[HN Gopher] The death of the key change
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       The death of the key change
        
       Author : colinprince
       Score  : 161 points
       Date   : 2022-11-18 01:53 UTC (21 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (tedium.co)
 (TXT) w3m dump (tedium.co)
        
       | bitwize wrote:
       | The last-chorus step up in key has been called the "Truck
       | Driver's Gear Shift" and widely mocked as a cheap way to add
       | energy to a song that is flagging, reaching its end, and needs to
       | go out with a bang. Musicians started attempting to end their
       | music on its own terms rather than resort to a gimmick in
       | response.
        
       | 8note wrote:
       | 2005-2012 or so Canadian jazz is full of the one-semi-tone-higher
       | key change
        
         | ghostpepper wrote:
         | This is an oddly specific set of qualifiers. Would love to hear
         | how you arrived at this conclusion and maybe some examples
        
       | jader201 wrote:
       | I don't care if it is a trope, I miss key changes. Maybe because
       | I grew up in the 80s and early 90s where it was common. But I
       | have a fondness for songs that had them.
       | 
       | Some songs did them in a way that was predictable, just following
       | the formula of others, but some did them really well.
       | 
       | One stand-out example, to me, is how Seal closes the song "People
       | Asking Why" (around the 3:16 mark):
       | 
       | https://youtu.be/qq_bfcvdN-0
       | 
       | With his vocal range, he was one of the few that could pull
       | something like that off.
        
       | fedeb95 wrote:
       | This isn't an accurate title since it only talks about a tiny
       | subset of genres available and specifically concentrates on
       | popular (hence historically simple) songs
        
       | 4oo4 wrote:
       | Speaking as someone that prefers weird and experimental music but
       | also has some theory training, IMO, most key changes, especially
       | a big one at the end of a pop song are overrated and don't add
       | much.
       | 
       | Also, if this is only looking at popular music as defined by the
       | Billboard charts, that's more likely caused by the homogenization
       | of music production and a very small group of producers that are
       | responsible for the majority of hit songs. This is a much better
       | analysis:
       | 
       | https://pudding.cool/2018/05/similarity/
       | 
       | I really don't like the assumption behind these types of articles
       | that increased complexity of music theory-wise automatically
       | means better music. Just like adding unnecessary complexity when
       | writing code is always better.
       | 
       | Both complex and simply structured music both have merit, and I'd
       | argue that more simple music is harder to do well beacuse you
       | need a really strong central idea/concept to make it work.
       | 
       | For example, musically Perfume Genius is extremely simple, but
       | it's still some of the best songwriting I've ever heard. It works
       | so well because of the simpliclity makes the subjects he's
       | singing about even more stark and makes it feel more vulnerable.
       | If complexity were all it took to write good music, then everyone
       | would be listening to things like Ornette Coleman (who is great
       | at doing the exact opposite).
       | 
       | You can still be an excellent musician without knowing a lot of
       | theory, and it also should be pointed out that our system of
       | music theory is based around classical composers who made up the
       | rules as they went. All you really need is muscle memory and
       | recognizing harmony and dissonance.
       | 
       | As much as I respect people like Rick Beato that are into this
       | old school view of music needing to be heavily backed by theory
       | and saying "they don't write songs like they used to", I think
       | it's very elitist and extremely artistically myopic to claim
       | authority on something that's completely subjective.
       | 
       | Yes it can help to know theory depending on what type of music
       | you want to make, but you might also make even better music not
       | having that sense of what's correct or not. This is the approach
       | that Giorgio Moroder took and he's one of the most successful and
       | inventive producers of all time.
       | 
       | And just remember that pop music is a market demographic and a
       | product more than it is a distinct genre/style, and that we
       | should all be free to listen to whatever music we want, however
       | correct or wrong someone else tells you it is.
        
       | ano-ther wrote:
       | Interesting observation about "horizontal" vs "vertical"
       | songwriting, driven by technology.
       | 
       | Can relate to that.
       | 
       | On guitar, what I come up with will more likely be a progression
       | -- which then gets layered (horizontal first). On Ableton, it
       | usually starts with layering a loop before I build it over time
       | (vertical first).
        
       | kleiba wrote:
       | My hypothesis is that you can choose any aspect of composition
       | that musicians find exciting and note the same decline over time.
       | You don't have to be a music theorist to observe that by and
       | large, today's music has been dumbed down in comparison. On a
       | scale from "most producer friendly" to "art" it's definitely
       | leaning heavily to the left.
       | 
       | You can especially note that when it comes to harmonies, and
       | harmonic shifts (aka key changes) are not the only aspect that
       | has been greatly simplified. Elaborate harmonies are just not a
       | thing anymore.
       | 
       | And that's not just the typical effect that old generations
       | cannot relate as much to the music of new generations. No, it's
       | that today's taste - which, of course, has been mostly shaped by
       | the exposure to today's music - appreciates songs that are, from
       | a musician's perspective, much simpler in almost every aspect.
       | The only exception that I can think of is that the performance
       | capabilities of the singer have been put much more in the focus,
       | so you can find songs today that are really difficult to sing
       | well. This is mostly true for female performers, though, and the
       | beginnings of that trend can probably be traced back to Whitney
       | Houston and especially Mariah Carey, who made a certain
       | Coloratura-style of singing fashionable.
       | 
       | I think hardly anyone will dispute the observation that today's
       | music business is much more professionalized than it had already
       | been since the beginning of recording technology. And that goes
       | to tell. It really _is_ a business, and the process of producing
       | a hit song has been streamlined tremendously.
       | 
       | Of course, we need to keep in mind that the focus of the article
       | (as well as my comment) is on chart pop music. And of course,
       | this is a big-picture kind of observation, not claiming that you
       | couldn't cite some (however, rare) exceptions here and there. A
       | thriving alternative scene with much more elaborate song writing
       | has never ceased to exist, but that's not what gets played on
       | your average top-40 radio station (for the youngens: "streams").
        
         | goto11 wrote:
         | > today's music has been dumbed down in comparison.
         | 
         | People have been saying that as long as popular music have
         | existed. Jazz was considered dumb and unsophisticated, crooners
         | were considered dumb and unsophisticated, rock music was
         | considered dumb and unsophisticated.
         | 
         | Each of these genres just discard previous measures of
         | sophistication and introduce their own. The article have an
         | interesting observation about "vertical" vs "horizontal"
         | songwriting. Newer music is just different.
         | 
         | Kendrick Lamar is not dumbed down compared to Bon Jovi just
         | because he doesn't change the key before that last chorus.
        
