Not really up to snuff on the dynamics of this key thing. When talking about playing in different keys, can the same song be played in each key? or some keys but not others? Thanks, Greg

Greg,
Please allow me to confuse you with my limited knowledge:
If you were playing on a piano, you could play any song in virtually any key because of the range of the instrument,7 octaves in C, with 88 notes including sharps and flats ;
The Cajun C accordion only has only 2 octaves and 16 usable notes,none of which are sharps or flats, so if you wanted to play a song written in D, you could, but the F and C would have to be played as accidentals or 'naturals', not sharps, and you would not have the expected Do-Re-Me-Fa progression expected. You would need a D reeded accordion to get the C & F sharps.
The reason that songs are written in different keys is that they just 'sound' better if written and played in that particular key. The normal human male voice has a range of about 3 octaves, from frog to sweak, and the easiest songs to sing, for me at least, are the ones written in D, F , G, and B flat.
To add to the confusion, dynamics in music refers to how loud or how soft the composer wants a piece to be, and they put instructions written in Italian code, from ppp to fff, to let the player know. But most singers don't pay attention and just sing LOUD.
Probably just muddied the waters.
JB

JB--that answer was just too studied for me!

Greg, what I can say is that it seems to me that you can play pretty much all songs in at least two keys on any key diatonic accordion. JB is right about the male voice. As for me, I prefer to sing in A, E, D, C, and F, although I do a few in G. It's true that different songs sound better in different keys, but you can normally work it out around whoever you've got singing for you. If you have only one accordion, you should still be able to figure out playing in the two keys, but I think it's always better for an accordion player to have at LEAST 2. Personally, I kinda require 3.

Hey Graig,
We could probably write a book on this, but I think I understand what you're asking. I assume that you are familiar with the instrument as well as Cajun music. It is posible to play in several "keys" on any instrument. On a "C" accordion, we can play in "C", "G", and "F" as major keys. We can also play some in "Am" and "D" but that is not the basis for this discussion. We refer to these 3 major keys as
first position ( "C" ) , second position ( "G" ) and third position ( "F" ), on a "C" accordion.
Lets use Iry's "Love Bridge Waltz" for an example and we're playing on "C" accordion. This song can be played in the key of "C" ( first position ), but it won't not sound like what you hear on the recording because it is normally played in the key of "G" ( second position ). The reason it sounds different is because of the use of blends when played in "G". I refer to this difference as , "pushing" or pulling" songs. the "Love bridge Waltz" is a "pulling" song.
Most times, when someone asks "what key is that song played in " ?, They're actually asking what position to play it in. If someone were to ask me "what key is the 'Love Bridge Waltz' played in " ? I would answer, "it is played in the second position". This would tell them that no matter what key accordion they have, they should learn the song "pulling" .
If they had a "D" accordion, they would learn the song in the key of "A" ( which is the second position for that instrument.
I hope that I cleared some of mud for you .
Jude

Thanks, Jude. Never having studied music or having played any other instrument, I have also been baffled by this whole key thing and am just learning. But the "position" versus "key" on the accordion keeps it much less confusing to me. I had been coming to realize that very thing, but you put it in plain terms.

For those who don't read music or know much music theory Jude's explaination is the best to follow. When you learn the positions for cajun music every thing else falls in place from one accordion keyed one way to another in a different key.

In some styles of music it's possible to play a song in many chords. When we play bluegrass we change a song fron G to A, just to put a capo on our instruments(guitar,banjo,dobro). So we achieved that our leadsingers voice fits better with the key.
Now we play Cajun, it much more difficult to change the key, so the leadsinger needs to sing much higher than he used to. We like his high vocals.
Earlier it was easy for our singer, but nowadays he have to work for singing.
Thanks to the "limited" one row ten button French Cajun melodeon accordion, which have no limits at all if you can use it.

music terminology is ridiculous

it couldn;t be any more confusing if it were
an actual secret code designed to be
unbreakable

what sarah said isn;t quite right

you cannot play *any* song in more than one key
on the same accordion

it depends on the notes the song contains

take something like "bosco stomp"
it depends heavily on the so-called 'flat 7th' note

played in the key of G, the flat 7th is
the note F

which you have on a C accordion

now if someone asked you to play that
same melody in the key of C, the flat 7th
becomes a Bflat, and you don;t have it

all you have is a B, and that is a
major 7th interval in the key of C

and that song will not be right at all
without a flat 7

if you have a song that does not
use the 7th interval at all, you could
[if you want to completely relearn
the fingering]
play it in either C or G

and if you have a song that does not use
the 4th interval
[no B note in the key of C
because the key of F requires a Bflat instead
of a B]
you could play that one in C or F
[again by learning 2 radically different
fingerings]

the more notes a songs doesn;t have, the
more 'other keys' you can play it in

consider a one note melody,
say a song only has the note C

the note C exists in the keys of
Bflat
F
C
G
and some more
it;s so complicated i don;t want to even think about it!

but you can;t just play any melody
on any accordion

or in any position i should say

sometimes it works
other times it doesn;t
sometimes it may not be right but it
will be close enough
depends on how prominent the 'wrong' note is
and if you have someone else in the band
to cover up your wrongness

wle

Larry,
My dream in life is to always have someone nearby to cover up my wrongness.

