How To Find The Key In Three EASY Steps

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Hey, I'm Jesse, a composer and music theorist. I believe that Music Theory is a practical and valuable artform for all musicians throughout their lifetime. On this channel, I am making videos to help all musicians grow in their understanding of music theory and how it can make them a better musician.

[mamdohnt]

I'm terrible at sight reading and these tips are always helpful, Thank you

[aliciaanderle]

Love this video, and was excited to show my students the flow chart. However, the link to that PDF is not free. I get that you need to make a living, but as a teacher, if it's not free, I'm out😅

[caterscarrots]

I ran into this "okay, what key is it?" a lot when I was making a chart of key relations between the first and slow movements of sonatas(for which I counted anything in a multi-movement sonata structure(i.e. having at least 1 Sonata Form movement) + Liszt’s sonatas, concertos, and symphonies as a sonata, so like Mozart’s Gran Partita Serenade? Sonata. Cleminti’s Sonatinas? Sonatas. Concerto? Sonata. Symphony? Sonata. Beethoven’s Notturno for Piano and Viola? Sonata. Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde? Not a Sonata, Symphonic Suite instead, so it didn’t count.

And I basically did this to determine the key of the slow movement(or movements as with some Mozart Divertimentos) and thus its relation to the key of the first movement:

1) Look at General Info on IMSLP, it might have the keys of the movements as well as the piece as a whole. -> Indeed that was the case for the most part for Haydn and Beethoven and a couple others
2) Look at what chord the slow movement starts on
3) Look at what chord the slow movement ends on -> Unless it’s clear that there’s a key change at the end and most of the music is not in that ending key, that’s what I go by is the ending chord(or key in the case that the slow movement ends on the dominant, which wasn’t that uncommon for me to see in Mozart for instance)

Right away I noticed some interesting things regarding the key relations. Like minor key sonatas were more equal in distribution of key relations than major key sonatas. Whereas the vast majority of major key sonatas had a slow movement in the subdominant key with the second most common being the same key(saw that a lot in Haydn, slow movement in the same key), there was a roughly equal distribution in minor key sonatas between the Submediant, the Relative Major, and the Parallel Major. Also, there were more distant relations in minor key sonatas earlier on than in major key sonatas. Like take the Neapolitan for instance. The earliest sonata I found with that key relation in minor was by Haydn, but it wasn’t until Bruckner that I saw that same key relation in major key sonatas.

And what all did I count as a slow movement? These counted:

Any movement Andante or slower
Moderato if there wasn’t anything slower than that
Allegretto between an Allegro and a Presto

An Allegretto between 2 Allegros however didn’t count, too close. And sonatas that started with a slow movement, unless they had a second slow movement, were out, like I didn’t count the Moonlight Sonata as Same Key in my data because that’s pointless, the slow movement is the first movement.

[zagreus]

At 1:25 when you’re explaining the order of the sharps, it’s written correctly but you say “FCGD -E - AB”

just thought you might want to fix that bit. great channel tho!!

[vladtepes]

father charles goes downstairs and eats breakfast.

[tyemich]

2:40 wait, Fa stands for 4th/quarta not just the note F?