I received two emails this week, both from different customers, both asking about two different backing tracks, but both bringing up the same subject - the subject of keys.

Understanding the key of a backing track is a subject that can be very confusing to non musicians and to musicians alike.

In fact there are many musicians out there who are very talented players but they don’t understand keys. This is because keys are based on music theory and most musicians haven’t studied music theory. Ask 100 musicians if they studied music theory and 90 or more of them will say no. Probably the most famous of them all is Paul McCartney. Great musician, excellent song writer, but he freely admits he can’t read music.

And there’s millions of musicians out there just like him. You’d be amazed how many guitar players out there think that if the first chord of a song is, say, G then the song must be in the key of G. It’s not (but just to confuse things, in some cases it could be - more of that later)!

Similary many musicians think that if the main chord in the verse of a song is an Am then that song is in the key of A - it’s not (although to confuse things again, in some cases it could be). In most cases, if the song has an Am verse it will probably be in the key of C.

So why all the confusion?

It’s all about how music is written - not how it’s played, and not how you listen to it.

To understand about keys fully, you really need an in-depth knowledge of all the little dots and lines that make up a songs arrangement on the music sheet, but without getting in to that too deeply, here’s a short explanation about keys and what deciding factors determine what key a song is in.

It’s by no means definitive guide because you must remember that music students study this type of thing for YEARS so there’s no way it can be completely covered and properly explained in a few lines!

But I’ll atempt to explain because it’s a good question, it’s an interesting subject which is rarely understood, and is well worth going in to in a little bit of detail.

Even if you end up more confused about keys than you were before reading this, at least it will give you some idea of the complexities involved and at least you’ll be aware of it from now on.

So, here goes.

One of the questions I was asked was about the song Heartbeat by Scouting For Girls. The customer asked us to create this backing track for him without guitar (he’s a guitar player and wants to play the guitar part “live” over the backing track). He asked us to produce it for him in “the original key of A”.

Right away I spotted a problem - the original key for Scouting For Girls Heartbeat is D, not A.

Fortunately I immediately realised the mistake he’d made and why he made it. If you’re a guitarist and you’re familiar with this song, then you’ll know that the first guitar CHORD you play in the first verse is the chord of A. So that’s why the customer wrongly thought the song was in the key of A.

It’s not, it’s in D.

Think of the chords you play in the chorus of this song (and the verse for that matter). They are all related to D. Mind you, the chord of D is also related to A too, so you can understand his confusion.

The next customer had a similar problem with the backing track of the Michael Jackson song Billie Jean. The original key for Billie Jean is A. What’s confusing about Billie Jean is that the chord of A is nowhere in the song at all, yet the backing track is written in the key of A. So to save confusion we listed it in our catalogue as “original key Gbm”.

That caused another customer to ask if Gbm (G flat minor) is the same as Gb (G flat) and if not, what’s the difference?

No, Gbm is not the same as Gb. And here’s the difference:

Gbm has the 3rd note in the scale flattened whereas Gb has the 3rd note in the scale as a natural note.

Remember I said earlier that keys are directly related to the way a piece of music is written, not how the notes are played?

Well, if we take the example Billie Jean, in the original Michael Jackson key this piece of music uses mostly minor chords and can be written in two ways.

It can be written in Gbm, or it can be written in A.

To the listener, both versions will sound exactly the same.

To the musician playing the song, he’s playing exactly the same notes no matter whether it has been written in Gbm or A.

But the notes on the music sheet which the musician is reading from will be named differently depending on which key the arranger has written the song in.

So the key of a song depends on how the person writing the musical arrangement of that song wants the musician to SEE those notes. This is often done because some keys are easier for some instruments than others.

The best way to describe this to a non musician would be to think of a piano keyboard.

The note to the right of middle C is C# (C sharp).

But that note is also Db (D flat).

They are exactly the same note but have two different names.

Why give the same note two different names I hear you ask?

Well, if this note was being written in a piece of music for a song which was being written in the key of A, the arranger would write this note on the music sheet as a C#.

If he was writing it in a piece of music in the key of Gb he would write that note on the music sheet as a Db.

It all depends on how the music is being written and often who it is being written for.

For example usually brass players find it easier to read a Db than a C#.

Guitar players usually find it easier to read a C# than a Db.

Getting back to the Billie Jean backing track, to match the original Michael Jackson key, we wrote the backing track in the key of A, and the sixth minor key of A is Gbm. That’s where the Gbm you see listed in our catalogue comes from.

The problem we would have as a backing track company labelling Billie Jean as “original key of A” is that the whole song mainly uses minor chords and the chord of A does not appear anywhere in the song. So the non musicians who don’t understand music theory and the musicians who don’t understand music theory (which is 99% of customers) may think that if it is listed as A, that must mean Am.

