Epic Key Changes: a CDZA music video experiment

"A KEY CHANGE: The best weapon to make any song that much more epic." Enjoy. [Video Link, more on CDZA]

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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nixiebunny

Thanks for posting this.

Now I know exactly what I hate about overwrought pop songs from movies.
- http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
  
  I was pretty sure I’m not the only one who feels like the vast majority of key changes exist in songs that blow huge shitful chunks, and the purpose of these key changes is merely to prevent most people realising how crappy and boring such pathetic excuses for songs are.
  
  Thanks.
  
  Also, commercial radio stations and recording industry associations can go right ahead and feast on my wang. Pack of arseholes.
oasisob1

It almost looked at the end like they were going to sneak in a harlem shake.
- Donald Petersen
  
  Might have defeated their thesis. I’m pretty sure there isn’t much of a key change in the Harlem Shake, epic or otherwise.
Boundegar

My son was joking about this very thing yesterday, so I treated him to The Jam’s “Going Underground,” and together we counted no less than five key changes.

And The Jam were supposed to be punk?
- EH
  
  A genre can accommodate different degrees of sophistication.
Joshua Jordan

Wouldn’t this work better if they transitioned into each new song a bar BEFORE the epic key change, so we could hear it? As it is, it’s just a mashup that steps up in key. DETAILS PEOPLE
- bardfinn
  
  It relies on your familiarity with the tunes in question to elucidate the key changes, and the selection of a small portion of each piece in order to avoid copyright claims that would knock the work offline, and a continuous flow to keep the attention of busy people.
- cj howeareya
  
  Exactly. I want my money back.
Kenmrph

I guess I thought there would be more examples of key changes *within* songs, which might have made a stronger point about how songwriters use this as a device. But it seems like most of the key changes here were between songs.
- bardfinn
  
  They are actually key changes within the songs in question, and the songs are arranged to keep things interesting.
http://twitter.com/davejenk1ns Dave Jenkins

Wait, these aren’t “key changes”, these are mashing different songs together that happen to be in different keys. Earnest face connecting in the camera, but weak on the musicology.

A key change is that old trope of pushing up everything a perfect third in the coda to invoke some sort of feeling of resolution.And you’re right boundgear: I’m half-way through Going Underground and have counted 4 key changes so far… To Paul Weller’s credit, he key changed both up _and_ down, which is risky. Pop-Punk cred is in tact.
- Boundegar
  
  I think all the songs in the medley have key changes – but CDZA kind of skipped to the part after the change, which defeats the purpose.
  - squeakyanimal
    
    No, I don’t think so: note that all the key changes link together, so what you are getting is (making up changes here to illustrate):
    Song A goes from Fm to Am; at the Am change they jump to Song B, which goes from Am to C#m; at the Am change they jump to Song C, which goes from C#m to B;Rinse and repeat. Very clever actually (much more clever IMO than just playing through the changes in each tune), but not quite what people expected.
    - Donald Petersen
      
      Yeah, I get why they did it that way, but I still agree with Boundegar. The epicness is diminished by removing the context before each particular song’s change. As it is, it just sounds like too-brief clips of songs stapled together. Without the pre-key-change context, the fact that the key progression is what it is becomes obscured (thus requiring the key-change chyrons).
      
      Oh, well. I’m an old grump who didn’t recognize half those songs anyway, so don’t mind me.
Casper96

Well, I think many of the songs they picked up they picked up right AFTER the key change. So one could hear it in their head. But I agree that I was hoping to hear each of the epic key changes as they happen in their individual songs, but this was not that exercise. Particularly the particularly epic Man in the Mirror key change, which integrates seamlessly with the lyrics in an enjoyably shameless way.
Promethean Sky

For the life of me I can’t hear what everyone seem so surprised by. I’ve looked up a few key change videos, and can barely tell the difference, if I hear it at all. Am I just literally tone deaf?
- Rickenbacker4001
  
  You could be key change deaf. It’s not serious. It’s grouped in with other disorders as, SkrillexAttentionDisorder, irregular male facial hair hipsteritis, glee dizziness and new country apologism.
  
