Songs in the wrong key
March 17, 2016 at 5:18 am
(This post was last modified: March 17, 2016 at 5:32 am by Alex K.)
Have you ever tried to sing or play a song that is actually in a major scale in minor or vice versa by shifting the coupla semitones that differ? It's pretty amusing to e.g. make highly tragic sounding versions of children's songs about little ducklings playing, or "happy" funeral marches.
Why do minor scales sound more ominous and threatening. Who knows.
Well, now, there's tech to shift frequencies in actual recordings a bit to change their scales.
Here's an interesting example, Losing My Religion shifted to A major:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6KmiIq2-m8
Here's a subtle one changed in the opposite direction:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JyFrIH2-ns
Not so subtle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7FzLX0Ql8M
NEM is harmonically so intricate that it's not just a straight major scale after the switch, and still sounds very interesting and actually pretty pretty.
I'd actually be interested in the technical details how this is accomplished. Do they simply choose a root note and divide the frequencies into semitone bins which they then shift around? What about notes that would get mapped to the same new note? With songs that use more complicated harmonizations it's not completely obvious to me. Or do they manually decide for each phrase what the appropriate substitutions are?
Why do minor scales sound more ominous and threatening. Who knows.
Well, now, there's tech to shift frequencies in actual recordings a bit to change their scales.
Here's an interesting example, Losing My Religion shifted to A major:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6KmiIq2-m8
Here's a subtle one changed in the opposite direction:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JyFrIH2-ns
Not so subtle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7FzLX0Ql8M
NEM is harmonically so intricate that it's not just a straight major scale after the switch, and still sounds very interesting and actually pretty pretty.
I'd actually be interested in the technical details how this is accomplished. Do they simply choose a root note and divide the frequencies into semitone bins which they then shift around? What about notes that would get mapped to the same new note? With songs that use more complicated harmonizations it's not completely obvious to me. Or do they manually decide for each phrase what the appropriate substitutions are?
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition
