Disquiet Junto Project 0570: Key Change
The Assignment: Make music that changes keys

Step 1: There’s been news of how, in the past decade, the newest most popular music doesn’t change keys as often as the most popular music used to. (I’m being cautious by being specific that this is about the most popular music, because the data relates specifically to No. 1 singles.) Read about it here:

https://www.npr.org/2022/11/25/1139232684/why-the-key-change-has-disappeared-from-top-charting-tunes

https://tedium.co/2022/11/09/the-death-of-the-key-change

Step 2: Record a piece of music that does change keys. (Don’t feel required to record music that aspires to mass popularity.)

. . .

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, December 5, 2022, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, December 1, 2022.

. . .

More on this 570th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Key Change (The Assignment: Make music that changes keys) — at: https://disquiet.com/0570/

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0570-key-change/

The cover image for this project is from DALL·E 2, where “key change into another key” was the prompt.

Disquiet Junto Project 0570: Key Change

More on this 570th weekly Disquiet Junto project – Key Change (The Assignment: Make music that changes keys) – at: https://disquiet.com/0570/

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0570-key-change/

The cover image for this project is from DALL·E 2, where “key change into another key” was the prompt.

Flora & Jam (disquiet0570)

Step 1: There’s been news of how, in the past decade, the newest most popular music doesn’t change keys as often as the most popular music used to. (I’m being cautious by being specific that this is about the most popular music, because the data relates specifically to No. 1 singles.) Read about it here:

https://www.npr.org/2022/11/25/1139232684/why-the-key-change-has-disappeared-from-top-charting-tunes 1

https://tedium.co/2022/11/09/the-death-of-the-key-change

Step 2: Record a piece of music that does change keys. (Don’t feel required to record music that aspires to mass popularity.)

==============

Track notes: It's been a long, long year so I thought I'd have a whole lot of silly fun with this. Of course - as always - it all started out quite serious.

For some reason, Stereolab's middle-to-late recorded era came to mind (Cobra, Sound Dust) which consists of a heap of tunes that take all kinds of unexpected left turns with key changes. Then I thought of Bowie..then I thought of Eno's nonsense melodies and lyrics..then it became this.

My rationale was to compact the semblance of a catchy song into two minutes with interesting development and shift between the keys of E to Bb to C and D in a relatively brief span of time. The lyrics are simply what came into my head at the time, but the reference to the leaking pipe under the sink is autobiographical. By far the silliest thing I've recorded for the Junto but it was a great deal of fun to knock together.

[Disquiet_Junto_0570] "Step Away"

" Record a piece of music that does change keys"

This one I'm sharing is a track I've been working on since July 2022, eventually a week ago I decided to drop this take and start all over with a solo piano version. It has some key changes, not really sections but there's a permanent "unstable key" feel throughout.

Piano
Classical guitar
Drums (brushes)
Acoustic bass guitar
Wine glasses (background sequence)
Celesta (from sample library)
Synth pad
Key changes go like this:
1st bar E minor 
4th bar A minor
5th bar F# minor
8th bar B minor
9th bar G major
and then back to E minor for the coda.
All repeated twice in this version, with an extended coda.

Photo by DD, Carilo, Argentina.

For this @disquiet junto, December 2nd, 2022
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0570-key-change/


Second version, January 2023 here:
https://soundcloud.com/daniel-diaz/silencio-version-2

Silencio (first demo version) - disquiet0570

Key Change

The Euclidean Chromaticon | Key Change - disquiet0570

Electronic composition, sounds created in Pure Data.

Shifting Sands (disquiet0570)

Record a piece of music that does change keys.
More on this 570th weekly Disquiet Junto project – Key Change (The Assignment: Make music that changes keys) – at: https://disquiet.com/0570/

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0570-key-change/

A song in some key of life - disquiet0570

33per