Jude

OK Here is a simple explanation


On A piano,you change the key of a song and it will change the way it sounds simply because on a piano the scale is tempered so that all the notes will "sound right to your ear". There is a system. You can not tune every note on a piano to the correct mathematical frequency all the way up the keyboard. If you use a C note in a chord CEG that same E note also has to "sound right" in an E chord E Ab B so you have to cheat a little. All those little harmonics will blend differently. So you change the key and it will sound different. You almost can't really put your finger on it. Maybe not quite as"full"

Now translate this to a simple 16 note scale on an accordion and temper becomes less of an issue because not as many keys are involved.

I left out quite a bit trying to keep this simple. Best wishes to all, Jerry

actually a correctly tuned piano should not
have any differences that are due to the key

it;s called 'equal temperament' tuning
all the intervals are supposed to be the same

which makes them all sound slightly out of
tune, but not by a different amount for different
keys

there are lots of other ways to tune
instruments like pianos, and any other one
will be what you said, but those aren;t the
standard today

200 years ago it was a different story
everyone had their own tuning method
and keys would sound differently out or in tune

wle

Actually Larry you are just dead wrong.

Larry is correct in what he says. By the way, I don't think he was contradicting you, maybe just saying things in a different way.

I heard a recording of a pipe organ that was tuned using the "just" system rather than the now standard "equal" system. I believe it was tuned so that in the key of C they had the mathematically correct ratios for all the white keys. They played a tune in C, which sounded perfect - in fact it sounded better than it did in "equal" tuning. Then, they transposed it to different keys. I think they went around the circle of fifths. As they got farther around the circle it began to sound worse and worse - like a broken down calliope!

In the equal system, every key is equally wrong, by a consistently small amount. A Cajun accordion only has notes for one key, therefore it is fine for it to be just tuned, which tends to make it sound a little better and maybe a little louder. I have been told that barbershop quartets sing in perfect "just" tuned intervals for the same reasons, and that some violin players might make small intonation adjustments in order to get perfect intervals.

-David

Hello all :-)

In the spirit of being perfectly pedantic :-)
(and having some *fun* with this topic ..)

Being from an Engineering discipline, I recall
the evenly tempered scale as each note being
the twelfth-root-of-two higher than its predecessor.

And as Larry states, a piano is always out of tune,
because of this tempering. G-sharp and A-flat are
technically two different pitches depending what key
that you're playing in. Only a fretless instrument
can be played in tune!

(I always wondered why my guitar sounded like that!)

Further more, if you don't care what notes constitute
a specific song, yes you can play any song in any key
on a Cajun accordion

And wait .. there’s even more .. I was just talking
with Mark Savoy last week. He tells me that two
notes on the scale of the Cajun box are indeed tuned
15 cents flat.

How about that for confusing units .. pitch
in “cents”!

“Yes, can you please tune my accordion
a buck-two-fifty .. I think I'm 3 quid flat!"

Seriously though, thinking in the key of "push"
and the key of "pull" is a very good place to start
with the Cajun Accordion!

Just keep squeezin'!

-Big Nick

um, about what?

it is certainly possible to tune a piano
so that every interval is close enough to
the 12th root of 2 ratio

that;s how they do it - that;s 'the system'

if you do that, there is no reason for any
key to sound out of tune more than another

that is the very reason for the
'equal tempered' scale


[yes i know that is an irrational number
but the ear doesn;t have infinite resolution.]

[and yes i also know that on a piano, which
has a 7 octave range, the very highest and
lowest notes have to be made somewhat sharper
than 'correct' notes, because the actual
correct ones sound flat - but that;s not
what he was talking
about]

wle.

Larry,

You responding to me? .. I didn't say "wrong",
I was agreeing with you ..

--Big

no, i was asking jerry tierney
what he thought i was wrong about

the forum format makes it a little hard to
see what the replies are actually to..

wle.

" Notes? There are no notes. You just play the **** thing".

Old banjo player quote.

Thank you, that's a quote I'll live by.

Big Nick, I'm pretty sure Larry was replying to Jerry.

Thanks for all the replies. I guess I am like Ron since my world used to be a 5 string and a bass fiddle. Throw on a capo on the 5 string and play the same song in a different key.
So the bottom line here, if I am reading this right is, If you like a song, find out what key its in and then grab the box that can play in that key. If that is correct,what key boxes do you guys that perform have?
Thanks again for your patience in this matter as I dont have a lick of music training.