Here’s one for you… the concept of the key change.  I know, sounds incredibly boring – and probably is – but here goes anyhow!

I once presented a song to a producer and he refused to let me record it as it had a key change at the end.  The key change, for those of you not familiar, is a pretty standard musical device employed in every Eurovision Song Contest entry!  Ha ha.  To be honest it’s a standard musical trick used in many a classic song.  You just take the main phrase of the song and transpose it up or down the keyboard.  What this means in simple terms is usually a feeling of euphoria as the song takes a (usually) upward shift in pitch – you know… the “let’s see those hands in the air” part of the song!

Annnnyyyyywaaaayyy…..  this producer thought the ‘key change’ was a terribly cheesy thing to put in a song.  And I must admit that because of this one piece of throwaway off the cuff advice I pretty much dumped the whole idea of the key change for ever more.  The positives?  I haven’t written a song that sounds like it could be entered in a contest that only 1,000,000,000 people watch.  Hmmm… I haven’t written a song that sounds like a generic dance song.  Seriously… you’re one of the lucky ones if you’re even reading this page – There is a hell of a lot of generic toss out there!  Give a thousand chimps a thousand DAWs for a thousand years!!!

(DAW – Digital Audio Workstation.  I know, when you have to explain the gag…)

The negatives? (and the rest of this paragraph needs to be read aloud in a Vincent Price impersonation)  I need the opportunity to claim back the key change and prove the producer wrong!  The new song has a key change at the end.  Yes… please, don’t fall down at the back.  And anyone who ever knew me during the barren key-changeless years please roll your tongues back in!!!  I’m going to show that a key change doesn’t have to be purely the territory of Vegas.   I’m going to do it with style and a certain swagger.

… and if it sounds like sh*t, what the hell – I’ll dump the key change! After all… key changes make your song sound like a Eurovision entry!!!  😉