# Key signatures, yes or no?



## Paul T McGraw (Mar 28, 2016)

I have returned to composing after a long hiatus and am working on several pieces. I would appreciate advice and comments regarding the use of key signatures.

Do you use key signatures? I have heard that the modern professional orchestral player prefers no key signatures, but simply to have all accidentals marked. Anyone have any experience with this?

If key signatures are used, how about key changes within a single work or movement? Twenty years ago, when I was actively playing cello and trombone, it was fairly common for a composer or arranger to show key changes within a single work or movement. Is this still a common practice or is it a bad idea? Thanks for your feedback.


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## JohnG (Mar 28, 2016)

Hi Paul,

I don't know what's going on with academic / esoteric music, although I have a good friend who could advise you if that's what you're writing -- PM me if that's the case.

The one arena I'm somewhat familiar with is film music, and no, it is not very common to see a key signature there. However, the practice varies and, with so many new composers coming up who've never even had the chance to write for a large ensemble, those decisions are left often to orchestrators and arrangers. 

Personally, for game and film music I rarely / never use key signatures because I rarely stay in any key very long. But, even if I do, the concept of what used to be called "functional" harmony, with tonic-dominant relationships, is not in fashion in film or games (not much anyway), and most of what I'm hearing is written with a more modal / pitch centre approach than a key as such. So, in my view, one important idea of key signatures / motivation for them, is largely absent from most of what I'm hearing.

However, that's a bit theoretical. As a practical matter one never has enough rehearsals or time to prepare whether it's a live performance or recording. In that case, what one wants is a good performance, so if a key signature makes sense -- if you're writing a passage that is clearly in Ab or something -- it's not only perfectly fine to use them but advisable. The caveat I'd offer is that if you have a key signature but the music doesn't really fit that key signature super-well, so that you end up with a lot of accidentals anyway, I'd probably skip the key signature.

In more academic circles I would guess it's just as it has been for 100 years -- either you're a laughable outdated relic for using them, or maybe now it's all the rage. Don't know but I'd guess the former.


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## Paul T McGraw (Mar 28, 2016)

johnG, thanks for that very thoughtful reply. I have no ambition towards film music. Purely for my own pleasure. I used to write (mostly arrange) music for church, small chamber groups, community band and brass band. But it has been a long time since I was active (20 years). Thanks,


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## d.healey (Mar 28, 2016)

Ask the musicians you're writing for what they prefer to read - in this case that's you. I don't like having to remember key signatures when I'm reading, but I can't read music very fast anyway. I think if you're writing it out by hand a key signature is a big help but most likely you're using a computer so marking each accidental is no more work.


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## ed buller (Mar 28, 2016)

in film and telly accidentals are preferred .

e


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## wst3 (Mar 28, 2016)

agree that it depends on the players, if there are players. I grew up with key signatures, so I'm comfortable with remembering that I'm in the key of whatever - but I've learned to read tons of accidentals too. Coin toss I guess?


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## windshore (Mar 28, 2016)

lol... Geez, I have been horrified by how many times this has come up in recent years. I taught a notation class at UCLA and every semester we had to talk about this. If you are writing diatonic music, use a key signature. I'm speaking as a studio player as well as composer. Of course if you are writing polytonal music or non-harmonic music a no-signature approach may be preferable but the idea that musicians prefer no-signature when virtually all of the concert reparatory is written with key signatures is nuts. IMHO (BTW, as an aside, look at the way Holst wrote the harp parts in Mercury. Each has a different key signature,... not no-signature.)


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## afterlight82 (Mar 28, 2016)

One of the reasons for the no key signature thing on sessions used to be such that it was easier/clearer to make a change on the parts without a key signature...similarly, quite often scores would not have bar rests such that the bar was empty and you could add something in if needed without turning it into a dogs breakfast of erasings (plus it saved you going through writing hundreds of bar rests. There are orchestrators who still abide by this in Sibelius, although it takes some massaging and I'm not a fan of the results visually.

That said, since everybody is on Sibelius or Finale now, where you can make these changes instantly and just reprint the part, unless you're in a six sharps or six flats situation or in a key which is gnarly for the instrument in question, I just use them now, but I use cautionary accidentals quite a bit in chromatic passages. All that matters is sight-readability.

Unless the piece calls for it, I know of nobody eschewing key signatures in the concert world...but that depends on the piece, obviously, and if it's aleatoric or what have you, then key signatures might not actually mean much...


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## Hannes_F (Mar 28, 2016)

Paul T McGraw said:


> If key signatures are used, how about key changes within a single work or movement?



