Talk:Key signature

message: Perhaps someone should include in the articles for each key a list of songs or pieces in it? I know some do but it's not ocmprehensive enough.
That's not very logical. Most songs can be arranged in various keys by various arrangers. Look in a few songbooks that you think have at least one song in common. Look up the song in each songbook. Are they in the same key?? If the answer is yes, then try either another song or a third songbook with the same song. Georgia guy 00:50, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  list of songs?  

message: Anyone know of a widely used non-diatonic key signature not in the table?? Georgia guy 21:33, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Freygish key signatures are non-diatonic, although some  musicians trained in "standard" western music prefer to see Klezmer music written in a familiar diatonic key signature with accidentals throughout the piece. The key of A Freygish, for example, may be written with one flat (B) and one sharp (C), but not all music notation programs support this. __Just plain Bill (talk) 04:25, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non-diatonic key signatures 

message: "...if you see a piece with a one-sharp key signature,
 you cannot be certain it is in G major."
The composition will be in either G major or E minor. Of course it may fleetingly move elsewhere, but if it were not principally in G maj or E min it would have a different key signature.
Relative major / Relative minor, could be better explained on this page.
If the piece is tonal it will will be composed around a tonic note, which is G if major, E if minor or some other note for other mode.
Karl 10 July 08:35 UT
:Karl, it seems you have little experience with Baroque music, where the key signature often doesn't match the tonality. Many pieces with two flats are in C minor, with the A-flats added as accidentals throughout. Bach's famous Dorian toccata is in D minor with no key signature (here, too, the B flats are present as accidentals). One can find examples like this as late as Haydn. —Wahoofive (talk) 04:09, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Here in the 21st century we have a living tradition of fiddle tunes, with new ones still being composed, sometimes even written down on treble staves. One sharp? Most probably G major, or E minor, or D mixy, or A dorian, until the next mode comes along. It's not uncommon to see tunes such as Flop-Eared Mule in two key signatures, one each for the A and B parts (1st & 2nd turns, or strains) or a tune like Da New-Rigged Ship which starts somewhere around A major and finishes in the neighborhood of A minor, unless I'm thinking of a different one... __Just plain Bill (talk) 22:28, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: And similarly (though this is really a better example), if you see a piece with no key signature, it doesn't have to be in C major or A minor: it could be in another key, and the key signature is omitted for some other reason (e.g. it modulates very frequently, such as Mozart's K.475 Fantasia). Double sharp (talk) 07:10, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: (Or, even more obviously, it could simply be atonal.) Double sharp (talk) 15:12, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disagree with this sentence 

message: We really should include a section on modes expressed through key signatures (e.g. D flat and A flat = ahavo-rabo mode) and acknowledge that these exist. Amber388 15:21, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What is an exotic key signature?? Georgia guy 20:49, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The most common definition seems to be a key signature that cannot designate a major key (assuming of course that the key signature is correct for the key). (I don't say minor key, because a key signature with only G might reasonably be deemed to designate the key of A minor.) Double sharp (talk) 07:11, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Exotic key signatures 

message: How do you decide the key signature of a piece tuned between e.g. C and C-sharp? 
(Well, to be pedantic, a piece tuned a quarter-tone over C...) 85.228.206.181 12:03, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Because key signatures only affect the 12 notes of the scale.  You're discussing an issue of tuning, which key signatures have little control over.  You could either simply notate in C major and make a note that the instrument should be tuned a quarter tone sharp, or you could make really unnecessary use of the quarter- and smaller-tone notations mentioned in the microtonality article. Amber388 16:47, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This probably won't answer your question, but the Accidental article has some quarter-tone examples. —Wahoofive (talk) 22:25, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "In-between" key signatures 

message: The start of the page says that a key signature denotes that each note is played a semitone higher or lower.  This is inaccurate, a key signature shows that a note is played one half step higher or lower, not a semitone (quarter step). 72.70.158.183 21:04, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you're confusing US notation with British: semitone is correct, half-step is American. — Gareth Hughes 21:17, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, in America, a semitone and a half step are two different things.  A semitone is a quarter step, located between two half steps (i.e., the pitch between C and C#).  I asked my music theory teacher about this, and she confirmed the difference. 72.95.15.198 20:22, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not to speak for all Americans, but I've always been under the impression that a semitone and a half-step are the same thing.  See any number of American-English dictionaries on the matter for confirmation.  I believe you are confusing the word semitone with smaller tonal subdivisions, such as those found in microtonal music.  71.199.186.236 02:37, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My 1965 Merriam Webster's presents 'half-step' as a synonym for 'semitone'.  However, the only relevant definition of half-step in the same dictionary is "the pitch interval between any two adjacent keys on a keyboard instrument --- called also semitone".  That said, I have always been taught that a half-step has the size of the interval between B and C, namely one-twelfth of an octave.CountMacula (talk) 05:30, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: "Semitones"

