How to find the Key of a song?

T

TDOT

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Anyone have any tips for how to find the key of a song or sample?

If I have a beat made already I have no problem matching the pitch to my beat, but when starting with the sample and I have a loop made, what are some techniques to finding the key of my sample so i can then play my own instruments over the sample?

I'm sure using your ear is a common answer, but anyone have any tips or tricks?
Maybe playing different scales of the sample and listen for what works?
 
Ya as long as you know your keys, and scales and you have done some ear training then it shouldnt be that hard. What i do personally is put the sample on my ipod and i have this little piano app so i just start playing over. I'll start with the keys i know have to be in there and the ones i know cant be cuz they sound way to off. Then i start thinking about what scales i could be in compared to the keys i know sound good and the ones i know sound off, then after i might have like 2-3 keys or scales that are fighting for my ear so to say. But if you keep playing you can tell pretty quickly which one works completely and is the key and others where like 4-5 notes of the scale will work. But ya just practice your ear is like everything else needs to some training to be used appropriately.
 
Alright cool thanks for that, I was thinking that would be the best thing to do. Just play notes and pick out the ones that hurt my ears vs the ones that sound good and try and see if I can figure it out. But just seems like it could be time consuming.
Need to train my ear
 
Ya and if you know all the keys you can deduce the key after awhile there is only 12 possible keys and they all share tones with some keys
Plus if you start thinking by intervals It well help immensely lets
Say you know two notes sound good and their a semi tone away then it has to
Be either the third to fourth or seventh back to one. Which can
Help paint the picture of your key hope this helped
 
PresentProducer said:
Ear training is the most beneficial habit you can implement into your life as a music producer. When you improve your ear, you automatically improve everything else. You should be doing this daily, it doesn't take long at all.
Click to expand...

Thanks I can only imagine how much better is must be after having good ear training.
What are some techniques or excercises that can be done to train the ear?
 
I need to do this in the studio once so I started doing it my old fashioned way of plunking around on the keyboard until I'd gotten a scale. Meanwhile, the engineer had loaded up some plugin and just dragged a loop of the track into it. We came about the same answer at about the same time. Sadly, I don't remember the name of the plugin now though.
 
The key of a song is NOT determined by the notes being played. That is the purpose of the key signature which is completely different. If that were the case then there would be no need to make the distinction between C major and A minor since they both contain the same notes. If you want to learn how to figure out the key of a song then I suggest you study diatonic harmony, modal harmony, and learn the roman numerals for chords. Once you understand that apply the knowledge to your ears.

So then what is the difference between the two keys? C Major and A Minor?

The tonal center. Even though they contain the same notes they are both completely different. A song in C Major revolves around C Major and a song in A Minor revolves around A minor.

The key of a song is determined by a tonal center.

What is a tonal center?

The tonal center is a tone/chord the music seems to revolve around. In traditional songwriting the song is expected to resolve to the tonal center.

If the song revolves around an A minor chord then its in the key of A minor. Likewise if the song revolves around a D minor chord then the key is in D minor. The key signature however is only adjusted according to note clarity.

However according to functional harmony an A minor chord leaves the possibility of three different tonal centers/keys. How is that possible?

Key Signature of C (Cmaj Dm Em Fmaj Gmaj Am Bdim) According to functional harmony there are 3 minor chords in a key signature. In this case Dm Em and Am

The chord Am could also be found in the key signature of G major and F major.

(GMaj Am Bm Cmaj Dmaj Em F#dim)
(FMaj Gm Am Bbmaj Cmaj Dm Edim)

For the sake of clarity we begin to use modal harmony.

Play the C maj scale but instead start on D and you get D E F G A B C D. This is the Dorian mode.

Starting on E is Phyrgian
Starting on F is Lydian
Starting on G is Mixolydian
Starting on A is Aeolian/Minor
Starting on B is Locrian

Apply this to modal harmony and you get for example starting on D

Dm - Em - Fmaj - Gmaj - Am - Bdim - Cmaj.

You should get the picture.

So how is this gonna help train your ears to recognize keys?

If you hear two major chords followed by a whole step then you know that you are on the IV chord or the V chord. We know that the IV & V chord have to be major so if any of those are used as the tonal center then the key would automatically be major or if you wanted to show its relative key signature you would say Lydian or Mixolydian.

In another case if the tonal center of the song revolved around the IV chord then the key of your song would be F major but since F major also implies three key signatures it would be wiser to say F Lydian which shows that its relative to the key signature of C major.

If you found that hard to follow then I suggest you get started studying those topics I gave you at the beginning of the thread. As a hint, you can usually tell the key/tonal center by listening to the bass of a song.
 
@dannydawiz: Again you overstate the case: too many words and not enough examples

If I hear the chords C-F-G in sequence then I am in C major: no questions if or buts, even though these chords are equally valid in A natural minor

If I hear the chords Am-C-Dm-G then I am in A Aeolian (natural minor) or C: I do not know for sure because there is no information about the nature of the chord built on E and so the tonality of this progression is mutable

If I hear the chords Am-C-Dm-E then I am definitely in A minor as I have a harmonic minor dominant chord in the E

If I have a melodic phrase that goes C-D-E[sup]b[/sup]-B-C then I am in C minor

If I have a melodic phrase that goes C-D-E-D then I am in C major or G major or A minor or F major or D minor

If I have the phrase C-B[sup]b[/sup]-A-B-C then I am using C melodic minor correctly with the A rising to a B rising to a C, but the initial B[sup]b[/sup] falling to the A

to tdot

what is your daw? most come with some simple tools for checking the pitch of some if not all audio parts.
 