I like key signatures, and no problem if they are changed. Having no key signatures is only better if harmony is really going all over the place imho.


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## JohnG (Mar 28, 2016)

If I were writing sacred music I certainly would use a key signature, Paul.


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## Rodney Money (Mar 28, 2016)

Paul T McGraw said:


> johnG, thanks for that very thoughtful reply. I have no ambition towards film music. Purely for my own pleasure. I used to write (mostly arrange) music for church, small chamber groups, community band and brass band. But it has been a long time since I was active (20 years). Thanks,


Write key signatures, brother.


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## Paul T McGraw (Mar 28, 2016)

windshore said:


> lol... Geez, I have been horrified by how many times this has come up in recent years. I taught a notation class at UCLA and every semester we had to talk about this. If you are writing diatonic music, use a key signature. I'm speaking as a studio player as well as composer. Of course if you are writing polytonal music or non-harmonic music a no-signature approach may be preferable but the idea that musicians prefer no-signature when virtually all of the concert reparatory is written with key signatures is nuts. IMHO (BTW, as an aside, look at the way Holst wrote the harp parts in Mercury. Each has a different key signature,... not no-signature.)



Sorry you have had to answer this question previously. I did do a search of the forum for anything on key signatures, but no joy. Things do change over 20 years, so just thought I would check. Even in the 1970's when I would get an occasional live gig or a recording job, non-classical music often did not use key signatures.


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## Rodney Money (Mar 28, 2016)

Yeah man, for church write key signatures and I'm scared of accidental in hymns, lol. Small chamber groups, please write them also making me sound good to the rest of group so they will stop looking at me when I keep missing notes, lol. And for brass bands, please only write in Bb and high so I don't have to use my third valve and most of it is open.


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## jeffc (Mar 28, 2016)

At least for film stuff, I've never seen a key signature used. And most of the conductor scores are 'C' scores these days, not transposed. I've worked with some orchestrators that do big stuff and never a key signature. It just makes it much easier to make changes on the fly...


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## windshore (Mar 28, 2016)

Paul T McGraw said:


> Sorry you have had to answer this question previously. I did do a search of the forum for anything on key signatures, but no joy. Things do change over 20 years, so just thought I would check. Even in the 1970's when I would get an occasional live gig or a recording job, non-classical music often did not use key signatures.


Sorry, my frustration wasn't directed at you, but just the fact that somehow this has become such a prevalent urban myth.


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## milesito (Mar 29, 2016)

I think all musicians that you would want to record your music are able to easily read key signatures. I don't know of any who were not trained to and if they weren't able I would be scared to hire them. If the music is without a tonal center or changes very frequently, no key signature is fine and most good recording musicians can read and play that just as easily. Just like everything with notation write what is clearest and I would assume the musicians are proficient in both.


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## JJP (Mar 31, 2016)

Just to reiterate what has already been said here, speaking as a professional copyist and orchestrator....

If the music is clearly tonal and clearly has a tonal or modal center for long periods of time, definitely use a key signature. This makes everything simpler to read, and the music looks more like it sounds. Your musicians will be grateful. The idea that studio players or anyone else doesn't want to read a key signature for music that is in a key is an absolute myth.

If the music is not tonal or is shifting keys every few bars (as is the case with much film music), then key signatures become cumbersome. This is when open key (no signatures) is better. Otherwise when keys are shifting every few bars, the performer is forced to constantly remember the changing key signature of the moment which makes reading difficult.

I'm not sure how the belief that studio musicians never want to see key signatures began, but it's fairly common among new composers. Is somebody teaching this as fact out there?


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## jononotbono (Mar 31, 2016)

I have to be honest. I am very confused by all this. I have been looking at the Forrest Gump score and it has Key Signatures. Yet, I have heard Mike Verta say in a Masterclass that he does not use Key Signatures. And everyone in this thread is saying to use them or not to use them!!! I am trying to memorise all the Key Signatures so they become second nature and think it wise I shall continue to do so...


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## bryla (Mar 31, 2016)

JJP said:


> I'm not sure how the belief that studio musicians never want to see key signatures began, but it's fairly common among new composers. Is somebody teaching this as fact out there?


I'm afraid it is the curse of the internet. Someone reads an answer like fx Mike's and passes it along altered or in another content without the experience to really know. Then the snowball effect takes over and everyone is saying it.


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## Saxer (Mar 31, 2016)

There are situations where key signatures are helpful and there are situations where they are obstructive.

