When, and why did key changes go out of fashion?

[SecretSam]

If you want to leave space for the sounds to develop, or if you want to avoid your arrangement turning to mush under the weight of filters, distortion, modulation, delays and discarded pizza boxes ... or whatever... it might be a smart choice to simplify the harmony and thin out the chords.

Thin out the sounds not the chords , you're thinking like an amateur who prioritizes mixing and production! Ironically, reading too much web forums will lead you there ...

Probably best to explain by example:

Have a look at a jazz real book, and pick a tune that uses harmonic minor modes, where you usually have to voice stuff like 7th chords with a flat 9 and a sharp 5, and where the chords change every two to eight beats. There will plenty to choose from. Set up your keyboard with lots of distortion, delay, reverb and phasing.

It will be an interesting special effect, but you won't get much musical or textural information out of it because there's too much going on. You might be an exception, but I suspect most players would simplify the harmony or sharpen the sounds.

Or more simply: folk guitarists can get away with strumming six-string chords. Folks playing distorted electric guitars, on the other hand, tend to use thinner chords: two, three or four notes.

[awjoe]

Okay, this thread made me notice the key changes that start happening about 2.45 on this one. They serve to raise energy. But the band is just as skillful at taking things back down, and then taking things back up with high-energy soloing, so the key change thing is just another way for them to vary intensity.

Jon Cleary
When You Get Back

https://youtu.be/_y07ENAx2_E?si=rO7rakAtuqW42FTf

[Drew Stephenson]

Woke up thinking of San Francisco by Scott McKenzie. Key changes in and out of the bridge and into the outro which don't sound too cheesy to me (though that may be down to familiarity of course).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I0vkKy504U

[amanise]

Woke up thinking of San Francisco by Scott McKenzie. Key changes in and out of the bridge and into the outro which don't sound too cheesy to me (though that may be down to familiarity of course).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I0vkKy504U

Try doing the song down a seniors open mic without them and see if you make it out to the car park! Far out!!

[alexis]

Woke up thinking of San Francisco by Scott McKenzie. Key changes in and out of the bridge and into the outro which don't sound too cheesy to me (though that may be down to familiarity of course).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I0vkKy504U

Great example for this discussion, thanks Drew!

The key changes sound a little less musical and a little more contrived to me than I'm immediately comfortable with. I'm trying to understand why ... maybe because they are so sudden without a transition/foreshadowing chord in the beat(s) before the key change?

Then I'm realizing I'm being inconsistent in my thinking, since a fair amount of music I write has the same characteristic.

So, I have to admit I'm not really sure why I'm not all warm and fuzzy about this song/those key changes !

[Drew Stephenson]

I suspect that a lot of it will come down to your state of mind when you first hear it. If you're in a receptive mood and it doesn't jar the first time you're probably more likely to assimilate it smoothly.
Maybe.

[MOF]

I suspect that a lot of it will come down to your state of mind when you first hear it. If you're in a receptive mood and it doesn't jar the first time you're probably more likely to assimilate it smoothly.
Maybe.

I was in a receptive mood when I bought the 'Nothing like the sun' CD by Sting all those years ago, I do remember it jarring though (too jazzy) and it nearly went back to the shop. I played it a few more times just to make sure and then it suddenly became a keeper.

[amanise]

I suspect that a lot of it will come down to your state of mind when you first hear it. If you're in a receptive mood and it doesn't jar the first time you're probably more likely to assimilate it smoothly.
Maybe.

I was in a receptive mood when I bought the 'Nothing like the sun' CD by Sting all those years ago, I do remember it jarring though (too jazzy) and it nearly went back to the shop. I played it a few more times just to make sure and then it suddenly became a keeper.

I think that stuff stays with you for longer though. Had the same experience with "Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch" (Zappa), which I bought for the track "Valley Girl". The rest took a while to understand properly, but 40 years later I still love the whole album.

