Why a song can be played in multiple scales?

[movilogo]

How it is decided what scale a song can be assigned to?

For example, I have seen sheet music for Titanic which are available in C major, D major, A major etc.

Why one should play on a specific scale compared to other scales?

[adodd81802]

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[nystul]

At least with equal temperament we use today, the difference between each note and the one a half-step above it always roughly the same proportion.  Transposing a piece up or down doesn't change the relationship between the notes in the piece.  It changes the pitch of all notes by the same ratio.  You could play that piece in any major key and the melody will still be recognizable as being from that piece.  The harmony will still sound correct.  Everything still fits together in the same way.

There are many practical considerations on which key a piece ought to be in.  Obviously it cannot go beyond the range of the singers or instruments that will be performing the piece.  Not everyone can sing the same range as Celine Dion, so if they are selling arrangements of her theme song, it would be wise to have versions in a lower key.  Picking a key that is too high or too low can make the piece too bright or muddy sounding.  Certain keys are easier for beginners on certain instruments.  Joplin for example uses a lot of flats on piano, which actually makes things easier for experienced players but does make the music harder for beginners to read.

[movilogo]

Is there a list of scales in order of difficulty (for beginners to play)?

I guess C major is easiest for beginners.

Which one comes next and there after?

[adodd81802]

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[movilogo]

I did read elsewhere that C is indeed a hard one - in spite of everyone saying to start with C major!

I shall attempt to play G, D, A too 

I think advantage of playing G/D/A is that guitars are tuned on these scales so it would be easier to sync with guitarists in future.

[adodd81802]

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[dcstudio]

the "musical" world does not revolve around the pianist...

Generally, "show" tunes like the Titanic are arranged in 3 different keys to allow for all vocalists and vocal ranges to have their shot at butchering it...lol.   It has nothing whatsoever to do with the pianist.  

Most beginner stuff is in C,-- unless you are talking about lesson number 1 in like the Alfred method.. which starts on the black keys.. but never names them until much later.   All the big corp. arrngmts,  Hal Leonard, et.al., are either for accompanying, or they are in "BIG NOTE" or "EASY PIANO" format..KEY OF C  there are a few exceptions and many books of  tunes that have been arranged for "jazz piano" (LOL-- )

a lot of the time... tunes are put into different keys to accommodate the different instrumentalists...for instance...  Alto sax really doesn't enjoy the key of E major since it's fundamental pitch is Eb...   Guitarists hate the key of F major as a general rule...because it's one of the more difficult bar chords.  Of course music for many instruments.. like the sax is transposed already and not written in "concert" pitch.

For the piano...  students tend to be scared off by key signatures that look "hard"---that's why there is usually an EZ Piano version of anything you could ever want.  Once that is not an issue any longer... pianists tend to discover just how easy it is to play on the black keys.... it fits right in your hand.

as a general rule in music... remember that easy to read---and easy to play--are not the same thing.  

[adodd81802]

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[dcstudio]

Are you suggesting there are... others :O

honestly...  it pales in comparison to our grandiose and perfect piano "nirvana"... but ... yeah...they are mostly spoiled little divas.   you have to humor them if you want to see your paycheck...lol

[mjames]

but I think if 50% of the notes were 'accidentals' it's probably in the wrong key lol... Maybe there is more theory behind it that I know...

I see youre still stuck in the classical era. Sorry to inform you, but tonality has undergone a great deal of transformation and innovation over the past 200 years.

[adodd81802]

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[iansinclair]

Several people have hit on the fundamental reason -- so the you can use the music to accompany a variety of other instruments or voices.  This is quite common with show tunes and popular music.

Esoteric discussions on the feel or quality of different keys really don't apply here (they do apply, most assuredly, to classical music!).  That said, it wasn't all that unusual in the era of Mozart for the composer to transpose an aria to suit a particular singer... or for Bach to transpose something for one reason or another.  It's even done in recent times in opera -- it's sort of frowned on by the purists, but it's surprising how often some aria or other is taken up or down a few steps!

[dcstudio]

I could be wrong here.. But I don't believe it is set in stone. Here's my thoughts.

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Also worth noting that many pieces still have 'accidentals' so even then the key or 'scale' doesn't contain all the notes the composer may want, but I think if 50% of the notes were 'accidentals' it's probably in the wrong key lol... Maybe there is more theory behind it that I know...

