Songwriting Sunday: The Importance of Transposition

When I sit down to compose something, I tend to write the music in C Major or a minor, but I rarely use those keys when I sing the songs I write. This simple thing is based on the idea that it is easier to write music when there are no accidentals, but C Major and a minor are not keys that are good for my voice. I do better with D, E, and A major and e minor as my singing keys, but transposition is especially important when I am working with my singing clients.

When my clients are singing with me, I keep an eye out for muscle strain, head posturing out of optimal positioning, and I listen for client who are not able to sing at the pitches that I am using. If any of these things happens it is my job to transpose the music to a better key for my clients - ESPECIALLY when the goal is for my clients to sing or use their voices.

I think that there are two different camps out there for transposition. In my experience, this seems to be split between those who play guitar before piano and those who learned piano before guitar. I am one of the former group, so I find that transposition is pretty easy for me. I wonder if one of the main differences between the two camps is learning to play by ear. I have not been around many people who were play by ear pianists, but I have met many play by ear guitarists in my years of being a musician. It is interesting to me how things work.

I try to learn new songs in all sorts of keys. I experiment with my capo and try things out based on my whims. When I have learned a song, I can then change the key without too much thought involved. I tend to think in chord symbols rather than specific keys, so the chord progression of I, IV, V7 is easily transferred from the key of C Major to the key of A Major in my brain. It is still I, IV, V7, but the chords themselves have changed.

One of the other things that I do to help me with transposing things is to play by ear using music pieces from Spotify. I listen to a song and figure out how to play it. First, I have to establish the original key, and then, I figure out the chords. It is fun for me to figure these things out. It also expands my repertoire. Once I have figured out the chord progression, I translate it into chord symbols and go through the keys to practice my transpositions. 

This is a skill that takes practice, so get on it!