message: Who deleted the key signature graphics? unsigned comment by User:71.174.72.72 —Wahoofive (talk) 03:08, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: While I don't know what that comment means, I wonder why the article doesn't start with an example of a key signature. Instead, the first graphic is a B major scale. Even in the second graphic, there's really no explanation describing what part of the graphic is the key signature. It would be great to have a key signature example with the key signature in red to emphasize it. —Wahoofive (talk) 03:08, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Key signature graphics

message: The comment was posted because, for a time, several of the images were missing.
Now they are back. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 137.71.23.54 (talk) 22:28, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  It is well again... 

message: I am curious about which pitches Christian Schubart actually heard when writing of characteristics for each key signature.  Modern musicians hear A to be 440 or higher, but the standard tuning of most keyboard instruments of Schubart's time (1806) was around 430.  If so, would these characteristics be best heard when centered around 430, or are the characteristics "transposable"?
:I'd say this is in the ear of the listener; various writers throughout history have made associations between various keys and various emotions, and they haven't agreed much. But part of our feelings for various keys stems from associations with music that we've heard in that key. For example, music in D major historically tends to be majestic and triumphant, music in F major tends to be more pastoral (or Christmas carols), etc. These are just historical associations based on the literature and have nothing to do with pitch level, although in some cases the "feel" of a key comes from the fact that string instruments play with more open strings in some keys. This factor would be transposable. —Wahoofive (talk) 23:44, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Key signature characteristics of 430Hz tuning? 

message: This turned out to be wrong so I changed it to whole tone. It's not helpful when you are trying to learn this stuff and wikipedia tells you things like this :P WikiLlama 15:01, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Semitone is correct. For example, in the key signature with 3 sharps, the last sharp is G, and you go up a semitone from G to A, not a whole tone from G to A. Georgia guy 15:10, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, I just realised my mistake, thanks anyway. WikiLlama 15:14, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I added an example to make it clearer. WikiLlama 15:35, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "For any number of sharps, take the last sharp and go up one semitone to get the (major) key." 

message: See the discussion at Talk:Accidental (music)#Inflections vs accidentals concerning the definition of "accidental" and its relation to sharp and flat signs and key signatures. Hyacinth (talk) 21:18, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Accidental (music)]]

message: This article could use a sheet music example showing a key sig following a double bar. This image does that, but it seems a bit large for the purpose. --Jtir (talk) 21:54, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It could also use an example showing key sigs with other clefs in modern notation (I'm not sure if the Victoria example could be called modern.) Such an image would fit nicely in the lead. --Jtir (talk) 22:15, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  example showing a key sig following a double bar 

message: Is this just me, or does this article sound less like and article and more like a how-to guide, with all the mnemonics etc? Fairweather01 (talk) 22:22, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not just you. It doesn't read well at all and is misleadingly inconsistent in places. I'll try and get around to tidying up some of it. I've already deleted a raft of rather silly "my favourite" mnemonics, which weren't even in the section called 'Mnemonics". Feline Hymnic (talk) 13:10, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I've rewritten one section. I hope that is an improvement, especially with the inline "circle of fifths" diagram. There is doubtless room for further improvement. Feline Hymnic (talk) 14:48, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article Tone 

