# Musicians - questions about transposing music **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 7, 2018, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-questions-about-transposing-music/806046 "2018-01-07T15:11:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2018, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-questions-about-transposing-music/806046/101 "2018-01-08T22:00:15Z")
> [@Mixolydian](#): > > Still wondering how Chuck Leavell pulls of his soloing in “Jessica” (key of A). See, I agree with you and the nice “slides” certain piano keys have for blues. (I actually was writing a long post earlier that I deleted that had exactly what you stated, because it was running a bit afield of the thread). Like you, I like keys where you can slide from a black key minor third to a white key major third. That said, I also like key where you can do the same with the flat 5 and the 5. So, basically, two blues keys: C and G, with G being the one far preferred by guitarists, IME. So G is my favorite blues key when I’m doing something very chordal and incorporating major and minor thirds. If I’m doing something more monophonic and pure blues scale, I like F, because you can just blaze runs on F Ab Bb B C Eb F. Oddly, though, I prefer E blues to E flat blues. Something about having my thumb and pinky (ETA: actually, I would use the third or fourth finger on the fifth if my thumb is on the tonic most of the time) on the black keys with the third on the white in the middle makes me feel cramped. Although the nice thing about Eb blues is you just jam on any black key and you’re in the blues scale. I agree with **Eonwe** re: Jessica. The key of A feels really nice under the fingers for that major pentatonic kind of stuff, with those 2-3 and 5-6 “hammer-ons.” (Plus I actually like playing the blues in A; I don’t have the major-minor third black-key/white-key slide, but I still have a nice b5 to 5 slide in there. Most of “Jessica” is major pentatonic, anyway, with the blues scale coming into play at the peak of the piano solo.) ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2018, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-questions-about-transposing-music/806046/102 "2018-01-08T22:02:50Z")
> [@DooWahDiddy](#): > > You’re telling me you can’t hear a difference in [this](https://soundcloud.com/brandonsturiale/fur-elise/s-W48Pz), from what you’re used to hearing? > > I’d also like to clarify that when I said different keys had different characteristics/feelings, I was talking about key _signatures_. I never asserted that a C by itself sounds “childlike”, nor could someone name the note without having a good sense of pitch. But _ABSOLUTELY_ there is something between distinguishing pitches and having perfect pitch, and it’s silly to say otherwise. I don’t have perfect pitch, yet I can name certain pitches if they strike me on a good day, and I can tell if a song has been transposed. I’m sure tons of people fall somewhere on the spectrum, just like people have varying degrees of color sensitivity, as has been discussed. Agreed. I believe that when we listen to a song in our mind’s ear, we are hearing it exactly the way it was recorded, non-transposed. People say I have perfect pitch, but I’d prefer to think I just remember things really well. I believe anyone can do it, too, if they can just remember accurately what they hear. If I want to hear an E, I think of the opening note of Roadhouse Blues or Day Tripper, or I remember that G is the opening chord of Take It Easy and work from there. Bridge Over Troubled Water is in Eb, as is She’s Always a Woman to Me. Absolutely these individual notes have colours that can be heard clear as day if you listen carefully. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2018, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-questions-about-transposing-music/806046/103 "2018-01-08T22:05:56Z")
> [@Biffster](#): > > Agreed. I believe that when we listen to a song in our mind’s ear, we are hearing it exactly the way it was recorded, non-transposed. People say I have perfect pitch, but I’d prefer to think I just remember things really well. I believe anyone can do it, too, if they can just remember accurately what they hear. If I want to hear an E, I think of the opening note of Roadhouse Blues or Day Tripper, or I remember that G is the opening chord of Take It Easy and work from there. Bridge Over Troubled Water is in Eb, as is She’s Always a Woman to Me. Absolutely these individual notes have colours that can be heard clear as day if you listen carefully. If you can do that accurately and consistently, you pretty much, by definition, have perfect pitch. This is not something I can do at all. I think I hear a song perfectly in my head, then find out it’s off by several semitones. I don’t think you understand how difficult it is to us who don’t have this ability at all. It’s like telling a color blind person, that color is red and that color is green. If you try hard enough, you can see it! No. No we can’t. I tried many years ago when I was a naive youth to study and give myself perfect pitch. I saved up my money in high school doing janitorial stuff so I could buy a collection of cassettes that promised to teach me this perfect pitch; this ability to recall or identify a note with no reference. It was $150 down the drain. I trained religiously for months, and nothing approaching perfect pitch or a sense of “color” appeared to me in these notes. Nothing. ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2018, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-questions-about-transposing-music/806046/104 "2018-01-08T22:11:36Z")
