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What does it mean to be 'out of key' in music?

What does it mean when in music the sheet says "Key of..."?

  • Like Key of E. What is that?

  • Answer:

    It tells you three important things: 1. The main note the piece revolves around (called the tonic) is E. This is the home pitch, the resting point. 2. The main chord the piece revolves around is E major. This is the home chord, the resting point. 3. The scale of the piece is E major. While not every pitch you'll hear will come from that scale (outlined above), it's the main focus.

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The key is like a starting/reference point. Every key has a group of other notes that sound good when played together. I'm a guitar player and we call this "chord progression" or "chord families." The starting key is designed to help you stay within a group of notes that sound good together.

Hey...you asked!

It means that the peice is in E major. Four sharps. F C G and D are all sharped throughout the entire piece. E major means it follows all the notes of a major scale that starts on E. All major scales follow the same pattern of tone tone semitone tone tone tone semitone. So, for E major it goes as follows: E F# G# A B C# D# E. If it were in E minor the 3rd 6th and 7th scale degree would be lowered, meaning your key signature would now only have one sharp (F#) - E F# G A B C D E So, in a nutshell, your key tells you how many sharps or flats you need to play (or sing) in order to make it correspond to a major or minor scale.

Stephania!

It tells you what notes are sharp or flat.

Art B

Key is indeed the ammount of sharps or flats. E means all the sharps up to D# because in sharps you take sharped note under the name of the key to find the number of sharps. E is the name of the key because E is the tonic of the scale. Eb would be all the flats up to Eb plus one more because that's how you find flats. Order of sharps: F C G D A E B Order of flats : B E A D G C F

Kyle R

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