[ManFromGlass]

I liked that Zappa album too. I have had his “Yellow Shark” for a few years now. Some of the pieces I’m still getting comfortable with, others I totally vibe with. Amazing performances. Chord or key changes? Some gorgeous and nicely unexpected moves and others waaaaaaay over my head.
I have become comfortable with the idea that it’s ok not to like certain pieces of music even if the composer is brilliant.

[Sam Spoons]

I suspect that a lot of it will come down to your state of mind when you first hear it. If you're in a receptive mood and it doesn't jar the first time you're probably more likely to assimilate it smoothly.
Maybe.

I was in a receptive mood when I bought the 'Nothing like the sun' CD by Sting all those years ago, I do remember it jarring though (too jazzy) and it nearly went back to the shop. I played it a few more times just to make sure and then it suddenly became a keeper.

I had a similar experience in my late teens when I bought The Band's eponymous LP. Initially I thought "WTF have I bought?" but returning a played LP was not a realistic option so I listened again and, after a while I 'got' it.

[amanise]

I liked that Zappa album too. I have had his “Yellow Shark” for a few years now. Some of the pieces I’m still getting comfortable with, others I totally vibe with. Amazing performances. Chord or key changes? Some gorgeous and nicely unexpected moves and others waaaaaaay over my head.
I have become comfortable with the idea that it’s ok not to like certain pieces of music even if the composer is brilliant.

Yes, I forgot to mention key changes - which are (of course) all over Zappa stuff. And as for stuff that you come to appreciate over time, I'm not sure that's a thing people do any more - but not only in music. Seems to m that most things are only appreciated after an initial 'glance' - and then forgotten forever in favor of the next new thing to take in at a glance and discard. Which would support the premise that key changes have gone out of fashion - but also much, much more.

[Drew Stephenson]

Well, take music as an example. When I were a lad you bought your cassette and that was probably a month's pocket money. So you listened to it. A lot.
Now you have practically the entire popular music catalogue available to you for about the same cost as that one cassette (adjusted for inflation ) so if something's not grabbing you, you move on.
And that catalogue is expanding by more than you can listen to every day.
See also Netflix. Ebooks. etc. etc. etc.

[ManFromGlass]

I was sitting behind a young lady on a plane. I was watching how she was looking at things on some video media site on her phone. It reminded me of how some people used to flip through magazines, literally a second per video, flip, flip, flip, flip, ah something almost interesting so 2 second glance, then back to 1 second glance. This went on for half hour maybe until she got bored.
If some of them were music videos then she probably didn’t even hear the 2nd chord if there was one.
Perhaps over the ages some people have always had the short attention span and it just adjusts to whatever the current media format for viewing content is. Although like that old amusing video, I can’t imagine flipping through the scrolls of old as quickly.
I found it fascinating to observe.

[amanise]

It's definitely not something my brain can do. I ditched Netflix in the end when I realised that I spent more time flipping through the catalog screens than I had available to watch anything. Not kidding! One time I was so bewildered by the sheer choice I realised I'd spent more than an hour trying to choose what I was in the mood to watch. It's too much stress.

[ManFromGlass]

I used to do an internet search first like “current detective tv series” to help narrow it down. After a month or so one realises that you’ve seen the better shows and the rest are crap fillers unless you like B (or C or D) movies/series.
Amazon is bloody irritating for 2 reasons - they have suggestion duplicates in every category and they sometimes only have half of a series and then you have to sign up for an add-on to see how the series ends - bstrds!!!! I say!!!!!

[DanielBeach]

A modulation which I quite like, as somebody mentioned Celine Dion key changes, is the one in her “Colour of My Love”, where the writer actually managed to modulate DOWN a semitone for the final chorus - rare, and much harder to do well!

[Martin Walker]

I ditched Netflix in the end when I realised that I spent more time flipping through the catalog screens than I had available to watch anything. Not kidding! One time I was so bewildered by the sheer choice I realised I'd spent more than an hour trying to choose what I was in the mood to watch. It's too much stress.