It’s not. 

Am means Am.

A means A.

Am is also the sixth minor to C, so as you can see there would immediately be all sorts of confusion.

- By labelling the song as Gbm, the musician who DOES understand music theory gets it. He knows that the minor key we have listed is the sixth minor to the key of A. He understands that non musicians struggle with keys so understand what we’ve done, so there’s no problem there.

- The musician who can play really well but doesn’t understand music theory gets it too. He knows that when he plays this song, the main chord he plays most of the time is a Gbm chord so it sounds right to him. He is blissfully unaware that the key of Gbm isn’t actually how we wrote out the arrangement, so there’s no problem there.

- The non musician/singer who knows nothing about keys or music theory just sees it listed in the catalogue as Gbm “original key” (he doesn’t even look at the key Gbm because it means nothing to him) so he knows that if he can sing along with the original recording then he can singalong with the backing track in the original key, so there’s no problem there.

By listing it in this way, everybody gets it and everybody understands it.

At the end of the day, you only need to know how to put fuel in a car - you don’t need to know how the engine works.

So if you are a musician who understands music theory and you see a few sixth minor keys in our catalogue beside the key for a song which you know should really be listed in its major key, we’ve done it simply because there are more non musicians and musicians out there who don’t understand music theory than there are who do. It’s to help them.

Anyway, if you DO know music theory well you won’t be confused in any way - you’ll recognize immediately what we’ve done and know why we’ve done it.

Billie Jean is a perfect example of this. The original key is A, but there is no A chord anywhere in the whole song. How confusing is that!

Now you can see why it makes sense to list the keys in a way that customers can understand and keep everybody happy. Welcome to the confusing world of music theory!

If this all sounds like gobbledegook to you, don’t worry too much. Just remember that students of music study this type of thing for many YEARS so although I’ve done my best to shine some light on the subject here, unfortunately it’s not a thing that’s easily explained in a few short paragraphs.

I just hope I’ve helped a little!

Kenny

A customer called Alan, a doctor from the UK who also enjoys music told me a great story as we got talking about backing tracks and famous singers…

Hi Kenny,
I will tell you a true story. Two young men were in the Army, both good singers and best of friends. They were in Hong Kong together and went to all the singing competitions on the base and in city. One or the other always won.

Eventually  they got banned from all the local competitions as no one else got a look in! Their names were Terry Parsons and Neddy Sparkes.

Terry had the chance to sign on for 21 years but said to Ned he was going on extended leave to make his mind up. He drove lorries, then London buses for a while and then got an audition at Abbey Road. He changed his name to Matt Monroe…and the rest they say is history.

He kept telling Ned to join him but Ned never took the chance. Last time Ned saw Matt, Matt was in a London hospital. He showed his best friend Ned a telegramme he had just received. It said from one ol’ crooner to another - get well soon Matt, from Frank Sinatra. Matt was very proud of that.

Unfortunately Matt didn’t get better and died. Ned carried on in the Army and is now long retired - he lives in Nottingham. He phones me about once a month.

If you ever watch the Matt Monroe story on BBC television you will see a part where Matt Monroe is in Hong Hong…the other guy on stage with him is my uncle Neddy.

Best wishes. Keep the music alive!

Regards

Keep in touch

Alan

Hi Alan

What a great story!

I’m a big fan of Matt Monroe (and yes I have seen the Matt Monroe story on TV).

I actually sing a Matt Monro medley in my act (If I never sing another song - Born free - Portrait of my love - Walk away - and back in to If I never sing another song to finish). I usually introduce it by saying “I’m going to sing a medley of songs by a man who was better than Sinatra - Matt Monro”.

You’d be amazed how many of the audience agree…

Regards

Kenny

 

 

 

The music world lost one of its biggest stars yesterday, Michael Jackson.

Personally I wasn’t a big Michael Jackson fan. However I am a fan of high quality, well produced, creative music. 

I also admire live performers with great talent…and they don’t come much more talented than Michael Jackson. 

I have spoken to many fellow entertainers who attended Michael Jackson concerts and even those who, like me, were not big MJ fans when they went in to the concert, they were definite fans when they came out. Such was the sheer exhileration of his live performances.

The songs Michael Jackson wrote were, like all good pop music, always topical and reflected their time. They were well written and well constructed songs with strong lyrics and catchy hooklines.

They were also incredibly well produced.

As a life-long admirer of Quincy Jones, the production on the Michael Jackson albums was nothing short of astounding. I was in my early twenties during the eighties so those incredible songs plus Quincys jazz influenced funk riffs and cutting edge synthesizer sounds will remain with me forever.

Michael Jacksons personal life was another matter and I’m sure everyone has their own views on that subject (I know I do).