           | vehemenz wrote:
           | While I agree with your overall point, a longstanding
           | previous trend does not indicate a present trend. This is a
           | popular "fallacy fallacy". The metrics of evaluation can
           | change while dumbing down still occurs.
           | 
           | If you look at the demographics of top 40 listeners today
           | compared to forty years ago, the popularity of the hits are
           | more narrowly confined to teens and young adults,
           | particularly in the working class US and in developing Latin
           | American countries. You can also look at the ethos of the top
           | genres, such as rap and country, which are less broadly
           | appealing than popular genres of the past such as rock, R&B,
           | or even jazz.
           | 
           | This is driven by economics. Young people have more free time
           | than adults, and they have greater access to music than they
           | did in the pre-Internet age. So unless we think young music
           | streamers have comparable taste to music-buying adults of the
           | past, it seems likely that dumbing down to a certain point to
           | meet the audience's expectations is more profitable than the
           | alternative.
        
             | goto11 wrote:
             | > If you look at the demographics of top 40 listeners today
             | compared to forty years ago, the popularity of the hits are
             | more narrowly confined to teens and young adults
             | 
             | I didn't know that. Can you point me to the source of these
             | numbers? I would like to know more.
        
               | vehemenz wrote:
               | I didn't cite any numbers. You can look up the age
               | discrepancies between AM/FM during the early 80s. FM was
               | dominated by the 12-24 demo, but the music industry was
               | attached to AM and reacted slower to audience research
               | back then. If you prefer a qualitative approach, you can
               | look at the charts from the late 70s/early 80s and
               | compare them to today.
        
               | goto11 wrote:
               | You said:
               | 
               | > If you look at the demographics of top 40 listeners
               | today compared to forty years ago, the popularity of the
               | hits are more narrowly confined to teens and young adults
               | 
               | So how do I look at these demographics and confirm this
               | claim?
        
           | dwringer wrote:
           | Absolutely - the criticism of most guitarists only knowing 3
           | chords goes back afaik to the first bard who ever strung up a
           | lute. I also think although we remember the songs that break
           | molds, at any moment in history most popular music tends to
           | be relatively simple. There's nothing wrong with that I think
           | - just as people don't (or probably shouldn't) eat caviar and
           | filet mignon at every meal, much of the time music serves as
           | more of an idle distraction than some intense spiritual
           | experience.
        
             | lebuffon wrote:
             | Supposed quote from the middle ages:
             | 
             | "Lute players spend half their time tuning and the other
             | half playing out of tune"
        
               | adamc wrote:
               | Movable frets made of gut both allow for better tuning
               | and require more tuning.
        
         | wodenokoto wrote:
         | I think we are seeing a much longer tail in music consumption.
         | This kinda "squeezes" the top into a much less dynamic place.
         | 
         | As everybody has a more individual selection of music, due to
         | easy and cheap access to almost all published music ever, the
         | common denominator becomes smaller.
         | 
         | I don't think music is becoming dumber overall.
        
         | lbriner wrote:
         | > Elaborate harmonies are just not a thing anymore.
         | 
         | I think that's a niaive analysis of a lot of popular music. If
         | I listen to Justin Beiber or Sam Fender or Taylor Swift, their
         | songs often contain very rich harmony, not necessarily (but
         | definitely including) vocal harmonies but across
         | instrumentation, deviation from the 4-chord song and even a lot
         | of mixing of influences in, what I have to say, are some very
         | unique and refreshing ways that I have either not heard before
         | or certainly not in the mainstream.
         | 
         | I think most people just have getting old syndrome. The stuff I
         | listened to when I was in my formative years was great and
         | everything since then not so much.
         | 
         | I'm personally very pleased with the quality of new music
         | without having to like all of it.
        
           | adamc wrote:
           | I listen to a lot of music across a lot of eras, and I'm not
           | particularly fond of the 70s or early 80s ( _my_ era). I
           | agree that  "in my day" is a thing, but the criticism is
           | accurate anyway.
           | 
           | I think vocal harmonies affect people differently for the
           | same reasons people find vocals so compelling: we have
           | wetware devoted to the human voice. It isn't just another
           | instrument, perceptually, at least for most people.
        
         | TheOtherHobbes wrote:
         | The business really isn't any more professionalised than it
         | used to be. The popular music business has a _long_ history
         | going all the way back to popular printed sheet music in the
         | 19th century. It 's always been mercenary, manipulative, and
         | cynical. Simon Napier-Bell - who used to manage Wham! and other
         | familiar names - has written some fascinating books about it.
         | They're a must read for anyone interested in the history.
         | 
         | There are always competing forces pulling music towards
         | simplicity and complexity. Whenever the complexity is squashed
         | in one place it comes back in another.
         | 
         | The biggest change over the last decade or so has been
         | increasingly ornate production. In the 80s mixes were semi-
         | automated, but you couldn't do much except change levels. Now
         | you can automate _everything_ - levels, EQ, EQ type, effects,
         | effect parameters - with extreme precision and accuracy.
         | 
         | So most modern mixes have constant subtle changes. They don't
         | leap out like a key change, but (for example) the vocal tone
         | and the effects on the vocal will often change phrase by
         | phrase. Or even word by word.
        
         | kazinator wrote:
         | Key changes that just abruptly shift a repeating pop chorus
         | near the end of a song by a step or half step are pretty dumb
         | though; it's not clear that losing them specifically is a
         | dumbing down.
        
           | ComplexSystems wrote:
           | I agree. I think it's simply that this thing which used to
           | sometimes happen now never happens, thus making the music
           | more predictable and further lowering the entropy rate of
           | music as a stochastic process.
        
             | goto11 wrote:
             | Sure, if you ignore things which happen now in music but
             | didn't use to happen.
             | 
             | For example the article mention more different keys are
             | used today.
        
           | adamc wrote:
           | Sure. But there are lots and lots of Beatles songs (for
           | example) that shift keys in the main verse, often very early
           | in the song (and often several times).
           | 
           | Key changes used to be something most bands handled easily,
           | and the best songwriters got a lot of mileage out of it.
        
         | PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
         | > My hypothesis is that you can choose any aspect of
         | composition that musicians find exciting and note the same
         | decline over time.
         | 
         | Even within the pop world, contemporary percussion/drumming is
         | often significantly more complex than in the past (and outside
         | the pop world, almost always).
         | 
         | Some musicians also find timbre rather exciting, and the
         | possibilities (and usage) here have also expanded significantly
         | over the last 60 years.
        