I used to do an internet search first like “current detective tv series” to help narrow it down. After a month or so one realises that you’ve seen the better shows and the rest are crap fillers unless you like B (or C or D) movies/series.
Amazon is bloody irritating for 2 reasons - they have suggestion duplicates in every category and they sometimes only have half of a series and then you have to sign up for an add-on to see how the series ends - bstrds!!!! I say!!!!!

I so sympathise with these two previous posts. I've had Netflix in the past, and still do have Amazon Prime, but the sheer scope of offerings has often left me giving up after an hour or so.

In fact I haven't watched anything on Prime for some months, preferring to stream Channel 4's (UK only) 'Walter Presents' series, licensed from other countries in Europe:

https://www.channel4.com/4viewers/blog/walter-presents

Yes, I have to rely on subtitles (although my schoolboy French still comes in handy), but the sheer scope of mostly unknown (to me) cityscapes, procedural differences for the police makes them feel so fresh. Part of this is the array of previously unknown actors, since so many UK series include actors well known from previous programmes, which makes taking them seriously in a new role a bit more difficult for me at least.

And while we're on streaming annoyances, I've noticed a trend that some terrestrial TV channel license a US series for only a short time, and then trot it out as fast as they can fit it in, with two consecutive hour-long episodes a day, seven days a week - I don't necessarily watch stuff every day so I record it on my set top box, and with one series I ended up with 27 hours of backed up episodes. It proved such an onslaught that I watched to the end of the current series for a sense of completion, and then deleted series two and three.

Sorry to the key change enthusiasts for hijacking your thread, but in my defence I yesterday added a new key-changed section to one of my in-progress tracks, so I hope that makes things better

[ManFromGlass]

Walter Presents was here for awhile. Some wonderful shows. And some fantastic and inventive composing approaches. Some of the music even had key changes! Lately the european offerings have had some super irritating pop songs instead of dramatic underscore the scene was calling out for. Mostly solo piano and depressing female voice. What made it worse was the subtitles showed the lyrics which usually had nothing to do with the drama of the scene and showed off how bad lyrics are bad lyrics!
The mute button was my friend.

[alexis]

Eurovision in the news here, with a cutesy article in the NYT.

The title of the article was:
How to win Eurovision in Seven Easy Steps

And, relevant to this thread, the subtitle was:
It pays to be spectacular, inspiring and just weird enough. But, please: no key changes.

For the sake of brevity, and respect for the author, I won't quote the entire article. Here is just a taste for those that may want to read more (I think NYT may be behind a pay wall).

A key change near the end was once essential for a Eurovision winner. Just listen to the Olsen Brothers’ “Fly on the Wings of Love,” which won for Denmark in 2000. About two-thirds of the way through, the siblings paused dramatically, reached skyward, then belted out the chorus a tone higher.

Nowadays, though, a key change is best avoided.

Since Marija Serifovic won for Serbia in 2007 with “Molitva,” a lovesick ballad that featured not one, but two, key changes, those dramatic tone shifts have not featured in a single winning entry. Their disappearance is so pronounced that, in 2023, Eurovision’s organizers published a blog post lamenting the demise of the “beloved pop gimmick.”

It pays to be spectacular, inspiring and just weird enough. But, please: no key changes.

.
They also had some insight into combustible use:

Whatever happens onstage, one thing will always help: fire. Eight recent winners have made ample use of flames or pyrotechnics.

One thing you must never do, though, is burn a piano. In 2015, halfway through a performance of “I am Yours” by the Austrian indie band the Makemakes, the singer Dominic Muhrer splayed his fingers like a wizard and the strings of his instrument burst into flames.

The Makemakes came joint last with zero points.

.
More here: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/arts ... steps.html

[Martin Walker]

Here is just a taste for those that may want to read more (I think NYT may be behind a pay wall).

Yes, it defnitely is.

[OneWorld]

FTAO Martyn Walker......

"I so sympathise with these two previous posts. I've had Netflix in the past, and still do have Amazon Prime, but the sheer scope of offerings has often left me giving up after an hour or so."