> [@DooWahDiddy](#): > > THAT’S exactly what I’m talking about. I don’t know your musical background, or if you have one, but that’s all I’ve been saying all along; that someone might not know _what_ is “off”, but they know _something_ is off. > > ETA: P.S. Yes, the entire band, including Billy, is playing in the new keys; the piano isn’t detuned. For guys at that level, playing in different keys on the spot is business as usual. Do you have proof of that? Old habits die hard, and I suspect the muscle memory for Billy, not to mention the placement of black and white keys, after so many years of playing a certain way would be hard to change. Plus I think I saw his fingers on the right keys on the big screen, even though the sound was a whole step lower. Some songs just don’t translate well to new keys either. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2018, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-questions-about-transposing-music/806046/105 "2018-01-08T22:16:13Z")
And to further my frustration with that stupid fucking ripoff of a series it’s that it started out with the notes of F# and Eb, describing F# as “twangy” and Eb as “mellow.” And, soon enough, I really started believing that I heard this “twang” of F# and that “mellowness” of Eb. But it was all a load of horseshit; if I was away from a reference pitch for long enough, and thought of that F# “twang” and heard it in my head or sing it, checking it against a piano I might find out that I’m actually singing a G to myself, or an F, or even an Eb, which it is supposed to be contrasted against (as if I were trying to imaging red and imagined green instead). Just fucking frustrating and useless. I should have gotten the relative pitch series at the time; at least that is truly learnable (much I learned over the years, anyway, but it would have been great at 13 to concentrate more on aural skills.) ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2018, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-questions-about-transposing-music/806046/106 "2018-01-08T22:28:28Z")
> [@Biffster](#): > > When I heard Billy Joel last time he was in town, everything was lowered by a whole step. It hadn’t occurred to me that anyone would go to the trouble of detuning an entire grand piano by two half step. I thought maybe the whole band had relearned the songs in new keys, but that wasn’t it. It felt like the right songs, voicing wise, but the feel was not quite right. I guess it’s one way to make up for not being able to sing as high as as one gets older. Still, an entire grand piano, unless he had one custom built. That would be a huge difference on the tension in the sound board. That was Frank Sinatra’s advice to singers as they aged; go down. I think the only singer nowadays still singing in his original keys is Paul McCartney. (I hear it’s quite noticeable, and not always pleasant.) ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2018, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-questions-about-transposing-music/806046/107 "2018-01-08T22:49:54Z")
DooWahDiddy, I appreciate the clarification, but rest assured I knew you were referring to (say) the “key of C Major,” not to the note C. Eonwe, I think we mostly agree on everything. Your post #99 was right on. It’s the “key of E-flat major is heroic” idea that is pure woo. Biffster, I just tested your assertion on myself. I listened to four Beatles songs in my mind, songs I’d heard the standard recordings of many times. On a piano, I found the first sing note of each song as it sounded in my head. I then compared these to the recordings: Song My guess Actual Difference (in whole steps) Strawberry… E C# to D 1.25 Penny… D B 2.5 Baby… B B 0 I Am… A-flat E 2 Average difference: 1.4 So, I concede you’re pretty close to being right about this, but you exaggerate how accurate a typical person is. I know anecdotes aren’t data — but, as pukykamell said, the kind of accuracy you posited is essentially equivalent to perfect pitch, which few people have (granted there is a continuum of ability). ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2018, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-questions-about-transposing-music/806046/108 "2018-01-08T23:08:21Z")
> [@TubaDiva](#): > > That was Frank Sinatra’s advice to singers as they aged; go down. I think the only singer nowadays still singing in his original keys is Paul McCartney. (I hear it’s quite noticeable, and not always pleasant.) Sting can still hit the high notes. Don Henley too. Not Elton John though. ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2018, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-questions-about-transposing-music/806046/109 "2018-01-08T23:10:56Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > DooWahDiddy, I appreciate the clarification, but rest assured I knew you were referring to (say) the “key of C Major,” not to the note C. > > Eonwe, I think we mostly agree on everything. Your post #99 was right on. It’s the “key of E-flat major is heroic” idea that is pure woo. > > Biffster, I just tested your assertion on myself. I listened to four Beatles songs in my mind, songs I’d heard the standard recordings of many times. On a piano, I found the first sing note of each song as it sounded in my head. I then compared these to the recordings: > > Song My guess Actual Difference (in whole steps) > > Strawberry… E C# to D 1.25 > Penny… D B 2.5 > Baby… B B 0 > I Am… A-flat E 2 > > Average difference: 1.4 > > So, I concede you’re pretty close to being right about this, but you exaggerate how accurate a typical person is. I know anecdotes aren’t data — but, as pukykamell said, the kind of accuracy you posited is essentially equivalent to perfect pitch, which few people have (granted there is a continuum of ability). Thanks for playing, JKellyMap! YMMV 😉 ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2018, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-questions-about-transposing-music/806046/110 "2018-01-08T23:15:37Z")