         | joenot443 wrote:
         | I don't think music is getting dumbed down, just that different
         | aspects are becoming more prioritized than others were in the
         | past.
         | 
         | Listen to a 100 gecs or other hyperpop song and listen to some
         | of rhythmic motifs being used. This isn't a fringe genre
         | either, it's hugely popular with gen z. It may not have key
         | changes like a rock ballad, but it has lots of musical ideas
         | which songwriters from the last 60 years never even had access
         | to.
        
         | 323 wrote:
         | > Elaborate harmonies are just not a thing anymore.
         | 
         | I think one way to categorize music is harmony focused
         | (European classical music) or rhythm focused (African tribal
         | music).
         | 
         | In the last 30 years we've seen a big shift towards more rhythm
         | based music, especially in electronic music.
         | 
         | I don't think it's just a fad, I think it's deeper, rhythm can
         | put the brain in a trance like state, this is harder to do with
         | harmonies.
        
           | zigzag312 wrote:
           | My theory is that when European classical music was being
           | written, there were no loudspeakers, amplifiers, effects or
           | digital instruments. To fill whole auditable frequency
           | spectrum multiple instruments were needed to play multiple
           | pitches at once.
           | 
           | Reason for this is that most instruments could only fill part
           | of the spectrum. Organ being one notable exception. Still,
           | even on organ, to fill the whole spectrum, multiple notes
           | need to be played at the same time. So, harmony was very
           | important to produce a full sound.
           | 
           | Today, a single synth can fill the whole frequency spectrum
           | by playing just one note. So, to have a full sound, harmonies
           | aren't necessary anymore.
        
             | adamc wrote:
             | Yes, except that I think people relate to voices
             | differently than other instruments; maybe our brains lock
             | onto human voices in a special way. So harmonies that are
             | sung still have a different effect.
        
               | zigzag312 wrote:
               | I agree, we definitely have more fundamental connection
               | to a human voice than other instruments.
        
       | ruined wrote:
       | it's worth noting that there are many more timbral manipulations
       | now available. effects such as a filter can serve a similar
       | purpose to a key change and can even be modulated as instruments
       | in their own right. modern producers have many more options.
        
       | crazygringo wrote:
       | I'm sorry, but this is a silly article.
       | 
       | Yes, key changes went away in US pop music at some point a few
       | decades ago.
       | 
       | But the idea that this has to do either with hip-hop or with
       | digital music production is frankly ludicrous, and the author
       | presents zero causal evidence here except that all three things
       | happened very roughly around the same time. And the proposed
       | explanations make _zero_ sense.
       | 
       | The real answer is simply that the shifting the key up in a
       | dramatic energy-raising fashion _just went out of style, like a
       | thousand other things in music_. As the author themself notes,
       | they 're "heavy-handed" and "trite". I could add corny, old-
       | fashioned, and overly earnest to that list.
       | 
       | Everything in music gets overdone and then fades away to make
       | room for the next new thing. There's no more reason needed for
       | this than people just got tired of the old thing -- which they
       | always will.
       | 
       | Claiming it's because of hip-hop or digital music is just
       | strange.
        
         | jdontillman wrote:
         | I don't think you can separate music, or any art form for that
         | matter, from the artist's craft, skill, expressiveness,
         | resources, and materials.
         | 
         | ---
         | 
         | Digital isn't inherently bad, but...
         | 
         | If the ENTIRETY of your music production is done on a DAW
         | (Digital Audio Workstation) app, with its available tools and
         | plugins, that's gonna have an effect.
         | 
         | And I think that's what we're seeing.
         | 
         | If today's music producers used the DAW only for recording, and
         | stayed away for composing, arranging, and becoming proficient
         | at playing instruments, things would be much better.
        
           | crazygringo wrote:
           | Sure using a DAW has an effect, mainly in providing _more_
           | tools, but the idea that one of its effects is _no more key
           | changes_ makes... just utterly no sense. DAW 's handle key
           | changes just fine, they don't do a single thing to make them
           | more difficult or lead you to forget about them.
           | 
           | It makes as much sense as saying the popularity of young-
           | adult novels is due to authors using word processors instead
           | of writing by hand. The two have nothing to do with each
           | other.
        
         | Kreutzer wrote:
         | Yes, those 'lifting' key changes in MJ's songs may seem
         | gratuitous, but key changes were used more subtlety by, for
         | instance, Beatles to enrich the music with expressiveness even
         | at the expense of musical common sense. And if anything, pop
         | music today is just too uniform.
        
         | blue039 wrote:
         | I don't think it's that strange. Perhaps calling out those two
         | in particular might seem a little vindictive but I'd say
         | _modern music_ in general.
         | 
         | Modern music is watered down and simple. The drums are all 4x4,
         | the chords are all the same, the progressions are predictable,
         | etc. I'm not talking about just a genre using a particular set
         | of chords, I am talking about literally being able to predict
         | the next note using only 10 seconds of audio. Moreover, there
         | is so much tooling around making absolutely talentless hacks
         | sound good (auto-tune, quantization, very clever filtering)
         | it's hard to actually know if someone is even real sometimes.
         | 
         | More than ever I've also noticed modern music videos are simply
         | advertisements for luxury brands. I just think the new
         | generation lacks the sophistication to enjoy _good_ music.
         | Every generation since the invention of arguably the highest
         | most supreme form of musical arrangement, orchestral
         | arrangement, has resulted in slowly stripping away any sort of
         | intellectual endeavor listening music had held. There 's a
         | reason classic rock is called classic rock and stuff made in
         | the 90s onward doesn't qualify. It was probably the last period
         | of time where music actually required talent rather than a
         | ghost writer and an advertising deal. This isn't just my age
         | speaking. I suspect in 50 years people will still remember
         | Zeppelin, but no one will remember Jay-Z.
        