 

"accidentals" are always played for a reason... in spite of what the name suggests.   Sometimes a piece will modulate over to a related (or non-related) key for a cadence or two and rather than draw a double bar line and change the key signature it is expressed right on the staff.   The V7 chord in a minor key will always need an accidental... because it is naturally a v chord--  minor.  Then there's secondary dominants--the V of V's which require a raised 3rd...   Every Blues tune in the world needs the "flat notes" or "blue notes" because there is only 1 naturally occurring Dominant 7 chord in each key... and the formula for blues calls for 3 dominant 7 chords  it takes the tonic and dominant chords and changes them from major 7 chords to dom7 ---this means that the seventh will need to be lowered on each--so some flats..   then there are all the passing tones and fluff on top of that--a lot of chromatic stuff in the solo and blues patterns  --which means more accidentals.

but still... if half the notes you are seeing appear to be altered and this continues on throughout--I would give it the old "harmonic analysis" and see why that is..  in this day and age with everyone claiming to have "amazing, fresh, new arrangements" because they know how to use FINALE -- you never know what you are getting...lol.

[dcstudio]

I see youre still stuck in the classical era. Sorry to inform you, but tonality has undergone a great deal of transformation and innovation over the past 200 years.

I am confused as well... how did you get "classical era" out of 50% of the notes were accidentals...

tonality is defined as the relations, melodic and harmonic, existing between the tones of a scale or musical system... such as "major" or "minor"

although music has evolved somewhat since the classical era--which ended approx. 1837--our harmonic and melodic system and its subsequent relations has not changed a bit... Beethoven made full use of it as did Scheonberg..

what are you talking about... ??    "stuck in the classical era?"  that supposed to mean he only plays Mozat, Haydn, and Beethoven, and that's a BAD thing?--and that makes you better because you include Romantic era repertoire and addod does not? and you know this...how?? please explain your logic...

just trying to understand there Mjames.

[adodd81802]

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[dcstudio]

more interested in why you were attacked...    but thanks.

[visitor]

i think Mjames may have been referring to alternatives, it diatonicism, or taken way farther, polytonality.

Kabalevsky in particular was quite fond of wandering into diantonic neighborhoods in a lot of the non pedagogy works.  At least that's where my mind when when is the reply about 50% of notes w accidentals, I immediately gravitated to 'what happens when you write in two keys at the same time"? You'd almost certainly approach or exceed the 50% threshold if they are 'distant' key relationships, which is the case in the works the employ it a lot of the time.

[dcstudio]

How it is decided what scale a song can be assigned to?

For example, I have seen sheet music for Titanic which are available in C major, D major, A major etc.

Why one should play on a specific scale compared to other scales?

maybe....



the secret order of music druids who decide "the key" for each piece of music were unable to decide on an answer for the "Titanic" since it is about a boat that sank after playing the bad luck D scale on a Friday--Odin forbids this.

[visitor]

maybe....



the secret order of music druids who decide "the key" for each piece of music were unable to decide on an answer for the "Titanic" since it is about a boat that sank after playing the bad luck D scale on a Friday--Odin forbids this.

^
titanic aardvark approves this reply

[adodd81802]

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[dcstudio]

i think Mjames may have been referring to alternatives, it diatonicism, or taken way farther, polytonality.

Kabalevsky in particular was quite fond of wandering into diantonic neighborhoods in a lot of the non pedagogy works.  At least that's where my mind when when is the reply about 50% of notes w accidentals, I immediately gravitated to 'what happens when you write in two keys at the same time"? You'd almost certainly approach or exceed the 50% threshold if they are 'distant' key relationships, which is the case in the works the employ it a lot of the time.

well he didn't have to  be so rude... and that's not what he said...   and I doubt mjames--from what I know of his level and his age... has ventured that far into theory..    if he knew of "polytonality" he would certainly use that big theory word to impress everyone...lol. 

[keypeg]

Going back to the original question:

There are a lot of different reasons for choosing a particular key (not scale) over another.  dcstudio has already mentioned the main reasons: to accommodate the range of a singer or choir, or the particularities of the instrument.  Beginner violin music is often given in A, D, or G major since these are the easiest keys to play.  Brass instruments seem to favour keys in flats because of the way those instruments function.  And then - would you choose C# major with all those sharps, or Db major with less flats?  But what if either of them modulates a lot - where is it going to go, and what will that do?

[keypeg]

I wrote my post late at night and missed some of what has been written.  In fact, everything I wrote has already been said by several people.