  Wait. What you have is manageable. If you have any symptoms of the others I listed above, run to your health practitioner. :)
- jccalhoun
  
  i can be that you are tone deaf or you just don’t know what to listen for. A key change can be big difference but in a lot of pop songs it is just a part where they start playing/singing the same thing higher up.
- http://beautifulsynthesis.com Andrea
  
  Not tone deaf, necessarily. Could be it’s just that you don’t know what to listen for.
  
  Key changes are just a particular kind of chord change, and chord changes happen constantly in music. There are a ton of different kinds (chord progressions, cadences, etc) and being able to identify them at the drop of a hat is… not as easy as you might think. Key changes are probably the easiest, because they’re the most obvious/dramatic, but if you don’t have a knack for it and don’t play or perform music, it could slip right by you without you noticing.
- blueelm
  
  You could be tone deaf. You could just be really used to key changes and having never studied or practiced music not really know what you’re hearing.
  
  I kind of found this one underwhelming. It makes musical sense which I appreciate, using the key changes of various songs to link to other the key change in another song. But the effect isn’t really as impressive as their actual performances.
  
  In a world of mashups, autotune, and everyone’s DJ brother…
- http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns
  
  One tone-deaf way to tell a key change in a song is when they suddenly throw in more instruments. Or listen for a bit, then skip to the last fourth and note the sound difference.
semiotix

I’m happy for you, random YouTube a cappella group, and I’ma let you finish, but Cheap Trick’s “Surrender” had one of the greatest phrase modulations of all time. OF ALL TIME.

B♭maj → Bmaj → Cmaj

The first one happens EIGHT BARS IN! Respect.
- LinkMan
  
  Yeah, that’s good. But Da Vinci’s Notebook meta-modulated (just after 3:30).
  - Boundegar
    
    Priceless!
http://profiles.google.com/keithdtyler Keith Tyler

I clearly have no musical ability because I can’t even tell where the key shifts are. Of course, half the time they hit the button, they are *starting* a whole new song. The other half, I can’t hear a difference. Where’s the shift? There is zero context. I think the CDZA forty-songs-somehow-significant-in-eighty-seconds is reaching a peak here. I can’t even tell what the hell is going on.

But they have lots of cute semi-hipstery coeds bopping around in their videos, so they are kewl.
amuderick

didn’t this used to be called a “truck driver’s gear change”?

http://www.gearchange.org/
- http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns
  
  That’s what they call it on tvtropes
blueelm

Great moments in pedantry, but “I will always love you” was a hit when Dolly Parton wrote it in the 70′s. Just because people forgot about her…
http://www.facebook.com/kurtoons Kurt Gallagher

If you want to listen for some key changes check out the Gilligan’s Island Theme Song. I’m counting 6 changes. One after each verse.
http://youtu.be/yfSLuEj99d0
kinscore

Warning: Key changes may cause dizziness. Prolonged exposure has been shown to cause spinning head. In extreme cases, these effect may, like a whirlpool, never end. In case of blindness, call a doctor for some help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oU_rqm7WPPI
Demian Gough

After subscribing to CDZA’s channel today, the next video I watched on youtube served me an ad from CDZA thanking me for subscribing. Definitely a classy group!
Mark Davis

Yeah, I think this is kind of muddled and misses the point. Would have been better to just have a few bars before each key change, then when the key change comes, you’re in a different song. As it is this makes little to no sense.

Also, I think they should have made a distinction between modulation, which is what I think is exhibited in most of these songs, and key changes, which are completely different. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds doesn’t fit here – it never modulates, it’s just that the verse and chorus cycle through a few different keys, then come back to the start.
B A

If I remember correctly, these key changes are also known as ‘the Truck Driver’s Gear Change’.
There’s even a hall of shame.
http://www.gearchange.org/browse_by_artist.html