As it happens there was a conference the other day where representatives from the BBC and others in the broadcast media gathered together to discuss the Americanization of of broadcast/streaming media and the BBC et all will be nudged out the way, as their budget simply cannot match those of Amazon/Netflix I would dearly miss the BBC, yes, it has its flaws, but at £150 a year, it's a bargain and with radio broadcasts such a wide variety of content, Hollywood just doesn't do it for me. Where no doubt the way things are going, everything will have to be sanctioned by the Great Leader.

One suggestion was that BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. Combining BBC, ITV, Channel and Channel 5 was dismissed. The BBC reckon they are not long for this world and due to the rising success of iPlayer, everything might go on there.

The more TV channels we have, doesn't mean more programmes of better quality, it just means a deluge of tosh instead of a trickle. I watch a lot of foregin films and so many of them really are quirky, innovative, interesting, entertaining and quite novel, giving insight into how others about the world perceive this world and its idiosyncracies, something thas US centric content simply doesn't 'get' this is not to say that ll western centric media is bobbins, not at all, but too much from the same places over and over tends to overwhelm, there is so much of it, I just turn off

[OneWorld]

FTAO Martyn Walker......

"I so sympathise with these two previous posts. I've had Netflix in the past, and still do have Amazon Prime, but the sheer scope of offerings has often left me giving up after an hour or so."

As it happens there was a conference the other day where representatives from the BBC and others in the broadcast media gathered together to discuss the Americanization of of broadcast/streaming media and the BBC et all will be nudged out the way, as their budget simply cannot match those of Amazon/Netflix I would dearly miss the BBC, yes, it has its flaws, but at £150 a year, it's a bargain and with radio broadcasts such a wide variety of content, Hollywood just doesn't do it for me. Where no doubt the way things are going, everything will have to be sanctioned by the Great Leader.

One suggestion was that BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. Combining BBC, ITV, Channel and Channel 5 was dismissed. The BBC reckon they are not long for this world and due to the rising success of iPlayer, everything might go on there.

The more TV channels we have, doesn't mean more programmes of better quality, it just means a deluge of tosh instead of a trickle. I watch a lot of foregin films and so many of them really are quirky, innovative, interesting, entertaining and quite novel, giving insight into how others about the world perceive this world and its idiosyncracies, something thas US centric content simply doesn't 'get' this is not to say that ll western centric media is bobbins, not at all, but too much from the same places over and over tends to overwhelm, there is so much of it, I just turn off

[OneWorld]

FTAO Martyn Walker......

"I so sympathise with these two previous posts. I've had Netflix in the past, and still do have Amazon Prime, but the sheer scope of offerings has often left me giving up after an hour or so."

As it happens there was a conference the other day where representatives from the BBC and others in the broadcast media gathered together to discuss the Americanization of of broadcast/streaming media and the BBC et all will be nudged out the way, as their budget simply cannot match those of Amazon/Netflix I would dearly miss the BBC, yes, it has its flaws, but at £150 a year, it's a bargain and with radio broadcasts such a wide variety of content, Hollywood just doesn't do it for me. Where no doubt the way things are going, everything will have to be sanctioned by the Great Leader.

One suggestion was that BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. Combining BBC, ITV, Channel and Channel 5 was dismissed. The BBC reckon they are not long for this world and due to the rising success of iPlayer, everything might go on there.

The more TV channels we have, doesn't mean more programmes of better quality, it just means a deluge of tosh instead of a trickle. I watch a lot of foregin films and so many of them really are quirky, innovative, interesting, entertaining and quite novel, giving insight into how others about the world perceive this world and its idiosyncracies, something thas US centric content simply doesn't 'get' this is not to say that ll western centric media is bobbins, not at all, but too much from the same places over and over tends to overwhelm, there is so much of it, I just turn off

[OneWorld]

Why things appear twice over I don't know

[OneWorld]

Why things appear twice over I don't know