![]() Of course, for professionals, the difficulty of the key wouldn’t be an issue, especially for a contemporary popular band.Ī capo on the guitar makes any key accessible Similarly, for the other instruments in the orchestra and concert band, C is a pretty good key to select if you want to compose a song that most people in an ensemble play. Often musicians put capos to overcome barre chords or they use an easier version of the F chord. However, the chord on the 4th scale degree of C major, the F chord, is a barre chord that could be really difficult to play. On the guitar, C major uses all of the open strings as scale degrees and has many chords that can be played with open strings, making it convenient for songwriters. On the piano, C major would be a key that uses only white notes which is very convenient if you were not so familiar with the piano and wanted to compose. ![]() It could be said that C major is the most accessible key to use because it has no sharps and flats. ![]() Photo 113632179 © Kaspars Grinvalds | C major is good for most instruments Now, most popular doesn’t necessarily mean best but it is helpful in determining what keys are being used the most. The rest were close behind with slighter smaller percentages. Other popular keys were C major and D major.įor minor keys, the popular ones were A minor, and B minor. Most used keys on Spotifyīack in 2015, Spotify data analyst Kenny Ning analyzed 30 million songs and discovered that G major was the most popular key and reasoned that it was because it was easy to play on both the guitar and the piano. This makes chords more uncomfortable to play and then you don’t see many of those unusual keys for guitar-driven artists. For instance, on the guitar, keys that make use of the open strings tend to be more used than the keys that have fewer open strings. Some instruments just don’t like certain keys. Sometimes selecting the best key is due to the limitations of your instruments. As a result, the sound of one key in equal temperament is not going to have an appreciable difference from the sound of another key. Video can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: 144: Sietze de Vries ()Įqual temperament has removed the distinct differences in the ratios between particular letter pitches. In our exclusive interview with him on the Songbird Music Podcast, he says that the organ itself will generate musical ideas for him to use (At time 27:40 in the interview). The instruments determining the best keysįamed classical improviser Sietze de Vries mentions how the instruments themselves will suggest musical ideas. Musical theorists like Kirnberger, Mattheson, and others wrote about these key characteristics in their treatises. These are subjective qualities and one should not quickly discount them but it’s clear that many composers carefully selected their keys when composing, in light of these tonal differences. What was the best key in those times? Well, now it is fair to say that the different keys produced different moods because the microtonal differences of the intervals in the octave, particularly the 3rds and 5ths, would have created some interesting aural colors to the ear.įor instance, D major is “triumphant” and C major is “pure”. Its history dates back to before it was widely adopted but we can say with some certainty that equal temperament became the norm around the later part of the 18th century.īefore equal temperament, there was a wide variety of tuning systems employed across Europe, sometimes down to the particular locality or town as each musician would individuality tune their instruments. Photo 112628398 / Acoustic © Rawpixelimages | Įqual temperament is a tuning system that divides an octave into 12 equal intervals.
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