You just have to look at the instrument parts to decide what is easier to read. Sometimes even in diatonic music there's a lot of chromatic approach or reharmonisation that would make a score easier to read when using no key signature. But sometimes even with lot of key changes the music keeps using a scale or doing ostinatos which makes key signatures easier to read. Both depends on the music, the key and the instruments transposition. Having five sharps at the beginning and a part full of naturals is hard to read. Same happens having the same five sharps in every bar for the whole track.

Using no key signatures in diatonic music might also be ok in a recording session to keep workflow consistent. Just to avoid having the most cues with and some without key signature.

And there's also the possibility to do both: having a key signature and write all accidentals in the part. Might be useful in some situations like a diatonic track with just some unexpected modulations.

Even without key signatures it's helpful to "think inside a key" for better pattern recognition. Don't change flats and sharps randomly. And sometimes it's better to do enharmonic transposition. In a track in E major for big band with strings I would write four sharps for the strings but five flats for the Eb alto and baritione saxophones.

So there's no perfect answer. Make it easy to read. Avoid unnecessary discussions. That's all.


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## JJP (Apr 1, 2016)

Saxer said:


> And there's also the possibility to do both: having a key signature and write all accidentals in the part. Might be useful in some situations like a diatonic track with just some unexpected modulations.



99% of the time this would be a cluttered nightmare and create more difficulties and questions from players. I can't even think of a situation where I would do this.


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## JJP (Apr 1, 2016)

jononotbono said:


> I have to be honest. I am very confused by all this. I have been looking at the Forrest Gump score and it has Key Signatures. Yet, I have heard Mike Verta say in a Masterclass that he does not use Key Signatures. And everyone in this thread is saying to use them or not to use them!!! I am trying to memorise all the Key Signatures so they become second nature and think it wise I shall continue to do so...



Read the posts very carefully. People are saying to use key sigs when the music is in a key. The time not to use them is when the music is atonal or modulating every few bars so it never settles into a key.

Keep learning your key signatures. You'll need that knowledge to know how to spell enharmonics even when writing without a key signature. Bad enharmonics make even simple things look like a difficult, jumbled mess.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Apr 1, 2016)

jononotbono said:


> I have to be honest. I am very confused by all this. I have been looking at the Forrest Gump score and it has Key Signatures. Yet, I have heard Mike Verta say in a Masterclass that he does not use Key Signatures. And everyone in this thread is saying to use them or not to use them!!! I am trying to memorise all the Key Signatures so they become second nature and think it wise I shall continue to do so...


Are you sure that you're looking at the original session score and not either an arrangement or a published version (like the Hal Leonard John Williams ones)?


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Apr 1, 2016)

JJP said:


> Keep learning your key signatures. You'll need that knowledge to know how to spell enharmonics even when writing without a key signature. Bad enharmonics make even simple things look like a difficult, jumbled mess.



When it comes to enharmonics I've heard that in session scores they don't need to be followed and you should use whatever is easier for the player. So you could have one part with an F# major chord while another has a Gb. Is this not correct?


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## JJP (Apr 1, 2016)

afterlight82 said:


> That said, since everybody is on Sibelius or Finale now...



About 30% or more of the charts on the Oscars this year were orchestrated in pencil. Last year it was about 80%. There are some people working who still prefer doing things by hand when given the opportunity.

Granted, on most big films everything is digital these days, but it's by no means 100%.

Additional note: All of those hand-written charts and most of the computer charts were done in transposed score as well!


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## JohnG (Apr 1, 2016)

Hi Gerhard,

JJP's advice looks pretty good to me. You write whatever the players can execute with the fewest questions and in as short a time as possible.

Not to put words in his mouth but I think he's saying that, if you do use a key signature, it's better to use a key signature that makes sense. If you have a key signature of, say, two flats but then you have a lot of accidentals then it may be a good idea not to have the key signature. Of course, "a lot" is a subjective number, so put differently, if you have two flats in the key signature and start off in G-minor, but really the passage also veers for significant periods into A major, you are going to annoy the players with the key signature because of all the accidentals. However, if it's really sitting in G minor and you have F-sharps or a single A-major chord once in a while that's a V of V, that might be ok. It's a judgement call, in my view.

JJP and I may differ on one point -- I never use a transposed score for conducting (except octave transpositions like bass and piccolo). Even though I grew up playing a transposing instrument, I find it clearer when exhausted and under time pressure to give directions and make changes from a concert-pitch score.

Your point about enharmonic spellings differing between score and parts I have always found a bit of a tease. The main thing I believe is that the player should understand the part he / she is playing -- that's the golden rule. Accordingly, if you are writing fast runs all over and it makes more sense to use F-sharp than G-flat, I personally would depart from the score and do that. However, you will hear two objections to that departure:

-- First, it can be very confusing to the player / conductor communication if that particular note needs to be changed. If the overall harmony is Eb-minor, so the score is in flats, but you have an F-sharp in some player's part, it can be confusing for everyone when trying to make changes.