> [@Biffster](#): > > Thanks for playing, JKellyMap! YMMV 😉 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2018, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-questions-about-transposing-music/806046/111 "2018-01-08T23:20:58Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > I think you’re misunderstanding the point here. I am not saying that a song is not itself when done in a different key. Or that a black and white picture of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers is not recognizable as, in some ways, a representation of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. Just that it is, in fact, a qualitatively different experience that is perceivable and describable. Frere Jacques is still Frere Jacques no matter what pitch you start with. But many listeners are of course going to listen and say things like: “this is a very high pitched version of this song.” And, those same people might prefer their Frere Jacques to be at a lower or higher pitch. > > When you say “no one is prone to hearing pitches (As distinct from hearing the _ **relationships** _ and dynamics between scale degrees, or music.) except those with perfect pitch.” I think that’s just a made up (and wrong) opinion, that ignores the fact that people can indeed have an opinion about the highness or lowness of a specific pitch out of context. > > The fact that the degree of precision in our perception of those differences is clearly, on average, less than our ability to perceive differences in color does not mean that those differences don’t exist, or are meaningless differences when discussing music. Nor does the inability of some to have an opinion or develop vocabulary/interest mean that those who do are just making the differences up. > > Is timbre meaningless? If I play a piece on a piano or a clarinet, are they not “qualitatively diffferent for my perceptual abilities in musical contexts”? Why is pitch different? > > Take a color gradient. Points close to each other become indistinguishable to the human eye. That does not mean that the difference between color is an illusion. > > Pitches close to each other become indistinguishable to the human ear. That does not mean that the difference between pitch is an illusion. > (Sorry if some of the above gets repetitive; I’m struggling with reconciling the dueling ideas that A) there is such a thing as pitch that humans can hear and B) different pitches sound the same as each other). Highness and lowness have no meaning in a self contained repeating system. Citing a person saying “boy that’s high” is not going to be convincing. It could have been sung low. It is perfectly possible in another fact pattern that the key of Landslide was originally in the dixie chicks key and they changed it to stevies. But they could still have raised the pitch. Things that are indistinguishable to the human ear are by definition less important than things you hear, in music anyway. Differences that exist are not necessarily meaningful. Timbre, and other aspects are not relevant here. They don’t involve transposition for one thing. The topic here is music notes being transposed. Notes are the building blocks of melody, which is the “identity” of a song for many purposes. That’s why they are special. Is anyone really arguing against the primacy of notes in music? Different pitches “sound the same” to me, in the context of: the same song played at a different time. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2018, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-questions-about-transposing-music/806046/112 "2018-01-08T23:53:37Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > Average difference: 1.4 > > So, I concede you’re pretty close to being right about this, but you exaggerate how accurate a typical person is. I know anecdotes aren’t data — but, as pukykamell said, the kind of accuracy you posited is essentially equivalent to perfect pitch, which few people have (granted there is a continuum of ability). See, I’d say that a step and a half is quite a difference to those who say each key has its own color. I’ll play the game and try it with three songs whose original recording key I don’t know off the top of my head. Maybe I’ll surprise myself. Do Wah Ditty - A Shape of You- Db Roar - Bb Let’s see how we did. OK, the note I was trying to match on Do Wah Ditty turned out to be a B. One step off for me. Shape of You. Hey, I nailed this one! It’s not quite a concert Db, but seems to be a slightly flat Db. Roar - Bb. Holy crap, got that one, too, somehow. Must be my lucky day. I’m usually not that good with this. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2018, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-questions-about-transposing-music/806046/113 "2018-01-09T00:01:10Z")
Nice. Yeah, it would have helped had Biffster just stated in his/her first post, “I have perfect pitch.” Pulykamell and I might be a little envious now, but I’ve read that, as the ear ages, it’s shape changes so for people with perfect pitch, EVERYTHING starts sounding a little off as they get old. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2018, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-questions-about-transposing-music/806046/114 "2018-01-09T00:04:27Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > Nice. > Yeah, it would have helped had Biffster just stated in his/her first post, “I have perfect pitch.” Pulykamell and I might be a little envious now, but I’ve read that, as the ear ages, it’s shape changes so for people with perfect pitch, EVERYTHING starts sounding a little off as they get old. I just wish I could remember one pitch consistently. Though I somehow got 2 out of 3, I got lucky today. If I could just accurately recall one pitch, I can figure out any other pitch by relation. ---
