What a key change sounds like
The classic one comes before the last chorus: everything moves up one or two semitones and the song suddenly sounds brighter and bigger. Film scores and dance tracks move further, to a key that shares most of its notes with the first one.
You can usually feel it. The note that sounded like home a minute ago doesn't any more, and the bass settles somewhere new.
Find it by ear
Loop a few bars before and after the moment it lifts, and find the tonic of each part the same way as for a whole song. Then scrub back and forth to find the bar where it changes.
Find it in one drop
To show what that looks like, we took 04 Undertow from our own music pack, in A minor at 122 BPM, and moved its last chorus up two semitones. DropWave, on a Mac or a Windows PC, read:
| Key | A minor, 8A |
|---|---|
| Key confidence | Medium |
| Key changes | 8A from 0:00 to 1:36, then 10A (B minor) from 1:36 to 2:23 |
| Tempo | 122.01 BPM, unchanged |
Two things to notice. The key change is placed to the second, where the chorus lifts. And the confidence dropped from High to Medium, which is the honest answer for a song in two keys: not every section agrees on one.
What it means for you
- DJs: you mix out of the new key. A song that starts in 8A and ends in 10A mixes into what suits 10A: 9A, 11A or 10B on the Camelot wheel.
- Singers: the lift is a range question. Two semitones higher in the last chorus may be where a voice runs out.
- Producers: a sample cut from the last chorus is in the new key, not the one the song is labelled with.