           | jdontillman wrote:
           | Indeed.
           | 
           | The author is referring to the up-a-half-step modulation that
           | Barry Manilow tactically used all over the place.
           | 
           | I call it a "Manilow".
           | 
           | ---
           | 
           | But yeah, it's just one of the many elements of musical craft
           | that's missing in today's popular music.
           | 
           | Sampled sounds are (by definition) lifeless.
           | 
           | Sequenced rhythm tracks are unnaturally consistent.
           | 
           | See Paul Lamere's "In search of the click track":
           | https://musicmachinery.com/2009/03/02/in-search-of-the-
           | click...
           | 
           | A lack of rhythmic variation. Consider the folk tradition of
           | wandering from the time signature; Pete Seeger and early Paul
           | Simon for instance. And the Beatles, certainly
           | 
           | Generally a lack of pickup notes, or "anacrusis".
           | 
           | And the lack of an inspirational melody or chord change.
           | 
           | ---
           | 
           | 60's pop music was, I think, a special case because the hit
           | songs had to get noticed and appreciated in a worst-case
           | listening environment; typically a crappy AM radio.
        
           | msla wrote:
           | > There's a reason classic rock is called classic rock and
           | stuff made in the 90s onward doesn't qualify.
           | 
           | Of course rock made in the 1990s is classic rock now. That's
           | how it works: Music made when the target demographic was in
           | its teens and young adulthood is classic, and the music from
           | the era when the currently dying generation was young gets
           | aged out. When was the last time you heard Dion and the
           | Belmonts on terrestrial radio? How about Frankie Lymon and
           | the Teenagers? That's music. That's how all this works. Soon
           | enough, Jay-Z will be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I
           | mean, if Jelly Roll Morton (look him up, kiddo) can make it,
           | they obviously abandoned the "Rock and Roll" part of their
           | name long ago.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Rock_and_Roll_Hall_of_.
           | ..
        
             | msla wrote:
             | I must correct myself: Jelly Roll Morton is in the "Early
             | Influences" section of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
             | 
             | Jay-Z, on the other hand, is in the main category.
        
           | DontchaKnowit wrote:
           | Tbh I think we look at older music with rose colored cglasses
           | cause only the best of the best pop music survives. Pop music
           | has always and will always be simple and shitty by and large.
           | 
           | However, in modern times, the barrier to entry of record an
           | album is virtually 0. You can make a masterpiece in your
           | bedroom if you want to. There is SO much interesting music
           | happening right now I really resent this idea that music has
           | somehow lost its way.
           | 
           | Examples : king gizzard and the lizard wizard, the dillinger
           | escape plan, bjork, death grips, tim hecker, danny brown, etc
           | etc the list is damn near infinite. Lots of incredible,
           | boundary pushing music has happened in the last 15 or so
           | years, and continues on a daily basis
        
             | blue039 wrote:
        
             | ilyt wrote:
             | Pretty much. Ask anyone to name top pop artist from top off
             | their heads from 5, 10, 20 years ago and the list of those
             | names will be very, very short.
        
         | DontchaKnowit wrote:
         | Also, key changes are actually pretty common in hip hop. Its a
         | really really common technique to shift everything down a half
         | step at some point in the song or to do a tape slowdown effect
         | which pitches everything down. Not technically a "key change"
         | but effectively the same thing.
        
         | adamc wrote:
         | I don't think it's just a fashion thing. There is a real
         | outcome of this: the music is simpler and less interesting.
         | Modulation isn't the only missing ingredient, though.
         | Quantization and click tracks and pitch-correction and sampling
         | have all combined to reduce the variation in songs.
         | 
         | Part of it is driven by the need to make production cheaper
         | (since music is less profitable now), so it's hard to say if it
         | will come back.
        
           | hammock wrote:
           | Pitch correction is harder to do live, if there are key
           | changes, since you can set your auto tuner to a specific key
           | 
           | Also, key changes present some increased difficulty (not
           | insurmountable of course) in live performance on certain
           | instruments like guitars. And the fact is (at least frontman)
           | music artists are getting less talented at their instruments
           | on average
        
             | ghostpepper wrote:
             | Having never performed live I'm just guessing, but
             | theoretically changing keys on autotune should be as simple
             | as pressing a single button at the correct point in the
             | song, no? Conceivably it could even be programmed in with
             | everything else
        
               | hammock wrote:
               | Yes it is programmed for, e.g. Taylor Swift shows. For us
               | regular guys there's a separate autotune box for each
               | voice and it's sometimes not as simple as pressing one
               | button.
        
           | crazygringo wrote:
           | > _the music is simpler and less interesting_
           | 
           |  _If_ you listen to top 40 only, then _maybe_. (Although a
           | lot of top-40 music back in the 70 's was pretty bad too. We
           | only continue to listen to the cream of the crop from back
           | then, not the average radio station song.)
           | 
           |  _But_ if you 're listening to top 40 music these days, well
           | that's your fault. _Outside_ of it, there 's never been more
           | complexity and variety and interest and genre-mixing in the
           | history of music than today. You're not stuck with the radio,
           | you've got Spotify and the stuff you can find outside of the
           | mainstream is _amazing_.
        
       | boomboomsubban wrote:
       | Shouldn't the move to digital recording also made the ability to
       | make key changes much easier? Frequent key changes in music are
       | supposed to be difficult for musicians to handle, but in the bass
       | example shown adding a key change would have meant you need to
       | record four notes rather than two.
        
         | narag wrote:
         | Not so much a problem of recording.
         | 
         | The difficult part is finding a nice change and the right
         | chords and notes to work as a bridge. Also if sung, not getting
         | out of range.
        
         | acjohnson55 wrote:
         | Technically, it is easier. But I think the article makes a good
         | point that the specific tools and techniques chosen influence
         | the artistic expression.
        
           | InCityDreams wrote:
           | ...also that the tech that made it 'technically easier' was
           | easily aquired by less-trained musicians who really didn't
           | care about key changes. Happy to say i grew up stoned and
           | listened to some of the dirgiest drivel you could ever find -
           | and loved every moment of it. Learning to compose introduced
           | 'choices': should it change....why...what am i trying to
           | achieve...is it required?
           | 
           | Sorry - Cant get to link but there's a canadian musician on
           | yt that plays guitar solos for quite some time over the same
           | looped backing tracks. Lovely stuff.
        
       | jws wrote:
       | One reason to use a key change is to move the lead vocalist to a
       | different part of their range. You can get a different sound to a
       | too often repeated chorus or let them do a variation on the
       | melody which would have been undelightful in the original key.
       | 
       | Also, as a bass player. I don't care. I mean, I'll whine if you
       | go to Gb, but it's mostly just for form. Any awkwardness in
       | fitting low lines on the instrument is more than made up by
       | telling a guitar player to play the Cb chord.
        