**Author:** ![DooWahDiddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9bcb4/32.png) [@DooWahDiddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DooWahDiddy)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2018, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-questions-about-transposing-music/806046/115 "2018-01-09T00:18:49Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I don’t think you understand how difficult it is to us who don’t have this ability at all. It’s like telling a color blind person, that color is red and that color is green. If you try hard enough, you can see it! No. No we can’t. Right, but this thread is like saying “I’m colorblind so you must be, too”. I’m not sure why I’m having to argue the fact that _to me_, different keys have different flavors. Maybe they don’t to you, but that doesn’t make it woo and it doesn’t make it wrong. Also, I don’t agree that **Biffster** has perfect pitch. He might lie somewhere close to it on the spectrum, but if he truly had perfect pitch then he would be able to pull an E flat out of his ass any time he wanted, and/or be able to tell a song is in E flat instantly, once he heard it. > [@Biffster](#): > > Do you have proof of that? Old habits die hard, and I suspect the muscle memory for Billy, not to mention the placement of black and white keys, after so many years of playing a certain way would be hard to change. Plus I think I saw his fingers on the right keys on the big screen, even though the sound was a whole step lower. Some songs just don’t translate well to new keys either. Billy is the reason I play piano, and I do it professionally so I’ve had some experience with it. I suppose it’s _possible_ he was on a hybrid piano, which looks like a piano but acts like a keyboard, and everything was transposed down a step, but that wouldn’t help the band; they’d still have to play in the new key. Also, on the _2,000 Years_ album, one of the band members suggests a song (“Dance to the Music”), and Billy can be heard shouting “What key? What key?”. Which, I mean, could have totally been planned, but I’ve worked with enough musicians to see it happen in person, where someone transposes an entire song like they were changing coats. Me, I’m not wired that way, although I wish I was. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2018, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-questions-about-transposing-music/806046/116 "2018-01-09T00:23:53Z")
> [@DooWahDiddy](#): > > Also, I don’t agree that **Biffster** has perfect pitch. He might lie somewhere close to it on the spectrum, but if he truly had perfect pitch then he would be able to pull an E flat out of his ass any time he wanted, and/or be able to tell a song is in E flat instantly, once he heard it. But it does sound to me like he could produce an E flat reliably, the way he’s describing it. I have no doubt you feel differences between the keys. I don’t think this is a usual ability for someone without perfect pitch. A lot of musicians associate certain keys with certain moods, but if I play a melody for them, they can’t tell me what key it is, based on the mood it evokes. ---
**Author:** ![DooWahDiddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9bcb4/32.png) [@DooWahDiddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DooWahDiddy)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2018, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-questions-about-transposing-music/806046/117 "2018-01-09T00:28:51Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > But it does sound to me like he could produce an E flat reliably, the way he’s describing it. Perhaps. I’m just saying I’ve known people (believe me, I wish I were one of them) who could hear a 4-note chord and name all the notes in one go. And these weren’t just ordinary major or minor chords, either. I remember playing a B, D#, F, Ab (in ascending order) all at once, and the guy named them all. Pretty impressive, but to him it was just another headache, as he couldn’t hear much of anything without equating it to music. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2018, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-questions-about-transposing-music/806046/118 "2018-01-09T00:47:36Z")
> [@DooWahDiddy](#): > > Perhaps. I’m just saying I’ve known people (believe me, I wish I were one of them) who could hear a 4-note chord and name all the notes in one go. [Have you seen this kid](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3Cb1qwCUvI)? His father is a great musician, but doesn’t have perfect pitch. Watch what that kid can do. Completely other-worldly to me. ETA: [Same kid, but this one may be better](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhLNXXxbfNA). ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2018, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-questions-about-transposing-music/806046/119 "2018-01-09T02:11:23Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > [Have you seen this kid](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3Cb1qwCUvI)? His father is a great musician, but doesn’t have perfect pitch. Watch what that kid can do. Completely other-worldly to me. > > ETA: [Same kid, but this one may be better](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhLNXXxbfNA). Wow. Crazy. Showed this to my 7-year-old (a year of piano lessons under his belt), and he was blown away. “What if it was just CGI?,” he just now surmised! ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2018, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-questions-about-transposing-music/806046/120 "2018-01-09T02:22:22Z")
Enlighten me: what is woo? Also, I can pull a pitch out of thin air, most of the time. Many years as a band teacher threw me off a little though, with transposing instruments like trumpet, saxophone and French horn. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-questions-about-transposing-music/806046.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-questions-about-transposing-music/806046.md?page=7)