Last edited:
dannydawiz said:
The key of a song is NOT determined by the notes being played. That is the purpose of the key signature which is completely different. If that were the case then there would be no need to make the distinction between C major and A minor since they both contain the same notes. If you want to learn how to figure out the key of a song then I suggest you study diatonic harmony, modal harmony, and learn the roman numerals for chords. Once you understand that apply the knowledge to your ears.

So then what is the difference between the two keys? C Major and A Minor?

The tonal center. Even though they contain the same notes they are both completely different. A song in C Major revolves around C Major and a song in A Minor revolves around A minor.

The key of a song is determined by a tonal center.

What is a tonal center?

The tonal center is a tone/chord the music seems to revolve around. In traditional songwriting the song is expected to resolve to the tonal center.

If the song revolves around an A minor chord then its in the key of A minor. Likewise if the song revolves around a D minor chord then the key is in D minor. The key signature however is only adjusted according to note clarity.

However according to functional harmony an A minor chord leaves the possibility of three different tonal centers/keys. How is that possible?

Key Signature of C (Cmaj Dm Em Fmaj Gmaj Am Bdim) According to functional harmony there are 3 minor chords in a key signature. In this case Dm Em and Am

The chord Am could also be found in the key signature of G major and F major.

(GMaj Am Bm Cmaj Dmaj Em F#dim)
(FMaj Gm Am Bbmaj Cmaj Dm Edim)

For the sake of clarity we begin to use modal harmony.

Play the C maj scale but instead start on D and you get D E F G A B C D. This is the Dorian mode.

Starting on E is Phyrgian
Starting on F is Lydian
Starting on G is Mixolydian
Starting on A is Aeolian/Minor
Starting on B is Locrian

Apply this to modal harmony and you get for example starting on D

Dm - Em - Fmaj - Gmaj - Am - Bdim - Cmaj.

You should get the picture.

So how is this gonna help train your ears to recognize keys?

If you hear two major chords followed by a whole step then you know that you are on the IV chord or the V chord. We know that the IV & V chord have to be major so if any of those are used as the tonal center then the key would automatically be major or if you wanted to show its relative key signature you would say Lydian or Mixolydian.

In another case if the tonal center of the song revolved around the IV chord then the key of your song would be F major but since F major also implies three key signatures it would be wiser to say F Lydian which shows that its relative to the key signature of C major.

If you found that hard to follow then I suggest you get started studying those topics I gave you at the beginning of the thread. As a hint, you can usually tell the key/tonal center by listening to the bass of a song.
Click to expand...

Well explained, I understand this to a certain extent.

---------- Post added at 04:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:59 PM ----------

I'm getting it a bit, it's a lot to digest though
It's a lot to remember.

I was doing this excersice on this site where they'd play a scale or progression and you'd have to say wether it's Major, Minor, Minor Harmonic etc.
But it's really hard
 
Sounds like teoria - it is hard to begin with but gets easier with time - the trick is to start to recognise the patterns regardless of what notes are played.

Gets much harder when you try to notate the actual notes being played in a progression but again it becomes easier with time and practice
 
Thanks bandcoach simplicity is always Key. Really want to train my ears. To at least pick out a scale or the basics.

I use Native Instruments Maschine primarily. I use Ableton for my arrangement though.
I also have Fruity Loops but I don't use it.
 
bandcoach Again you overstate the case: too many words and not enough examples If I hear the chords C-F-G in sequence then I am in C major: no questions if or buts said:
b[/SUP]-B-C then I am in C minor

If I have a melodic phrase that goes C-D-E-D then I am in C major or G major or A minor or F major or D minor

If I have the phrase C-B[SUP]b[/SUP]-A-B-C then I am using C melodic minor correctly with the A rising to a B rising to a C, but the initial B[SUP]b[/SUP] falling to the A

to tdot

what is your daw? most come with some simple tools for checking the pitch of some if not all audio parts.
Click to expand...

Whats the problem? The OP didn't seem to have the necessary foundation to understand examples related to finding the TRUE key/tonal center of a song. I've opened the door for them and now it's up to them to dig deeper and convert what I said into words they understand.
 
you miss the point of educating - an educator will open the doors and unpack the content so that the learner can actually access it and understand it in the first few attempts - this way the student sees the importance of learning the language rather than being faced with learning the language (which without motivation is more of a struggle than a breeze) to decide if they want to understand something else

If you read through the majority of theory related posts they contain notation, words that explain the notation and audio that makes the notation immediately accessible

What I get from your posts is that you are overjoyed at the freedom that theory brings you, that you want to prosletyse theory to all and sundry, but are unwilling or unable (I can't quite decide which yet) to make it instantly accessible to others: the picture of theory that you present is that it is dense, turgid and a mystery that needs to be attacked for its own sake rather then the doors that it opens
 
Great tips in this thread. Training your ear is really your best bet. The more you play with the notes and actually listen the better you'll get!
 
Lately I've been taking my samples into Ableton and using the pitch spectrum analyzer just to see the peak notes being hit. It's a good way to figure out where you are, and eventually it'll help you figure out what key to stick to. I've gotten way better at improvising after looking at things through the spectrum.
 
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