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No, and no. It's not that you can't write multi-key music (polytonal is one word for that) but it sounds esoteric, "modern", "difficult", and not something you'

No, and no. It's not that you can't write multi-key music (polytonal is one word for that) but it sounds esoteric, "modern", "difficult", and not something you're going to use in a chart hit. There are probably one or two examples somewhere, but it's certainly not common. Keys are like the rails that keep a train on the tracks. If you don't have them, or if they're too non-linear, you lose a sense of momentum that keeps untrained people listening. Classical music meanders for a while and then stops at cadences, which reinforce the key. It's like a train ride with stations. A key change switches the ride to a different track, but you always get a series of pauses and restarts. Modern music uses ambiguous chord sequences - usually four chords - that repeat over and over but never come to a climax or a pause. The chords are ambiguous because they fit with a couple of keys - usually related major and minor, or perhaps a mode - but without the stops there's no clear sense which applies. So you get continuous but repetitive motion on a single track without the stops. It's like being stuck on a loop and going through the same station over and over without stopping. Sometimes the scenery changes between the verse and the chorus/drop/whatever. But without the clear key stops you can't get off.

codeulike 4y ago
Modern music uses ambiguous chord sequences - usually four chords - that repeat over and over but never come to a climax or a pause. The chords are ambiguous because they fit with a couple of keys - usually related major and minor, or perhaps a mode - but without the stops there's no clear sense which applies. I don't agree with that. A key is not just a collection of allowed notes, there is a kindof frequency distribution to them too, so that the tonic is either the most used or the most implied. The fifth is often the second-most-used. Its sortof like a key has a 'center of gravity' in the tonic note. Either it will be used a lot or alluded to a lot. So a chord sequence might technically fit into different keys but usually there is an implied tonic and that 'tells' you what key you are in. So within a (well constructed) chord sequence in modern pop you can still have suspense and resolutions and so on. Kindof the same as cadence but done in a different way. And the trick to a good key change is to subtely shift the 'weight' in the direction of the new key just before you make the change.
giraffe_lady 4y ago
I don't think this is particularly true, a lot of pop music is very hard to pin to a single key if you analyze it strictly through the lens of western art music theory. You end up having to say weird stuff like "well the song is in one key but the chorus is in another, but with the third borrowed from the first key, but that note is left out of the final chorus..." when "it just has two roots" is a complete explanation. It's not even "modern," people still sit around arguing about which key certain beatles songs are in, when again "more than one" is a more useful explanation. And I mean I know you know this but for other readers: music theory isn't like a math formula where song goes in, answers come out. It's a practical framework and a vocabulary for communicating about music, and evaluation of a successful analysis has to be based on the usefulness of the evaluation. There can be multiple "correct" analyses of the same piece of music, with different usefulness to different people at different times. Pop music has influences from outside the mainstream european music traditions, and so certain assumptions that almost always make sense within those traditions (eg songs have a key, with a tonic) will lead you to goofy places sometimes.

codeulike 4y ago

Modern music uses ambiguous chord sequences - usually four chords - that repeat over and over but never come to a climax or a pause. The chords are ambiguous because they fit with a couple of keys - usually related major and minor, or perhaps a mode - but without the stops there's no clear sense which applies. I don't agree with that. A key is not just a collection of allowed notes, there is a kindof frequency distribution to them too, so that the tonic is either the most used or the most implied. The fifth is often the second-most-used. Its sortof like a key has a 'center of gravity' in the tonic note. Either it will be used a lot or alluded to a lot. So a chord sequence might technically fit into different keys but usually there is an implied tonic and that 'tells' you what key you are in. So within a (well constructed) chord sequence in modern pop you can still have suspense and resolutions and so on. Kindof the same as cadence but done in a different way. And the trick to a good key change is to subtely shift the 'weight' in the direction of the new key just before you make the change.

giraffe_lady 4y ago

I don't think this is particularly true, a lot of pop music is very hard to pin to a single key if you analyze it strictly through the lens of western art music theory. You end up having to say weird stuff like "well the song is in one key but the chorus is in another, but with the third borrowed from the first key, but that note is left out of the final chorus..." when "it just has two roots" is a complete explanation. It's not even "modern," people still sit around arguing about which key certain beatles songs are in, when again "more than one" is a more useful explanation. And I mean I know you know this but for other readers: music theory isn't like a math formula where song goes in, answers come out. It's a practical framework and a vocabulary for communicating about music, and evaluation of a successful analysis has to be based on the usefulness of the evaluation. There can be multiple "correct" analyses of the same piece of music, with different usefulness to different people at different times. Pop music has influences from outside the mainstream european music traditions, and so certain assumptions that almost always make sense within those traditions (eg songs have a key, with a tonic) will lead you to goofy places sometimes.