-- Second, as you are probably aware, the exact pitch on string instruments, trombones, and even keyed instruments (on which the player can lip-up or down the pitch) can differ depending on whether the player interprets it as a leading tone up or down. So you can get into a heated discussion on this.

Apropos the old school, I "grew up" orchestrating with pencil but I don't romanticize it, any more than I wish we still used analogue tape, great-sounding though it is. I still have a stack of hand-written scores in the garage, but I don't do that anymore, because I believe, right or wrong, that an electronic orchestration lowers the probability of mistakes in the copying phase.


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## jononotbono (Apr 1, 2016)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> Are you sure that you're looking at the original session score and not either an arrangement or a published version (like the Hal Leonard John Williams ones)?



I am looking at a Published Score of Forrest Gump at the minute. I will ask Thinkspace if they have a copy of the Original Session Score because I want to see it now (they may not have it).


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## JJP (Apr 1, 2016)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> When it comes to enharmonics I've heard that in session scores they don't need to be followed and you should use whatever is easier for the player. So you could have one part with an F# major chord while another has a Gb. Is this not correct?



This really takes a bit of explanation because I think you could be trying to make a broad, general rule from a fragment of information. Choosing the best enharmonic spelling is always about context. I won't be able to get into all the specifics here but parts and scores can sometimes be different animals in a studio situation.

Session copyists will sometimes respell notes from the score when creating parts to make them easier for the performer to sight-read. We recently did parts for a highly chromatic concert score for a session, and a big chunk of the time was spent determining how to spell all the enharmonics on the parts so the players could read it most easily. A lot of time is spent trying to determine in what key centers things fall so that runs and melodies don't mix a lot of sharps and flats or have too many unintentional harmonically awkward jumps. You don't want to ask a player to read a simple D-flat arpeggio as "D-flat, E-sharp, G-sharp" if you can help it.

There are also some subtle situations where certain instruments will prefer one spelling over another, so we try to accommodate that on the parts when it makes sense. Harp can sometimes be an extreme example of this because of pedalings.

For scores, you should write whatever makes the musical intent crystal clear. In a concert (non-transposed) score, that would *usually* mean using the same enharmonic spellings within a chord or line. That way you can quickly look at a score and see exactly what all the intervals are and understand the overall harmony. If you have parts moving parallel in thirds but they are enharmonically spelled as augmented seconds or diminished fourths on the score, it becomes unnecessarily difficult to determine what's happening.

For that reason something like a C-flat or an E-sharp may be the best choice for a situation on a score, but it may be changed to a B-natural or F-natural on the instrumental part for easier reading if it's not transposed. Remember, transposing instruments often make these enharmonics moot.

Finally, I should also add that respelling enharmonics is done carefully and with the assumption that the people making the decisions have the knowledge and experience to determine what is the best choice for the given situation. We usually try to follow exactly what is on the score unless there is a good reason to change it. If there is doubt, the rule and joke is, "You can't be wrong if you copy what's on the score."


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## JohnG (Apr 1, 2016)

great one, JJP


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## JonFairhurst (Apr 1, 2016)

JJP nailed it.

In diatonic music when using key signatures and transposed parts, you can orchestrate for strings, wind, and brass and never write an accidental, if the music stays in key. This makes it really easy to proofread as you only mark a flat or sharp for a true accidental. Nothing slows a practice session more than when a musician says, "are you sure that I play a G# on bar 37? It sounds wrong." When using key signatures and transposed parts, it's pretty easy to see what was intentional. When all sharps and flats are written individually, it can be hard to find a small bumble.

And as JPP wrote, when atonal or constantly changing keys, use an open key. A key signature doesn't simplify anything in these cases, so don't bother.

I recently wrote an arrangement of La Bamba for small orchestra in F. By using key signatures there isn't a single accidental written into any part, including Eb instruments. What could be simpler?


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## jononotbono (Apr 1, 2016)

OK, thanks! This has certainly helped!


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## bryla (Apr 1, 2016)

JJP said:


> Keep learning your key signatures. You'll need that knowledge to know how to spell enharmonics even when writing without a key signature. Bad enharmonics make even simple things look like a difficult, jumbled mess.


Yes! I clearly remember one of my first gigs as a piano player accompanying a choir. The tune was in D minor and I had to play the chord spelled out A Db E!

This - I think - had to do with the other myth of "you can't mix flats and sharps"


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