. I think that people who are so used to theory (like you) forget how hard it is for beginners to understand the simplest things about it..because once you know it, its straight forward stuff that a 5 year old can and does understand. But until you have that 'lightbulb' moment its like reading code, that feeling is still really fresh with me so I try answering stuff in how I would of wanted an answer a few months ago.

On the other hand i hate misinformation, so if I was you I probably would have replied to my post in the same way except I probably would've been more of an ******* haha. didn't really have misinformation on my mind i was just trying to say something I thought he could understand..But yes, I should've included the right information along with it..mis information spreads too fast online.
I see what you're saying, Yumid. I remember how frustrating it was when I started learning this shit.
 
On an irrelvant subject, this is the complete opposite of how you learn science. In secondary school, you learn science that is wrong, then at A-level they tell you you're wrong, and teach you a new theory, then at university they tell you what you learnt at A-level is wrong and teach you something else entirely.

Simplifying a concept and leaving out some things is a perfectly acceptable way to teach.

I would disagree with this characterisation - it is more a case of by the time you get to the next level new experimental evidence suggests that there should be a shift in the causes not in the end result - most science is built upon experimental evidence suggesting possible causes rather than built on facts which are unchangeable

as for keys signatures

simply put a major scale consists of the following steps T-T-S-T-T-T-S.

In the key of C major the notes come out C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C

If we start on any other t=note then the notes that result come out differently; consider the following two examples

G-A-B-C-D-E-F-G is not correct but G-A-B-C-D-E-F#-G is (the first is T-T-S-T-T-S-T, the latter is T-T-S-T-T-T-S): the key signature is 1# (F#)

F-G-A-B-C-D-E-F is not correct but F-G-A-Bb-C-D-E-F is (the first is T-T-T-S-T-T-S, the latter is T-T-S-T-T-T-S): the key signature is 1b (Bb)

we get similar yet slightly different material when we consider minor scales: search for bandcoach's tutorials in the tutorial sub-forum (it's a sticky so it shouldn't be too hard to find :) )

as for whether we should be using these for creating melodies and chords, it depends on what it is you are trying to do, but for beginning yes, you should use a scale/key signature to generate both sets of materials
 
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