Karaoke Forums

Hi there Chuck...yeah I know....you just re-inforced my point that only a dumbazz would sing a song in the wrong key just because that's the key somebody else did it in

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Thank you Paula.  I've got the audacity to cheat <rim shot>

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Nothing wrong with changing keys.

But....when a song is written with certain instruments involved, and sometimes digital ones, they just don't sound right when lowered a couple keys...

A half step isn't the end of the world, but a couple steps can change a violin into a viola, and a viola into a cello...ect..

Same with guitar chords and some progressions.

Now a live band can take keychanges in stride and not make a song sound foreign.
They will just play their part in a different way if they need to.

But canned music can sound horrible to me if it is transposed down or up too far.

So is changing the key cheating?

No...

Does it sound good everytime it is done?

No, definitely not with canned music more than half of the time.  Live bands have the advantage to make changes that would correct anomalies.

If lowering the key makes the music sound bad, it defeats the whole purpose.

So to sum up my point, I would rather see notes changed on alot of songs where the key gets changed. To me it would sound better.

My 2 cents..

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Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Knowledge is limited.

Imagination encircles the world...

I agree- I won't do lower more than 3 half steps and that's pushing it. It depends on the song...but I'll lowere or raise it up to 3 half steps- if it needs more than that- I'll do opposite of whatever I'm doing( up or down) and try to sing it either an octave lower or higher..but if that doesn't work then I just cann it and look for a dsifferent arrangement. I'm not going to sacfifice the integrety of the music just to have it in the right key. Reasons in my sub list is down 3- and that's about the largest key change I did. But again...it all depends on the song. Some of the better tracks like hte new Michael Buble stuff( where they used live instruments instead of a synth) ironically sound worst than the synth stuff when you change the keys. ...I guess the moral to that story is "if your arrangement sux in the first place- what's the harm in fooling with it"----it already sux-LOL!

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...Ya....Point taken !
                                                                   
Besides lowering the key isn't cheating.......vvvvvTHISvvvvv is cheating....and all the Agulara stuff has been edited just like this. Although ahe is a lot more talanted than most of them I will agree...  I was messing around editing the vocal track of one of my songs and corrected a couple wrong notes.


http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b389/_Murlin_/v.jpg

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Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Knowledge is limited.

Imagination encircles the world...

Good point. I'll have to listen for that.

If the key is withn your range it may not be necessay for you to change keys; if it's not and you don't change then your only hurting yourself.  As I've stated in other threads, I've karaoke singers with fantastic voice sound awful because they're try to sing in the wrong key.  It's also hard on you vocals.  When I sing I sing four hours an night, if I tried sing above my range all night I wouldn't have a voice at the end of the evening.

                                             

                                                                        Jackson

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Singing just for you

Never went more then +/- 2 half step which means a full octave and for the reason you mention, the sound becomes terrible... Talking of sound, the quality of your mix will be determine by the quality of the backing, I mean the quality of the recording!  Sound Choice is well known for the quality of their reproduction for Ex but man, they are one of the worst for getting a good mix, they are made for live karaoke purposes, way too compressed and lot's of electronic instruments...

I think you might study your music theory a bit more. There are 12 half-steps to an octave, at least for the chromatic scale that most western popular music follows.

Yes you're right, an octave can go from -6 to +6 half tone, I better stop drinking

Speaking of changing keys, has anyone ever run across a problem where the disc is in such an unusual key that to sing it comfortably required changing the key beyond the limits of the karaoke playback unit? Case in point: I was going to sing "Sound of Music" (a song that almost everyone knows) but for me to sing it comfortably, and in the key that I am used to (according to the original score),  a key change of 8 half-steps up was required. The karaoke machine could only go +/- 6 half steps, so I tried it with the key down 4, then singing it up an octave- and boy did it sound WEIRD!. In a situation like this, what would you recommend?

It would seem that those who claim changing a song's key is cheating would be expecting every singer who covered a song to sing it in the same key all the time.  I would then be inclined to ask of the claimee why it would be that an Englebert Humperdink arrangement of the Dan Hill hit "Sometimes When We Touch" is far more comfortable for me to attempt to sing than the "original" arrangement?   My guess is simply that E.H. chose a lower key to suit himself... cheating? No!  Being an intelligent professional singer? Hell Yeah!

I would try another backing, I usually don't go over +/- 2 half steps, but that's me!

Well, that says it all

Most vocalists I know, at some point modify key signature (dropping it perhaps a half-step or more) as they get older, and we accompanists have to transpose songs for even original composers doing their own material over time.  Since Dan Fogelberg had his tonsils out a few years back he lost close to 1/2 octave of his upper-range.  Poor guy must really be cheating his butt off singing his own stuff now ..  If it sounds better, TRANSPOSE.. Heck,  it's better to cheat for instance by dropping a song in C a half-step using a pitch-shifter than asking we pianists to have to transpose the song down to a key like B....

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

...I was about to say **most of my accompianists** will cuss me out if I ask for ANYTHING in either "B" or "F#" ....the only exception is one of them will do "Teach me tonight" in F#--but thats' about the only one I can think of

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B is a horrible Key, ( because we tend to get lazy and the reach and intervals are different feeling)..  Since I'm a jazz/big-band/swing keyboard player Bb is a great key (I mean I HAD to learn it playing with Horns) but B.... BLECH !  HAHAHAHA....F# I have to admit is one key I can usually (TRY to convince the singer to drop to either F or G) HAHAHAHAHAHA... There've been exceptions.. I DO prefer F# to B btw !

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Changing keys is not cheating.  Most singers that don't like to for some reason believe it is & won't do it if they can't do it in the key that was written for another's vocal range.  If they were to write a song for themselves, they would write it in a key that is comfortable to them, so why not adjust the key of a karaoke song to do the same?
This may have been stated somewhere, didn't feel like reading through all posts  :wave:

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It'd be interesting to know how many claiming transposing is cheating would be able to differentiate between the ORIGINAL composers key, and the possible transposing the cover artist might do on a Karaoke version   Funny to think transposing to a more comfortable better sounding area becomes similar to a guy teeing off from the womens golf tee in a tourney..  Never heard this before.. ALL pros cheat in music I guess at some point.

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Hmmm...this is an interesting thread.  There are a lot of high-pitched songs that I woudl LOVE to sing, but so far I've shied away from singing them--such as "Barracuda" from Heart, or "Because of You" from Kelly Clarkson--because some of the notes are so darn high!  

So far I haven't messed w/the key changers--because once when I was at a karaoke place, the KJ used the key changer for the person ahead of me and FORGOT TO CHANGE IT BACK for me, so my song started out in the wrong key!  I just said, "Wait a minute, what key are we in?" and the guy changed it back.  So since then, I've stayed away from using the key changers, because I don't want to throw anyone off.  But I may try asking them to lower the keys of some songs (and raise some of them--there are a lot of songs that are too low also).

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