The Power of the Key Change

[Coffee]

Some day, try this: play "You are my Sunshine" in a minor key.
Try it also with "Are You Sleeping."

[Nanohedron]

For a while I used to do that a fair bit with Irish tunes. Depending on the tune, good results were not always easy to arrive at, but The Rakes of Kildare's fingering shifted down a step into G major worked very well. Started into it at a session and everybody found themselves playing along, looking at each other and wondering how the heck they knew it at all. That was fun. I called it The Lawnmowers of Kildare, but found out later it had already been done and was a song called Thank God We're Surrounded by Water.

[Coffee]

Aye. A minor change... no pun intended, that thoroughly alters the mood of a tune.

[cboody]

Try playing Flop Eared Mule up one full step and in the same key signature as the original. PRESTO a nice dorian tune.

[ScottMaurer]

Even a key change of major to major or minor to minor can be cool.

The most popular example would be the glasgow reel. I don't like it but cheap trick of shifting it up a major key is really cool. you get a nice lift out of it.

[brewerpaul]

If you like other keys and modes, check out the Ahava Raba whistle by Chiff member Daniel Bingamon. Ahava Raba is a scale used in a lot of middle eastern music. Think Havah Nagila. Play your favorite tune with usual fingering and it comes out sounding like it belongs in Fiddler On The Roof.

http://www.tinwhistles.us/jubilee/store ... imetal.htm

[colomon]

Back in 2006 a bunch of my friends took to playing "Julia Delaney" in D major. I don't know where they got the idea from -- yes, it's in O'Neill's in D major, but that version is almost a different tune, this one is very close to what I think of as the standard D minor setting, just in D major. I recently dug out a recording I made of them back then and have been listening to it a lot, it's really nice.

[oleorezinator]

Then there's the modulation into
D Minor the saddest of all keys.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NgViOqGJEvM

[ytliek]

Key change...

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-5UfJ ... nature.gif

[sbfluter]

Our old-time group plays a nice version of The Girl I Left Behind in a minor key, or sort of minor-ish because part of it is in a major key liked you'd expect and then suddenly it goes sad and confuses everybody.