Eli5-Could you explain Musical Keys?

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Non-musician obviously.
I hear Do-Ray-Me…etc but can’t get the rest.
Thanks- love music and looking to understand it better.

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8 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

It can help to think of it from its base level in musical theory, at least how I understand it. Sound (music) is merely different frequencies of air vibrating picked up by your ear drums. Certain frequencies create harmonics when they mesh with each other mathematically or dissonance when they don’t. From that starting point, “keys” are mostly a cultural thing that have been ingrained in us depending on the musical systems we grew up with. For instance the western musical system (Beethoven through modern day rock and roll) has 8 separate pitches defining an octave, while some native American musical systems had 12 distinct pitches that are mathematically describing the same thing but musically used in different ways

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