Do keys matter?

YoungCapone

New member
(Beginner here)I made a simple melody in the piano roll of FL studio and started shifting it up one semitone at a time (keeping the intervals the same). I notice that there was no real difference in how the melody felt as I shifted it up or down. It made me think about why keys or octaves were important. I’ve heard some things about how historically, there were implications involving the way different instruments were made and what not, but in today's day and age does it really matter if we’re making music digitally?? I feel like what’s most important are relationships between notes (intervals). Thoughts???

 
If no one is singing on it, no specific acoustic/analog instruments need to play on it, and you hear no difference, then no.

It is very important to vocalists, and to arrangers/orchestrators due to instrument ranges. Also, *some* people (I’m not one of them), are very sensitive to keys, in the way that some people have perfect pitch or others have synesthesia. In other words, they might be able to sing or play a given melody in three or four different keys pretty easily, but the different key sound more or less “dark” or “light” compared to each other (just using the terminology that I have heard key-sensitive performers use). So yeah, it depends...


GJ
 
Pitching a melody up and down is fun but be careful because some notes will be out of key because all scales are different. Adjust the out of key notes accordingly , Happy music making!!!
 
Pitching a melody up and down is fun but be careful because some notes will be out of key because all scales are different. Adjust the out of key notes accordingly , Happy music making!!!
EDIT: Ah just saw you said "melody". By meaning just one track, you are ofc correct. I will leave my original post in case the TS needs it. Cheers.

Pitching the whole arrangement up or down will NEVER bring the song/arrangement out of key. Different keys have a different wibe to them. Try F#maj vs Cmaj. To me F# sounds way better.
The thing that can happen is that some (or more) of your instruments might be pitched out of their sweet sounding spot; like the guitar sounding too bright for the arrangement etc.
If its not an instrumental track then the key is normally set to match the vocalist(s) sweetest range and best sounding key.
 
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