Choosing A Key

[jefflibby]

Hi brothers and sisters in Christ!

Can somebody please explain how they go about choosing which key they are going to do a song in to keep it congregation-friendly? We just did Chris Tomlin's "How Can I Keep from Singing" Sunday night as a special and Bb will be way too high for the congregation. Praise Charts has it transposed in A, Ab, and G.

Thanks,
-Jeff

[russhutto]

This is no set in stone method, it may not even be a good one but here's what we do:

First we start with whoever is the lead vocalist on that particular song (we have 3-4 up front vocals who share the interaction and leading duties), and we make sure that THEY can sing it comfortably. Why? Because if they can't it will sound stinky.

Second we then try and determine whether or not it is "congregation" friendly or not. Problem with that is a lot of today's modern music is so rangy. Not that older hymns aren't but for some reason some of the 70s-80s choruses were a lot easier to sing as a group. Anyways, we try and fit it into the

C (Bb) to C (D) octave range as much as possible. What we've learned though is that it depends on whether a female or male is leading whether or not the end result is crowd friendly. It's tough because different have different vocal ranges. For us, one of our most soulful leaders is definitely an alto so the songs are shifted a bit lower for her to sing comfortably in, while another of our female leaders sings more in the soprano range comfortably, so her songs end up being a little "high" for the average female, or way to LOW for most men.

So instead of trying to cram everything into one range, we do move around a bit, knowing that people will jump in and sing when they can, and they'll humm or clap or whatever when they can't. That being said, the majority of all our tunes are singable by a large portion of the congregation at most times. We kind of aim for a varied most is better than a boring all.

[AD(J)]

^ What he said.

[Klampert]

i second second that..

side note how can i keep from singing works great in E for the congregation..

Use CCLI for transposing...works great

[Mike Darley]

We play everything in G because is easier on guitar.....:D Just kidding. Our basic way of selecting a key is that we'll try to play it in the original key. If it's too high we'll transpose it down a step or so, too low we'll transpose it up. That's about as complicated as we make it. If I have to select a key that's either too high or too low, I'll err on the side of too low for the congregation's sake. Typically a person will be more comfortable with singing low. For the female led songs, I'll usually double the melody an octave lower so men can hear where they need to sing.

As far as what key you ought to sing in specifically, you really can't say that one key is generally better than another because some melodies are higher than others even through they may be in the same key.

[El Ben]

A couple of things I keep in mind when choosing a key:

1.) Not all songs are the same, so one specific key won't work for every song. An evaluation of the range of the song (highest note to lowest note) is usually necessary to decide on what is comfortable. This is as easy as singing the song through in your head.

2.) The highest comfortable key (within reason) is best. I'm not saying strain, but I'm saying if you can bump the song up one more key, do it. There is more energy associated with singing higher than lower, and you can get more bang for your vocal buck. The energy will be contagious. Trust me. This, of course, can be counter-productive if your range is awe-inspiring, much like a certain *ahem* unnamed (shannonlewisassociateworshipdirectoratsaintsimons communitychurch) person here on the threads, and you sing in the highest key possible. (not that he does)

3.) To me, keys are flexible depending on the set. You don't always have to do the same song in the same key. If you take a little hit by having to do a song a little bit lower to keep the musical flow going, why not?

Ummm...that's all I can think of right now. More later as it comes to me.

[jefflibby]

Wow guys, great info. Thank you!!!

[AD(J)]

You know, maybe this should be it's own thread, but this is a great reason for all musicians (especially the weekend warriors) to learn the Nashville Number System. It's the only way we did music at my last church, and it worked very well.

If you've ever gotten on stage and realized that a song was way too high in the key you have it in, but you don't have time to transpose it for everyone and some of your musicians cannot transpose on the fly; you probably either scrapped the song or suffered through it and made it a point to transpose your chart for next time.

This eliminates that need. It takes a little bit of learning, but it goes a long way.



Nashville Number System

There are 7 basic chords in each key, 3 major, 3 minor, one diminished, which we rarely see in worship music anyway.



So, these 7 basic chords, and most any other chord, can be represented by Roman Numerals, by numbers. This makes transposition super easy.

Guitarists like the key of E, so let's start there. Here are chords as letters, and then below them are the corresponding numbers.

E - F#m - G#m - A - B - C#m - D#dim
I - ii - iii - IV - V - vi - vii

Major chords are CAPITOL Roman numerals, minor chords are lowercase.


So, for a song like Your Name Is Holy, we usually see these chords on a chart:

E - B - C#m - A


But it could also be this:

I - V - vi - IV(One Five Six Four)


That way, if we put it into the key of G at the last minute, all we need to do is establish that G = I. Everything after that is counting.

Pretty soon you'll know that in the key of G:
G - Am - Bm - C - D - Em
I - ii - iii - IV - V - vi

This song is: I - V - vi - IV, so in G the progression is: G - D - Em - C.

In C, it would be C - G - Am - F.

In F, it would be F - C - Dm - Bb.

And these are all the I - V - vi - IV chords.

You can also add any chord extensions you want to the numbers, as normal numbers.

A song like God Of Wonders would be:


verse:
Dsus - Em -C9
Vsus - vi - IV9

chorus:
G - Dsus - D - Em - C9
I - Vsus - V - vi - IV9

[AD(J)]

Ok, that post got long, so I decided to break it up.

There are also songs where a chord that is normally minor is made major, and vice versa.

Like the song You Are Good. The chords are E - B/D# - Dmajor - A/C#.