       | TonyTrapp wrote:
       | The simple answer is that Sergio Mendes already used up all the
       | key changes in 1983, nothing's left for modern-day musicians:
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOPh3bTglak
        
         | jader201 wrote:
         | Yeah, whenever I hear song, I'm not thinking about the lyrics
         | or anything else except "yeah, this song has a lot of key
         | changes".
        
       | chx wrote:
        
         | goto11 wrote:
         | You can dance to pure rhythm, without melody. You can't dance
         | to a melody without any rhythm. If follows that rhythm is more
         | fundamental to music than melody, even though you usually need
         | both.
        
         | kweingar wrote:
         | Are drummers not musicians because they don't play melodies and
         | harmonies?
        
           | ghusto wrote:
           | That, is an excellent simile-example (?), and made it clearer
           | for me. Clear enough to say "I don't know!".
           | 
           | It feels almost as if the answer is "they are a component of
           | the whole, but not musicians by themselves". i.e. the beat
           | can't be music by itself, but the vocals for example, can.
           | 
           | I don't fully believe that though, and am leaning more
           | towards a beat being able to be music by itself too. You can
           | see my dilemma though :P
        
             | kweingar wrote:
             | I don't really understand your dilemma. Why are drummers
             | not musicians?
        
               | bmacho wrote:
               | I guess GP sat down, and thought about it. I do that
               | myself time to time, then I realize that despite to my
               | best efforts I can't defend some common sense ideas, and
               | must accept it as false. Usually hard to even explain.
               | 
               | .. just think about it with an open mind, or try to even
               | defend that drummers are musicians. I think most
               | definitions of musicians don't include drummers much more
               | than the costume designers or the publishers. (They work
               | in the music industry, make music better, but can't and
               | don't create music themselves alone.) I lean towards that
               | they are not musicians.
               | 
               | Also if GGGP doesn't classify hiphop or rap as music,
               | then the "but the drummers are usually classified as
               | musicians too" argument doesn't work on many levels.
        
               | midoridensha wrote:
               | I'd call drummers "musicians" because the drums (which
               | have rhythm) are a necessary part of the musical
               | composition, and the drummer is performing that integral
               | part of the music.
               | 
               | What's harder to decide, IMO, is whether a drum solo
               | really constitutes "music".
               | 
               | If rap isn't music, then is a drum solo also not music?
               | 
               | Personally, I can't stand most rap, but I also get bored
               | with drum solos and usually skip them, even if I
               | otherwise really love the drum parts of the band's other
               | songs.
        
               | wahnfrieden wrote:
               | your enjoyment as an individual has nothing to do with
               | musicality but portraying them as related does display
               | reactionary tendencies
        
               | bazoom42 wrote:
               | > What's harder to decide, IMO, is whether a drum solo
               | really constitutes "music".
               | 
               | That is not hard to decide. Of course a drum solo is
               | music.
        
             | 8note wrote:
             | Just practicing the drums can be highly musical:
             | https://youtu.be/SSlEQNoCAXM
             | 
             | Or, I just spent a while whistling a long to take the a
             | train at the end of https://youtu.be/crZ8ALG3tm4
        
             | omnicognate wrote:
             | There is no dilemma. Rhythm is an utterly fundamental,
             | inseparable part of music. If anything, it's arguably more
             | fundamental than melody (and certainly more so than
             | harmony).
             | 
             | Just try getting a computer to play the notes of some of
             | your favourite tunes with equal - or, better, random -
             | duration and weighting if you want to be convinced of that.
             | Also observe that music without melody can be found
             | everywhere, from rap to Steve Reich to the Kodo Drummers,
             | but to exclude rhythm relegates you to the really out there
             | stuff like 4'33" (complete silence) or music composed of
             | randomly timed or continuously varying sounds.
             | 
             | We have perfectly good terms to distinguish between rhythm
             | and melody such as, you know, "rhythm" and "melody". Your
             | instinctive desire to define "music" so as to somehow
             | exclude rhythm is simply wrong.
        
               | PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
               | > Also observe that music without melody can be found
               | everywhere, from rap to Steve Reich
               | 
               | Steve Reich would dispute this, with gusto. You can only
               | possibly make the claim that he ever composed non-melodic
               | sound in his earliest years (e.g. "Come Out"), but even
               | then he was fascinated by the implicit melodic signatures
               | of otherwise non-melodic music (realized later in a piece
               | like Different Trains, where he explicitly has
               | instruments play the melody of spoken words).
        
               | omnicognate wrote:
               | I didn't say he only made non-melodic music. I don't see
               | on what basis he or anyone would describe Clapping Music
               | (which I recently saw performed at a school concert,
               | hence it being on my mind), for example, as melodic.
        
               | PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
               | Fair enough, though Clapping Music is AFAIR the exception
               | that proves the rule.
        
             | froh wrote:
             | > simile-example
             | 
             | analogue - the thing which is compared
             | 
             | analogy - the act of comparing
             | 
             | in this case you'd use "analogy", as in "this is an
             | excellent analogy ..."
             | 
             | the analogue is the musical characteristics of the drums,
             | in reference to musical styles, moving from style to
             | instruments by, well, analogy.
        
               | ghusto wrote:
               | Thank you! I _knew_ there was a word for it :P
        
           | denton-scratch wrote:
           | Old joke:
           | 
           | Q: What do you call someone who hangs around with musicians?
           | 
           | A: A drummer.
        
           | 8note wrote:
           | When I played drums, I played them melodically. It's not
           | particularly out there, you're just limited on which notes
           | you have available
        
           | earleybird wrote:
           | Of course they are, just ask Charlie[0]
           | 
           | [0] https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2021/0
           | 8/2...
        
           | parenthesis wrote:
           | Roy Haynes is one of the greatest musicians I have ever
           | heard.
        
           | GoblinSlayer wrote:
           | I think drums are more expressive than rap, in comparison rap
           | sounds monotone, but monotone drumming isn't used in music.
        
         | acjohnson55 wrote:
         | People have felt that way about folk music, blues music, atonal
         | music, pop music, bebop music, avant garde electronic music,
         | rock 'n roll music, hip hop music, EDM, etc etc etc etc
        
         | bazoom42 wrote:
         | > I really wish I had a better word for these two categories
         | 
         | Maybe "music you like" and "music you dont like"?
         | 
         | It is totally fine to not like certain genres of music. But it
         | is pretty dumb to say "I don't like this book, therefore it is
         | not a book".
        