message: I've added Table of Keys, which I believe is valuable as it clearly shows all the key signatures with appropriate changes in sharps and flats. I'm not sure about the name of the section, however. I've settled for Table of Keys but maybe some other name would be more appropriate. Feel free to post any thoughts about the table. OutOfTimer Wanna chat? 04:58, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Isn't all of this information already provided in the circle of fifths diagram earlier? TrbleClef ♮ (talk) 05:06, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it is. However, I presented it in an alternative layout, which in my opinion, may be considered easier to read and/or memorise. There is another table similar to this one here, which presents yet another alternative approach but is fairly basic for obvious, article-related reasons. I do believe that the table I included is valuable to the article. However, if this is not the case from an objective point of view, I'll be happy to participate in a discussion about it. My one and only concern is improving this article and Wikipedia. OutOfTimer Wanna chat? 05:16, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand your preference for the table and we have the same goal, I think. I am not fundamentally opposed to the table. However, I believe the circle of fifths historically is used since it indicates not only the relationship between each key signature's keys, but also the intervallic relationship of neighboring keys in the circle. This is not as apparent in a table presentation... IMHO the student of music would be better off understanding the relationship of keys rather than simply memorizing signatures & related keys by rote. Perhaps a more prominent presentation of the circle is in order but that's neither here nor there TrbleClef ♮ (talk) 05:24, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It is perfectly clear that the Circle of Fifths is much more valuable. I am in no way undermining it (I would be an idiot if I did). I simply added an alternative layout to help in memorising the signatures. OutOfTimer Wanna chat? 08:40, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Table of Keys 

message: I've made a number of layout improvements and edits. I believe the article is much clearer now and simply looks better. The most important changes are:
* Increased size of the Circle of Fifths picture. It is the most important part of the article and should be more prominent.
* Addition of the new section Memorising Key Signatures as providing an alternative key signatures table is supposed to help in exactly that. Mnemonics sub-section also fits this aim perfectly. OutOfTimer Wanna chat? 08:17, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Layout Improvements 

message: Reference 2 at the bottom of the page, when the page is viewed in Print format, includes extraneous material which prevents the page from printing correctly.  My editing skills aren't good enough to fix this.  Could someone with better skills than mine fix this?RegT (talk) 23:49, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error in external link 

message: The article's good.
Suggested improvement - show how key signatures of naturals are used to change from the current key to CM/Am during a piece of music. Don't need to give examples of all sigs. I'd do it, but don't have any software to make the graphics. 
Kevgermany (talk) 22:06, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Image added under Relationship between key signature and key. Hyacinth (talk) 06:38, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: That's interesting, but how about this:
Showing a key signature change from a key with more sharps/flats to a key with fewer sharps/flats (the choice matters; it cannot be a change from sharps to flats or flats to sharps.) Specifically, whether a change from D major to G major key signature is written:
C natural, F sharp
or
F sharp, C natural
I've seen this kind of change written in both ways. Georgia guy (talk) 17:34, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changing to CM/Am 

message: How popular is it for certain composers to put sharps or flats in octaves other than the standard locations?? For your info, check out:
http://www.guitarland.com/Music10/MusFund/Maj_Key_Sig/MajKeySig.html
and look at the info on where the sharps or flats are placed. A few Wikipedia articles say that the standard rules mentioned on that page are occasionally violated by certain composers. Specifically, check out info in G major, B major, and C-flat major. They reveal that certain composers violate the rules on where to place the sharps or flats. Georgia guy (talk) 23:12, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure how popular this is. If I remember correctly, Robert Schumann fudged around with B major (bass clef A up an octave from now), and Charles-Valentin Alkan fudged around with all the sharp key signatures (treble clef F, G down an octave from now, bass clef A, B up an octave from now). Lanthanum-138 (talk) 00:21, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It was pretty common in the Baroque and earlier, when music notation wasn't as standardized as it is today. Sometimes an accidental would be placed in more than one octave. Look at this Bach manuscript and note the F# is present in both octaves on every staff. —Wahoofive (talk) 03:02, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  How popular?? 

message: Why, what, where, and how does this article need additional citations for verification? Hyacinth (talk) 13:35, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Tag removed. Hyacinth (talk) 00:45, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Additional citations

message: I notice an optical illusion in the sharp key signature images. The sharps on lines look thinner than the sharps on the spaces. Georgia guy (talk) 15:00, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Optical illusion 

message: Why and where is this article too technical? How should it be cleaned up? Hyacinth (talk) 00:42, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Four months have passed since that banner promising specifics was put up, and I see nothing at all. It looks like a drive-by to me, so I am removing it.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:22, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Too technical

message: The mnemonics are getting out of hand. It's become an attraction for creativity and not encyclopedic. WikiHow is for stuff like that. —Wahoofive (talk) 15:15, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Are any of those mnemonics even mentioned in the source for the first one? If not, then they are also all original research. I'd say delete the lot of them—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:30, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Did it. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 17:55, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mnemonics 

message: I'm a poor writer, so feel free to edit for grammer, etc., but I suggest the article should state something along these lines at the very beginning: Musical notation uses a set of horizontal lines with spaces between them, called the staff, to indicate the correct pitch to be played by placing a marker, called a note, on the appropriate line or space.  The staff would be too large and difficult to read if it had a line or space for every pitch so the staff that's used has fewer lines and spaces but accomodates the extra, homeless, pitches by using symbols, called sharps and flats, to indicate a given note on the staff is to be a pitch that is not indicated normally by the line or space it's on.  When a piece of music routinely uses these homeless pitches that require sharps or flats on given lines or spaces, it is more convenient to place the sharps or flats on the proper places at the beginning of the score and save the trouble of placing them everywhere they would otherwise be needed.  The collection of sharps or flats at the beginning of the score is called a key signature.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jklmnopqrst (talk • contribs) 11:03, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: The Need For Key Signatures

message: The images of staves indicating key signatures (in the "Table" section) are inconsistently sized and proportioned.  I reduced the size of the recently added ones (8 sharps/flats), but they're in a different format from the others. I'm hoping someone fluent with the graphics involved can sort this out. - Special-T (talk) 22:36, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Table images 

message: The neological names of the 15 clavisignatures (key signatures) are;
1: "Zeroaccident"/"zeroalteration": Zero sharp and zero flat;
2: "Heptadiesis"/"sevensharp" and "fiveflat"/"pentabemol": Seven sharps and five flats
3: "Didiesis"/"twosharp": Two sharps;
4: "Threeflat"/"tribemol": Three flats;
5: "Foursharp"/"tetradiesis": Four sharps;
6: "Monobemol"/"oneflat": one flat;
7: "Hexadiesis"/"sixsharp" and "hexabemol"/"sixflat": Six sharps and six flats;
8: "Monodiesis"/"onesharp": One sharp;
9: "Fourflat"/"tetrabemol": Four flats;
10: "Threesharp"/"tridiesis": Three sharps;
11: "Dibemol"/"twoflat": Two flats;
12: "Fivesharp"/"pentadiesis" and "heptabemol"/"sevenflat": Five sharps and seven flats.
189.50.182.128 (talk) 11:34, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Neological names of the 15 key signatures

message: The following passage appears in the lede: "Each symbol applies to all notes in the same pitch class—for example, a flat on the third line of the treble staff (as in the diagram) indicates that all notes appearing as Bs are played as B-flats. This convention was not universal until the late Baroque and early Classical period..."
While it's true that some earlier signatures contain accidentals in more than one octave, I don't think it was ever the case that the key signature didn't apply to all octaves — a sharp on the top line of the treble staff also applied to the bottom space since the inception of signatures. Unless someone has some evidence to the contrary, I'm going to rewrite this to make it clearer.
Also, the term "pitch class" is unnecessary technical jargon. I'll remove that too. —Wahoofive (talk) 16:34, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: The description that follows the section you quoted doesn't really address the "applies to all pitch classes" issue anyway - it just says that some older notation might put (e.g.) an F# on the bottom space *and* the top line of treble clef. Doesn't say anything about the F an octave above or below those. And it's uncited, so, yeah, I think that can go. I don't think "pitch class" is too bad, though, especially with a link. I get your point but I'd be inclined to leave it (and maybe expand someone's music knowledge with a simple click). - Special-T (talk) 20:39, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Especially with a link, "pitch class" fits perfectly with the notion that "sharps or flats in the key signature apply in all octaves" without being overly technical jargon. I favor keeping it. Just plain Bill (talk) 20:50, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

text: I hadn't considered the complicating factor of enharmonic equivalence, whereby A-sharps and B-flats are in the same pitch class. So I'm OK with taking that out. One of the difficulties of writing clearly about this kind of thing is that 'note', 'pitch' etc. can mean the written note on the page, or the audible note (more like 'pitch'). I've done a lot of editing of similar articles (flat, sharp, natural, accidental, enharmonic equivalence, transposing instruments, etc.) and clarity is hard to achieve. So I lean towards simpler & clearer, even if it leaves out some interesting ideas. - Special-T (talk) 14:28, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pitch classes 

message: I don't think anyone reading a general article on key signatures is likely to have seen anything except 12TET tuning and standard key signatures. Info about other tuning systems or key sigs with double/triple flats/sharps is good to mention here, but it needs to be very clear to the general reader that these situations don't occur in any written music they're likely to encounter. 99% of professional musicians won't even encounter these (most of us have never even seen C-flat as a key sig). These general music articles often become unclear because they drift into technical details or rare situations.  - Special-T (talk) 19:36, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Overstating situations that are extremely rare in the real world