why do you sometimes start hearing a song a distance away, in one key but when you move closer to the sound it changes key (to the actual key it’s written in)?
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Most likely you’re talking about the Doppler effect.
When you hear a sound with a musical pitch, you’re just hearing pressure waves of air vibrating at a certain frequency. Think about a guitar string moving back and forth – it creates ripples of air moving according to the frequency of the string’s vibration.
If the sound source is traveling towards you, those vibrations will happen more quickly, so you’ll hear a higher frequency. If it’s moving away from you, those vibrations will happen more slowly.
The classic example is the sound of a train whistle, but it can happen with anything.
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