         | wahnfrieden wrote:
         | Simply racist/reactionary nonsense
        
           | wahnfrieden wrote:
           | it's a ben shapiro talking point:
           | https://www.classicfm.com/music-news/ben-shapiro-thinks-
           | rap-... there's a reason they (nonsense reactionaries) focus
           | on black music over anything else that these flawed
           | argumentations would also apply to
        
             | goto11 wrote:
             | OK that is hilarious!
        
               | wahnfrieden wrote:
               | word for word. it's anti-black culture war nonsense,
               | whether they know it or are just parroting it. and it's
               | not even accurate, showing a basic ignorance of the genre
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | adamc wrote:
       | The formatting of that article is a bit hard to read.
       | 
       | People have been pointing out how little modulation there is in
       | modern pop music for a while. Combined with click-tracks, pitch-
       | correction and sampling, there is just less variation in most
       | modern pop songs.
        
       | codeulike wrote:
       | _With that in mind, it's probably not a coincidence that the only
       | number one hit to use a key change during the 2010s is also one
       | of the most iconic: Travis Scott's "SICKO MODE."_
       | 
       | That can't be true, surely? Only one number one song with a key
       | change in a whole decade? (I assume we're talking US charts?)
       | 
       | Crazy by Gnarls Barkely has some nice key changes but it only got
       | to number 2 apparently.
        
         | b450 wrote:
         | I thought Beyonce's "Love on Top" might qualify. Pretty iconic
         | use of key changes, but it apparently peaked at #20 on the hot
         | 100.
        
         | re wrote:
         | > Crazy by Gnarls Barkely
         | 
         | Starts and ends in the same key. There's some minor<->major
         | mode shifting over the course of the song, but the tonic
         | remains the same.
        
           | codeulike wrote:
           | Ah I see, it does some unusual stuff with chords, I was
           | hearing it as a key change
           | 
           | https://flypaper.soundfly.com/produce/the-flurry-of-
           | harmonic...
        
           | kevinwang wrote:
           | Do people not consider parallel key shifts to be key changes?
           | 
           | (btw whoever invented the name "parallel key" for majors and
           | minors with the same tonic did a terrible job)
        
       | bena wrote:
       | I mean, key changes may not be popular right now, but things have
       | a way of coming back around. Sooner or later, someone is going to
       | make a really good song with a key change and then it's going to
       | be back in rotation.
        
         | giraffe_lady wrote:
         | That's not necessarily true.... Swelling vibrato-heavy string
         | backing on choruses were a staple for decades, have been gone
         | for just as long, and are probably never coming back thank god.
        
           | JasonFruit wrote:
           | I'd take that bet. I'd bet you that backing by full-blooded,
           | real bowed strings, with plummy vibrato and all, will come
           | back in style at some point in the next thirty years.
        
             | giraffe_lady wrote:
             | aight
        
           | bena wrote:
           | To be fair, later can be very later. On the order of decades
           | even.
           | 
           | And maybe it just winds up with a dedicated niche audience.
           | Never fully mainstream, but never out of the current culture
           | either. It's hard to predict what people will like in the
           | future. The best we can do is just do things _we_ like.
        
       | circlefavshape wrote:
       | I normally think the up-a-semitone key change is kinda trite,
       | with the exception of The Rainbow Connection from The Muppets.
       | Changes key in a non-obvious way after the middle-8 and really
       | gives the song a lift
       | 
       | (FWIW I write songs with key changes all the time (usually
       | tonic->dominant). If only someone would listen to them ...)
        
       | progre wrote:
       | In Swedens top 20 (Svensktoppen) the key change became a
       | ridiculed trope. See, Sweden top 20 is for Swedish musichians
       | only. The imported (American and British mostly) music had a
       | separate list, "Tracks".
       | 
       | Neither of the lists was based on sales by the way, since the
       | state media monopoly was supposedly non-commercial.
       | 
       | Anyway the Sweden top 20 stuff stayed dance-based (think
       | jitterbug, not rave). Somewhere someone started talking about the
       | key change. Even non-musichians learned to hear and point out the
       | key change (easy, almost always the last refrain). Sweden top 20
       | leaned in to it. More humor oriented songs now include the key
       | change in the lyrics ("here comes the pull-up).
        
       | rhn_mk1 wrote:
       | Key is described as choosing a certain set of notes from all the
       | available ones. The picture shows that the F key is missing in G
       | major.
       | 
       | Is there any popular music that belongs to multiple keys because
       | they only use the notes that are shared between them?
       | 
       | Or, is there anything that doesn't belong to any key because it
       | uses more notes than are allowed by any key?
        
         | torotonnato wrote:
         | > Key is described as choosing a certain set of notes from all
         | the available ones.
         | 
         | Not exactly, take for example the Cmaj scale. You can write
         | different melodies that "gravitate" around one of the 7 notes
         | and that effect makes up for a particular mode of the scale of
         | C. Even if the notes are exactly the same you can easily hear
         | the different flavor of each mode.
         | 
         | The easiest way to hear the modes is to play continuously the
         | Cmaj scale against a C drone (a long note), but each time
         | starting from a different grade of the scale of Cmaj. Same
         | notes, different feelings. It's unclear to me (and I think
         | controversial even among musicians) if you should use the mode
         | name as a qualifier for the key and usually people just say
         | that a song is in the key of $note, but you can definitely hear
         | the difference. In particular, it is (was?) common to modulate
         | to the relative minor/major key to highlight a section of a
         | song (e.g.: key changes from Cmaj to Amin, same notes).
         | 
         | > Is there any popular music that belongs to multiple keys
         | because they only use the notes that are shared between them?
         | 
         | It's very common in jazz, a classic example: Giant steps by
         | Coltrane. The song continuously modulates in major thirds and
         | loops around three keys.
         | 
         | > Or, is there anything that doesn't belong to any key because
         | it uses more notes than are allowed by any key?
         | 
         | Look up "serialism" and "atonal music".
        
         | codeulike wrote:
         | _Key is described as choosing a certain set of notes from all
         | the available ones._
         | 
         | 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 by the other notes.
         | 
         |  _Is there any popular music that belongs to multiple keys
         | because they only use the notes that are shared between them?_
         | 
         | Sortof - the notes might technically be part of a few different
         | keys - but usually there is an 'implied center of gravity'
         | pointing to a tonic note and that tells you what key you are
         | actually in. But if you make it ambiguous for a few bars it can
         | be a useful musical effect, sorotf suspense. And then you
         | resolve to one or the other possible candidates and it sounds
         | cool. But if you do it for too long it sounds muddy.
         | 
         | A good key change is sortof like that, you hover in a space
         | that could be either key for a bit then resolve to something
         | specific.
         | 
         |  _Or, is there anything that doesn 't belong to any key because
         | it uses more notes than are allowed by any key?_
         | 
         | Jazz goes all over the place. Accidentals, key changes. An
         | accidental is like a single note that isn't 'in' the key.
         | Perhaps like a one note key change. The keys are still part of
         | it but its more adventurous.
         | 
         | If you completely ignore key altogether its polytonal and it
         | sounds kindof annoying.
         | 
         | Or people invent their own ones, e.g. Aleksi Perala and the
         | Colundi Sequence https://thequietus.com/articles/20493-aleksi-
         | perl-perala-col...
         | 
         | Althought there's a big argument as to whether western keys are
         | all just conditioning or something intrinsic. e.g. Does Major
         | sound 'happy' and Minor sound 'sad' to all humans? Octaves are
         | pretty universal in human music but after that it gets
         | complicated. I think there's some good pointers to how
         | overtones in in inner ear correspond to frequency ratios which
         | correspond to classic intervals such as the third or fifth. And
         | then how best to construct a scale that squeezes in the most
         | useful thirds and fifths and so on. If you follow that exercise
         | then the white keys/black keys on a piano start to look quite
         | optimal. BUT social conditioning, anthropology and so on so
         | maybe not.
        
           | rhn_mk1 wrote:
           | What does it mean to "imply" or "allude" to something in
           | music?
        
             | codeulike wrote:
             | A melody or a chord sequence sets up an expectation. How
             | you meet that expectation (directly, or shades of
             | 'slightly' to 'completely subverted') is where the art
             | happens. You can imply the tonic note without having to
             | actually go there sometimes.
             | 
             | It's all patterns, and getting the balance between
             | repetition and change.
        
         | rjmill wrote:
         | Check out "Entrance of the Gladiators" (ie, the stereotypical
         | circus song.)
         | 
         | It uses all the notes on the chromatic scale, so it doesn't
         | "fit" into a specific key. (But it's still considered to be in
         | a specific key. The notes outside that key are the exception
         | not the rule.)
        
         | TheOtherHobbes wrote:
         | 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._
        
           | giraffe_lady wrote:
           | 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 wrote:
           | _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.
        
       | egiboy wrote:
       | The author, by making this claim, lays bare the fact that they do
       | not know about Eurovision.
       | 
       | Key changes are so common in Eurovision songs that it is
       | mentioned in the ultimate Eurovision spoof song "Love Love Peace
       | Peace", which also features at least one key change:
       | https://youtu.be/Cv6tgnx6jTQ
       | 
       | The reports of the death of the key change, dare I say, are
       | greatly exaggerated.
        
         | TylerE wrote:
         | Eurovision is irrelevant to the US market. Those songs do not
         | chart here.
        
           | peterkelly wrote:
           | So what? The US has less than 5% of the global population.
           | Pretending the other 95% of the world is "irrelevant" seems
           | odd.
        
             | BiteCode_dev wrote:
             | Espacially for art, since a song can have decades of
             | success without the need to make billions on the us market.
        
             | AlgorithmicTime wrote:
        
             | thesuitonym wrote:
             | This article is about US charts, so any conversation about
             | the other 95% of the world is, by definition, irrelevant.
        
             | 323 wrote:
             | But probably 50% of the global population listens to US
             | music.
        
               | narag wrote:
               | I don't have the numbers but I would be cautious there.
               | _Some_ US music is listened in other countries, but not
               | all of it. Not everything is easily exportable.
               | 
               | Also there are local musicians popular in each country.
               | And there are musicians from countries other than the US
               | that are international but unknown in the US.
               | 
               | Anyway, Eurovision is quite irrelevant in Europe too :)
               | 
               | Edit... for native English speakers, consider this:
               | there're songs in which the lyrics are more important
               | than music. That kind of music is usually boring if you
               | can't understand what they're saying.
        
               | toomanybeersies wrote:
               | Anecdotally, most of the music I heard when I was
               | travelling in South America wasn't American music. Same
               | thing with South East Asia.
               | 
               | Look at the Billboard (or equivalent) charts for Germany,
               | France, Argentina, or any other non-Anglo country; maybe
               | 10% of the entries are English language or from American
               | artists.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | WastingMyTime89 wrote:
           | They chart nowhere. That's not the point. Noticing that key
           | changes are still popular at what is one of the most popular
           | song contest in the world is however very relevant to a
           | discussion about the public taste.
        
             | unwind wrote:
             | They most certainly chart in Sweden, here's the chart from
             | May 14th (the day after the the Eurovision finals) [1].
             | This is "Svensktoppen", a very long-running list of top-
             | played Swedish songs in Swedish radio. Off the top of my
             | head, positions 1, 3, 4 and 5 were all candidates for
             | Eurovision (and the song in position #3 was the one that
             | competed in Eurovision).
             | 
             | In Swedish, this key change is generally called a
             | "schlagerhojning", where "schlager" [2] is the broad genre
             | word for the type of songs that compete in the Eurovision.
             | The term is old, obviously there's a rather wide genre
             | spread these days but it used to be more same-same.
             | 
             | Edit: added a "Swedish" above, I did not realize that the
             | chart only lists Swedish music, saw another comment mention
             | this. Very weird of me.
             | 
             | [1]: https://sverigesradio.se/topplista.aspx?programid=2023
             | &date=...
             | 
             | [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlager_music
        
           | mkl95 wrote:
           | They don't chart that much in Europe either. Eurovision is
           | _tone deaf_.
        
             | dividedbyzero wrote:
             | I'd rather say that what works in that huge party simply
             | doesn't necessarily work outside of it, at least not
             | everywhere. The ESC is still crazy successful, at 161
             | Million viewers this year worldwide.
        
               | andybak wrote:
               | At least in the UK - people are watching with a mixture
               | of morbid fascination and ironic glee. I've never met
               | anyone who thinks it's a valid forum for good pop music.
        
             | AlecSchueler wrote:
             | Is chart performance really the only marker we have left
             | for cultural relevance?
             | 
             | Eurovision is hugely popular and continuously and
             | commercially successful outside of the charts world.
        
