Linked Questions

In most cases (if not all), a piece of music without sharps or flats in the key signature, would be considered in the key of C major or A minor. This question assumes the context of Western Music ...

I've recently become obsessed with Les Miserables and Miss Saigon. The music has inspired me tenfold to compose, write similar music. I've posted on here before on how to compose, and I'm trying my ...

To my understanding, C major is the same as C Ionian, because both consist of the notes C, D, E, F, G, A, B, (C) in this order. Contrast this with D Dorian, which consists of the same notes, but in ...

Let's say I'm playing Dorian D mode. Is my tonic: C, because Dorian mode is derived from the diatonic scale of C? Or D, because my tonal center is in D?

I feel like I shouldn't be asking this... ugh. Every explanation I've encountered left me feeling like a key is the same as a scale. I've been using the word "key" to mean the primary scale the song ...

This question is asked from the standpoint of popular music as it is today (2016). Let's confine the question to progressions that are 4 bars long, since that's the most generic pattern in pop music. ...

Tonality and modality form a unit in most music, right? You are in F Major or in D minor etc... Is there a name for the two entities together seen as a unity? I'm working on some musical software ...

There is a lot of very valuable information about these terms that I have been reading lately - inline on SE and on other places on the web: What's the difference between "modal music"...

If we read the Wikipedia page for musical key, or the question about the Definition of minor key, we might notice conflicting views regarding the definition of "key". On one hand, we have a ...

Why can't a song be in a half-diminished, diminished, augmented, or altered key? Or technically, why aren't songs in half-diminished, diminished, augmented, or altered keys? I've asked one of my ...

There are two motivations for this question: I'm trying to distill the essence of what tonality in common-practice music really means, and I'd like as a compositional resource to port some aspects of ...