Dmajor is not a normal chord in the key of E. The vii7 chord in the key of E would be D#aug7. This is D natural, not D sharp, so it's considered a flatted seven chord. I would write it like this:

I - V - bVII - IV

Having the VII in capitol letters means it's a major chord, not a minor chord. Having the b symbol in front of the chord means you lower the root one half step. In E, we know D# is the 7th scale degree, so we know that D#b cancels out the sharp, and it becomes D natural.

Another common accidental chord is a iv, which is usually major.

I can't think of a worship song with this, but Kiss Your Past Goodbye, by Aerosmith, uses this progression:

G - Bm - C - Cm

which would be:

I - iii - IV - iv

By simply writing IV as iv, you just think, 'Oh, that's chord is now a minor chord.'



Then you can do things like Emaj7 as I maj7 in the key of E. We actually use a small triangle before the seven, which denotes major 7. That's a pretty common notation.

Those first two situations rarely come up with worship music. I just thought I'd throw them out there for all you music theory nerds like me.

[russhutto]

Good info. I actually use this method to teach guitar/basic music theory.

I've never heard it called the "Nashville Number System" though. I studied music theory/composition in college and it was THE system we learned, not an alternative. Which, I guess is why I use it when I teach.

****EDITED Because Ire DOES know the difference between an aug and a dim chord :)****

I play drums, keys, and guitar on our team, and when I jump around as much as I do, I've found that knowing the Roman Numeral system is pretty beneficial, because I don't need the music in front of me, and I'm able to pretty much play anything any time (as long as I already know the song).

[AD(J)]

Meh, that was just a typo.

I had actually just realized I wrote Aug and it's supposed to be Dim and was coming back to edit the post before anyone caught that.

I always get those two confused for some reason. Then again, the people I play with always know to ask, 'Is it really Aug?' or 'Is it really Dim?'

Then I can think twice about it: Augmented = raised 5th, Diminished = lowered 5th (or two minor thirds above the root); and then say 'yes' or 'no'.


Here's a link (http://www.ducksdeluxe.com/nashvillenumbersystem.html)to a site that explains the system a little better than I do. We always used Roman numerals in case there were accidentals somewhere, but they just use the numbers 1-7 for the actual chords.

http://www.ducksdeluxe.com/nashvillenumbersystem.html

[russhutto]

Cool, cool. that was just the theory nerd coming out of me!

Good post!

***Edit Update***

I did a little searching and perused the site you mentioned. I can see now how musicians in the studio might use this method on the fly, and I can even see how they might have pseudo-invented it, but at the same time, it's been around for years with traditional theory and composition in the "Roman Numeral" form.

[AD(J)]

I agree.

The guy who showed me the number system always used the Nashville name, so it stuck with me. But I dunno. I mean, there are books out there caling it the Nashville system, but now that I think about it, it's probably been around a lot longer than Nashville has even been on the map.

[jefflibby]

Paul Baloche covers this really nicely on his "Music Theory Made Easy" DVD - which is actually a really good resource to give to band members. He teaches that the Roman Numeral System came before the Nashville Number System - which replaces the roman numerals with actual #'s. There's even a free workbook available: http://www.leadworship.com/musictheory.pdf

[AD(J)]

Ah... so that's what happened.

Well, then I guess I've been using the Roman Numeral system all along. Yeesh!

Thanks for the link, Jeff.

[worshiptrench]

we did a post on worshiptrench on this topic which caused some interesting debate....I have experiential proof that we outpace our untrained congregational vocalists if you do many of the songs in CD key....see below for more....

Songs in the Key of Real life
http://www.worshiptrench.com/?p=57

[russhutto]

Good post. That's my general rule too...

C to C with an occasional A or Bb on the low end, and maybe a D or E on the high end.

I was at the Willow Creek summit this weekend (satellite site) and was so frustrated during the corporate worship times because I couldn't sing along without sounding like Kermit the frog. The "lead" guy there has a great stratospheric voice!! But from a "participant" in the crowd I ws very aware of how lame I was...when I was supposed to be singing to God...

[russhutto]

Good post. That's my general rule too...

C to C with an occasional A or Bb on the low end, and maybe a D or E on the high end.

I was at the Willow Creek summit this weekend (satellite site) and was so frustrated during the corporate worship times because I couldn't sing along without sounding like Kermit the frog. The "lead" guy there has a great stratospheric voice!! But from a "participant" in the crowd I ws very aware of how lame I was...when I was supposed to be singing to God...

[russhutto]

ewwwww. I have no clue why that multiple posted!!! somebody get rid of the clones!!

[WorshipCity]

General Rule of Thumb: Take Chris Tomlin's key and drop it a step and a half!!

Just kidding. Yeah, just to add I do the same as ya'll. I try to run it past a female singer and another male singer. However, like mentioned before, if it's a fast song I really want them to sing out on I'll err to the higher side. If it's a slower song that I really want to dig into I'll err on the lower side.

I actually prefer to play my guitar in Eb. For some reason that little half step of a difference makes all the world to me. I've been debating and talking to the team of moving our 'standard tuning' to Eb instead of E.

It's what all the cool kids are doing these days anyways :)

My guitarist keeps wanting me to go to the Nashville Numbers System but I'm a workaholic and I just have all our songs in pretty much all the different keys anyway. I'm a big fan of different voicings so I tab it out in the key we're gonna play it in and then another key for the guitarist who'll capo up, etc. I dig it but it makes it hard for new musicians to simply come and sit in so I don't do it for that reason.

[El Ben]

I actually like your rule of thumb. It's as true as they come.

[Sambekzx]

So would a V of V chord be a II?

[TruePraise]

we kind of use the team as a judge...if it is way to high for me, then it is probably way too high for the general congregation....a lot of songs by male worship leaders are like that, since they seem to be tenors, and a sop singing tenor is, well...interesting...:rolleyes: