This is the first of several posts that will look at key changes.

Key changes? I hear you wail, The cheesey bit in the final chorus of boy band ballads? I have no need of such cheap tricks!

Well, no I don’t just mean that particular cliché, although a key change in the final chorus doesn’t have to be cheesy. What I mean is all the ways tonality can change in a song. That could mean the simple ‘everything up a major second’ technique we’ve heard too many times in pop songs, but it could mean a ‘pitch of axis’ change, a change of mode, or a whole host of other ideas.

Before we look at the idea in any detail, let’s finish this post by defining what a ‘key’ is. I’m sure you know that being ‘in the key of C’ means using only the natural notes and not the sharps or flats. but does it only mean that?

Not quite. Being ‘in C’ also means having C as a home note, or ‘tonic’. The note C sounds consonant, or ‘home’ and all the other notes in the scale, to varying degrees, sound at odds with that note.

What? you say. This idea of a ‘home’ or tonic note is central to music in our part of the world. To illustrate, let’s look at the melody Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

The first line goes: C C G G A A G F F E E D D C. It ends on a C, and therefore sounds finished. The second line: G G F F E E D G G F F E E D, ends on a D, which is not the tonic note. The second line therefore sound unfinished and it needs the first line repeating n order to bring the melody ‘home’ to the tonic C.

So, being ‘in C’ means two things.

• Only the notes from the C scale
• The C note as a ‘home’ or tonic note

If either changes, you have a change of key

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