Bad Key Changes

[jeffhenderson]

I thought this was da bomb dot com.

http://www.gearchange.org/

[john m]

heh, I saw the thread title and immediately thought LiveonRelease - I'm Afraid of Britney Spears.

Also, what the hell? JB has a stalker?

[jeffhenderson]

Also, what the hell? JB has a stalker?

haha naw, I was just trying to be clever and awesome with the optional challenge this week.

[j$]

That'll teach you.

[Jim of Seattle]

Whoever made that website is pathetic.

[a bebop a rebop]

I see you read the FAQ, Jim.

[fodroy]

yeah. i don't see the point. sometimes it can be annoying, but half of those examples didn't really bother me.

[john m]

Wow. I probably hate it more than anything else in songwriting.

Not key changes in general, mind you. If it's well done, it's good. I'm talking about what they outline, the blatant "boy, I wish we could make the song go somewhere now... I know, key change!" shit that you hear in all pop nowadays. Pop music is so fucking predictable. And bad.

[Bjam]

The day before yesterday, my Mum and I were watching Ellen, and Barry Manilow was on singing 'Unchained Melody'. I think he changed key about 5 times. And every time it got more and more awkward for him to sing.

[Jim of Seattle]

We used to call it the "Barry Manilow modulation", when the song would just notch up another half-step to generate some excitement.

I will often change keys to weird places just to make the listener go "Huh? Oooohh", but I try to stay away from the BMM.

In both Amos Moses (at 1:09) and Bad Attraction (at 2:39) I used the trick of going down a half-step, sort of an anti-BMM. It sounds weird, but I dig it.

The Supreme's "I Hear a Symphony" does it over & over & over, and poor Diana Ross didn't quite have the chops (or the rehearsal time) to keep up. XTC's terrific "English Roundabout" also did it over & over and every time it was still cool IMO.

[mkilly]

I've known about this site since it was last updated. (sad story that it seems to have been abandoned.)

jim, you said the guy who made the site is pathetic, but then you kind of backtracked. do you abhor the gear change or not? THE GENTLEMAN FROM WASHINGTON HASN'T TAKEN A PUBLIC STANCE.

if we were running for office i'd totally pound that line.

[erik]

Pathetic? hahahha, that's retarded.

The gear change is one of the most hackneyed conventions in pop music, and a website devoted to it is awesome.

[Jim of Seattle]

Devoting an entire website to a reltively arbitrary musical cliche seems excessive. I think it's funny that Manilow used the exact same half-step key change so often, but I have no problem with the practice in general. What's wrong with trying to generate some excitement? God knows a lot of songs need something[ to keep them interesting. A key change like that is just one of about 7 million overused cliches in songs. Why pick on just one as if it's so much worse than all the others?

[jute gyte]

Their problem with the gear change modulation seems to be that it's often chosen simply because it's the easiest/laziest option to generate excitement since it doesn't require you to write any new material or even modify the existing material aside from bumping it up a key. This is usually done so a song that has run out of ideas can be extended to single length, which is pretty reprehensible. I can't say I disagree, but I still like "Already Gone".

[Jim of Seattle]

Yeah, it's definitely lazy. I guess if the ONLY thing you are doing is changing key and nothing else about the song changes, then that would be worse. I think also what's bad is changing to an obvious key, like a simple half-step higher.

[Techie music rambling]
Generally I've found that changing key to one with more sharps in it (or fewer flats) gives a feeling of increased energy, and vice-versa. Most obious and least dramatic is moving to the dominant key, which adds a single sharp. Changing to a key a whole step up will add two sharps, but it can suffer from the problem mentioned in the next paragraph below. Moving down a minor third, adding three sharps, seems to be a sweet spot where it adds a lot of energy without seeming too cliche and also not being so foreign a key that the modulation seems like a non-sequitir.

Moving up a half step is technically moving to an extremely foreign key, so rather than being perceived as a modulation based on key, it comes across more like someone simply sped up the record a little bit. The tonal relationship between the two keys is essnetially non-existent, so we hear it more as a plain across the board tessitura change, which is indeed boring and lazy.

In general the problem with these "smack" modulations is that the music itself doesn't respond in kind. Everything just slides en masse to the new key. Though thinking about it now, I bet one could make a half-step up key change and make it very exciting and not cliche at all. For example, change the key when it's not expected, in the middle of the phrase or something, change the base line to first or second position, or make the voice leading more involved than just sliding up. Hmmm
[end of techie music rambling]

[mkilly]

Why pick on just one as if it's so much worse than all the others?

Why devote a site to the use of some dorky percussion instrument? Why create a website based on writing songs based on arbitrary titles? 'cause it's funny, or fun. the gear change is such a silly, trite, archaic-sounding device, and so present in pop music, it's part of the zeitgeist of western music. a site based on songs that employ the life/wife rhyme or whatever wouldn't have the notion of the absurd that the gear change does.

[erik]

Devoting an entire website to a reltively arbitrary musical cliche seems excessive. I think it's funny that Manilow used the exact same half-step key change so often, but I have no problem with the practice in general. What's wrong with trying to generate some excitement? God knows a lot of songs need something[ to keep them interesting. A key change like that is just one of about 7 million overused cliches in songs. Why pick on just one as if it's so much worse than all the others?

Right, but you're totally begging the question here by assuming that a gear change keeps a song interesting. Does it really? Do you hear a gear change (not an artful change of key, but a gearchange) and think "Great! That song needed something, and that really fits the bill!" If you do, well, I'm flummoxed. Sometimes they are done well. Most of the time it feels like something fixed with duct tape.

Why "pick on" one as if it's so much worse than the others? Well, arguably it's the most overused, but even if you don't buy into that, why must there be fairness in internet websites mocking lazy songwriting techniques? I think that devoting a website to chronicling one thing extensively makes for a better read than one that tries to collect examples of gearchanges, and clearmountain pauses, and thugged out gangstas rapping your bridge for you, and on and on until the end of time.

Having focus is a good thing.

[Jim of Seattle]

Do you hear a gear change (not an artful change of key, but a gearchange) and think "Great! That song needed something, and that really fits the bill!"

No, I don't think that. But it does add a tiny bit of energy. Look I'm not saying it's a great thing or anything, I just don't know that it's egregious enough to warrant a big huge thing about it. At leasr the person is cognizant enough to realize his song is getting boring. The solution is wrong, but the problem is correctly diagnosed at least.

But something that most people here hate that really don't bother me at all is fade-outs. I know they're uncool, but try as I might I just can't get bothered about it. Maybe I grew up hearing too many songs with fade-outs at the end and so I'm immune to them. But they really don't bug me.

[WeaselSlayer]

Some of their examples I think are great, like Flaming Lips' "Do You Realize?" has an awesome key change in it. I dig it. Whatever.

[Leaf]

There are no absolutes on any of this. Anyone saying "(insert musical device here) are (nsert negative opinion here)" as an absolute are (insert derogatory comment that should be inferred as an absolute here), plain and simple.

[john m]

Anyone saying "(insert musical device here) are (nsert negative opinion here)" as an absolute are (insert derogatory comment that should be inferred as an absolute here), plain and simple.

...boy, if you had made that joke, that would have been some fine irony, let me tell you. In that hypothetical joke universe, consider me laughing.

[Leaf]

I'll hypothetically consider that I care.

ha.


ha.