To the OP - If you are self-teaching and starting the piano and music, it might be a good idea to use some kind of method book that introduces things gradually.  The music will be introduced in keys in a good order so that you grow with it.  At the same time you can look up and learn more about each thing as it is introduced.  Having an overview to orient yourself at first is a good idea, but then you need to work with simple things one after the other so that you get them into your hands, ears, mind, and musical sense.  I'm not finding a good way of expressing myself this morning.

[keypeg]

Ah OK that would make sense. I don't have too much experience with that style of music it seems.

 I guess I naively assumed that the OP was referring to songs/pieces written in only 1 key, especially when providing an example such as Titanic. That in combination with the fact they are very much a beginner in music and the Piano, to start explaining about multiple keys, relative and tonic etc etc I think would have been too much to digest.

Addod, you've just run into a common dilemma that plagues both teachers and older students.  How much information do you give?  Do you give some general rules which are true for simpler music and ignore the fact that music (or any subject) is more complex than that?  Do you give an overview and then launch into detail, or do you build things up from one tiny detail to the next?  And how, as a student, do you receive that information?  There is no single answer.

I didn't have formal instruction until I was an adult.  It was on a different instrument. Piano initially was self-taught while I child and then I didn't touch it for decades.   I learned certain general principles as I went along, and I could go ahead fast because I had them.  But I also based myself on them.  When I studied music more thoroughly I discovered some were simplifications and they had distorted some basic concepts that I thought I had understood.  I had to revamp what I thought I knew, from the bottom up.  When I started teaching theory rudiments and created my first approach for teaching it, I decided not to do the same thing.

Well, the first problem is that you actually want to teach it - and a student should be studying.   That means you have some kind of organized way of working, where things can come into focus over time.  Trying to do that in a few paragraphs in a thread is nuts.  When I did teach it, I might say a general concept, but also that there were exceptions, and that this was general "for now".  That way hopefully the student isn't going to base himself on something that 5 years later he discovers isn't actually how things always are.  The next thing was to develop fundamental things one by one, but knowing that advanced complicated things get built on them later on.  It is also how I want to learn.  And it's also not easy.  I imagine a lot of teachers who have been doing this for 20 - 30 years are still tweaking what they do.

Here:

I think if 50% of the notes were 'accidentals' it's probably in the wrong key ...

As you say, you were thinking of the simpler more mainstream music from the Common Practice period that students tend to get exposed to.  But if I'm a novice student and I keep this in mind as a rule, then I might get confused later on.  In some music you can get into huge sections that are just peppered with accidentals because of what is going on.  It is very unlikely that the OP is going to run into anything like that, so your judgment call was probably correct.  I'd say it might be a guideline, but not a rule.  It might be better not to worry about music with tons of accidentals, and just learn how to recognize whether the usual music one sees as a beginner is in G major, E minor, C major and similar.

[keypeg]

The other confusion has to do with the word "classical".  We have "classical" with a small "c" meaning "as opposed to pop, jazz, etc.  We also have "Classical" with a capital C meaning a period in history: Baroque, Classical, Romantic etc.  The writer meant the capital C classical.

In my own theory studies, which are not going along any mainstream path (though I'm also doing that separately) we've gotten into "more modern" music - i.e. outside that period where everything is neat and tidy.  Instruments are more evolved, meaning that more modulations can happen without messing up what the players can actually produce, the piano is a done deal and so is the temperament that allows for flexibility in keys, and composers being creative being, like to explore and break new ground.  So in the music I've been looking at, you get a composer who is doing all kinds of modulations and experiments, isn't necessarily modulating according to the prevailing rules, but is still stuck in old conventions.  Later on maybe he can keep changing key signatures and time signatures.  But for now he can't, and you get an accidental nightmare.  We're not into polychords or anything like that, but there is a lot of ambiguity.  And once you get things like whole tone or octatonic scales along with augmented chords and diminished, along with ambiguity the simple rules go out of the window.

I think that Mjames was thinking about those kinds of things.  I don't think he meant to attack anyone; I surmise an impatience with the narrow boxes that music is often put in - the restricted range we often look at - rather than an attack on any individual.  I'm getting that just by looking at past posts.  But it could have been said in a friendlier manner, and with some explanations.  The main thing, I think, is that if you do see music with lots of accidentals, there may be nothing wrong with how it was written.  But it's nothing for the OP to be worrying about for quite a few years.

[adodd81802]

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[keypeg]

Basically it is sort of impossible to do this on the Internet in forums, period.  You have done well.