               | ilyt wrote:
               | It's coz everyone wants to watch a good clown fiesta, not
               | because it has any relevance to music
        
           | recuter wrote:
           | I didn't know charts matter anymore.
        
           | bambataa wrote:
           | Well shucks, maybe they should just cancel it then.
        
         | tomcam wrote:
         | Is there a way to watch the Eurovision contest in the US?
        
           | pionar wrote:
           | Peacock broadcast the last Eurovision contest hosted by
           | Johnny Weir in the US. I assume that'll continue.
        
           | sorenjan wrote:
           | The same people that have produced Eurovision for something
           | like a decade is now making American song contest, where
           | states compete against each other. I'm not convinced it will
           | work, but we'll see.
        
         | josteink wrote:
         | > The author, by making this claim, lays bare the fact that
         | they do not know about Eurovision.
         | 
         | Historically I would say that to be an accurate statement. It
         | used to be a Eurovision-staple.
         | 
         | The latest few years though, I've been surprised that literally
         | none of the songs making it to the finals have key-changes like
         | this any more.
         | 
         | When it's usage is decimated, _even in Eurovision-songs_ , I
         | think that clearly shows the author has a solid point.
        
           | taylorius wrote:
           | I watch Eurovision for the laughs, and because I enjoy it as
           | an anachronism that flies in the face of the internet's
           | frictionless free market optimisation. But lately the acts
           | have started all singing in English, and generally getting a
           | bit X Factor-ish, so maybe its time is sadly drawing to a
           | close.
        
             | sorenjan wrote:
             | The winners in 2021 sang Italian metal, the winners in 2022
             | sang Ukranian rap and folk music. I unfortunately think
             | it's inevitable to get more bland and optimized
             | contributions, but the last winners have shown that the
             | audience likes novelty.
        
               | taylorius wrote:
               | This is true, and a very good sign I'd say!
        
         | Finnucane wrote:
         | The article literally limits its context to the billboard top
         | 100. It's right there in the title.
        
         | 323 wrote:
         | Key changes are very popular in song contests because they
         | allow the (live) singer to show off their skills.
         | 
         | But key changes are not popular in popular (sic) songs. Very
         | few EuroVision songs transition to the radio/....
         | 
         | You can easily tell which songs were mostly influenced by a
         | singer (made for them) or by a producer (made for
         | plays/profit). Stuff which is popular with singer, elaborate
         | vocal constructions don't typically make for a good song.
         | 
         | Which is why you need a producer to say NO to the singer if you
         | want a popular song. Of course, the singer can be the producer,
         | but it's a different skill set.
        
         | steeleduncan wrote:
         | This is related to the real reason key changes no longer chart,
         | they are a cliche. You are no more likely to get a song with
         | cheesy modulations into the Billboard top 100 than you are a
         | book that starts "it was a dark and stormy night" into the New
         | York Times bestseller list.
         | 
         | In Eurovision though, the cheese is part of the fun.
        
           | adamc wrote:
           | Trying to comprehend the idea that "key changes are cliche".
           | No. Maybe certain patterns are cliche, but there are so many
           | interesting things you can do with key changes that the
           | remark is just silly.
           | 
           | But it isn't just key changes that have gone away. We used to
           | let drummers speed up and slow down with the emotion of the
           | song. Now we want everything on a grid for ease of
           | production, we pitch-correct even when it isn't really
           | needed, we sample sounds rather than have real musicians
           | play. The result of all that is that songs have a narrower
           | envelope of variation, and they tend to be more simplistic.
        
       | PaulHoule wrote:
       | I used to make fun of Medium by calling it Tedium, then this site
       | came out which is one of the wonders of the web and makes me
       | think, 'why the hell does anybody care what happens to Twitter?'
       | I mean, this guy listened to more than 1000 songs and explains
       | music theory and how you edit music on a computer today, while
       | Medium bloggers tell me how impressed they were to get 70 views
       | on an article and people on Twitter think it is their
       | constitutional right to say "A TRANS WOMAN IS A WOMAN. PERIOD."
       | or a "A TRANS WOMAN WILL NEVER BE A WOMAN. PERIOD."
       | 
       | What's priceless is having the opportunity to think something
       | through and explain it and Tedium rises above the shitposting
       | world. Bravo!
        
         | dang wrote:
         | " _Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents._ "
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
         | 
         | That's particularly extremely important when the thread is
         | fresh, because threads are so sensitive to initial conditions.
         | Tossing flamebait in like this risks ruining the entire thing.
        
       | mahoho wrote:
       | Incidentally, one of my favorite modulations in pop music is the
       | transition to the chorus in Scritti Politti's "Perfect Way".
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLxIB_lrwk0
        
         | yesenadam wrote:
         | Thanks, never heard that, I didn't realize Miles Davis' version
         | was so close to the original! e.g. Finland 1987
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eaTwj6NTzU
        
         | jader201 wrote:
         | 100%. I've always liked the modulation between the verses and
         | chorus of this song.
        
       | kevinwang wrote:
       | The first point about the rise of hip hop seems good. The second
       | point about the rise of digital production seems like incorrect
       | conjecture.
       | 
       | If chord changes had become more, not less popular, I'm sure that
       | the rise of digital production would be cited as the reason,
       | since it makes it much easier to modulate all the instruments.
       | 
       | I think a better hypothesis is what was alluded to in the
       | editorial at the end:
       | 
       | > Say what you will about key changes. Maybe you find them at
       | best heavy-handed and at worst trite. I know that I often do.
       | 
       | They have just fallen out of fashion as being gimmicky.
       | 
       | I don't really buy that vertical production would kill the key
       | change. After all, beat switches are alive and well. We still
       | have verses and choruses and interludes and beat drops.
        
       | mariusmg wrote:
       | Pop music and (semi) complex music composition. Name a more
       | unlikely duo.
        
       | rjmill wrote:
       | And all the concertina, melodeon, and harmonica players of the
       | worlds couldn't be happier.
       | 
       | I feel personally attacked whenever I want to learn a song, and
       | it has a key change in the middle of it.
        
       | stickfigure wrote:
       | Reminds me of this breakdown of "Never Gonna Let You Go" by
       | Sergio Mendez:
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnRxTW8GxT8
       | 
       | That song makes everything else look like amateur hour. Somehow
       | it hit #4 on the Billboard Top 100 in 1983.
       | 
       | I think I'll stick to bluegrass. In G.
        
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