But I’m a musician and a singer, and as such, I recognize and acknowledge his great talent.

Some say his career was all but over and his best song writing days were far behind him. But with true talent verging on genius, you just never know what someone like Michael Jackson may come up with next musically.

Sadly, now the music world will never know….

Kenny

If you would like to pay tribute to Michael Jackson in your act, here is a direct link to all the Michael Jackson backing tracks in our catalogue

Thanks to Pete for contacting me. He’s considering using backing tracks in his act and possibly using Minidisc…

Hello Ken
I am a complete novice at this, but I am a musician and have written my own songs and I need to put them on to disc. I am a dinosaur -I’ve been playing guitar and singing in bands for years but now I am solo use a loop station when gigging. I am thinking of getting backing trax as well. I think for me the minidisc would be a good option. Do you have these in your catalogue? Then I need a minidisc player linked into my PA. Sorry to be rattling on a bit but thats what us old gits do when were over 50! All the best
Pete

Hi Pete

You can certainly move from using a loop station to using backing tracks and you’ll probably find a vast difference in your sound too.

Before you decide on going down the Minidisc route though, give it a bit of thought first. You see Minidisc tends to be a little bit old-fashioned now (although plenty of artists are still using this older format). It’s getting harder and harder to find blank minidisc media nowadays and minidisc deck players especially are all but obsolete.

There are still a few minidisc decks around that you can buy (see http://www.mp3backingtrax.com/minidiscdeck.htm) but most manufacturers have stopped producing them so as the last remaining minidisc decks get sold, they’re not being replaced - something to think about, especially if you need repairs in the future or ever need a new one…

The reason Minidisc has fallen out of favour with professional singers and entertainers is because of MP3.

You see MP3 players can hold thousands of backing tracks, whereas a single blank Minidisc can only hold about 20 songs.

With Minidisc, if you want to sing a song and the backing track isn’t one of the 20 songs on the disc you currently have in your Minidisc player, you need to eject that disc, load in a different disc, then find the song, then press play.

This may not sound like too much of a problem, but believe me, when your audience are waiting patiently for you to sing the next song and you’re pre-occupied switching minidiscs etc, those few seconds feel like a few minutes(!) and it breaks the whole flow of your professional performance. Many acts get round this problem by using TWO minidisc decks…but as I said earlier, they are getting harder and harder to come by….

MP3 on the other hand gives you instant access to ALL your tracks because they are all on the one hard drive on the MP3 player.

With an MP3 player you can even cue up one song while another is playing.

My personal preferred MP3 player for backing track use is the Apple iPod - it’s easy to use, quick to find tracks, and as long as your eyesight is good enough to navigate the small screen, it’s by far the best performer of all MP3 players. Take a look at http://www.mp3backingtrax.com/mp3player.htm for more info.

To hook your MP3 player or Minidisc deck to your PA, simply connect a cable between your player and your PA. MP3 players usually have a headphone/earphone/line-out socket with a minijack connection while Minidisc decks usually have 2 x RCA plug outputs.

You’ll find an article on how to connect an MP3 player to your PA at:

http://www.mp3backingtrax.com/article9.htm

Regards

Kenny

Kelly from the USA wants a custom backing track created. I told him to send me a copy of the original, I’ll have a listen to it, and give him a quote how much it’s going to be to create as a backing track.

He has the original song on his computer in his iTunes program and has been trying to email it to me (unsuccessfully):

Hi Kenny,
I’m having a tough time trying to send that song to you. Just to get this straight now…..I can’t use the I-tunes version, is that correct? I have to try and find the recorded music?
Thanks
Kelly

Hi Kelly
 
iTunes isn’t actually the problem - the iTunes program is simply a music player software which you install and run on your desktop and it plays any songs that are on your computer. It has an added function where it allows you to also transfer music to an iPod if you have one connected to your computer.
 
The iTunes website (i.e the iTunes shopping store) and music you buy from it is a different story though.
 
The iTunes website shopping store allows you to buy music and then download that music directly in to the iTunes program on your computer. It all sounds very quick and convenient, and it is…
 
But songs bought from iTunes have DRM protection in them (Digital Rights Management) which prevents you playing those songs anywhere else except on your iTunes program and your iPod.
 
So if you try to send me a song which was purchased from iTunes, there’s every chance that I won’t be allowed to listen to it or play it. It will be DRM protected and will only play on YOUR computer and iPod.
 
There has been a lot of talk about iTunes getting rid of these DRM restrictions and allowing you to play music you purchase from iTunes anywhere you want but I don’t know how far forward they are with this yet.  In my opinion it was always a cunning marketing ploy anyway - Apple have always argued that they are helping to protect artists from music piracy and file-sharing by restricting where you can play the music you download , but experts agree that in reality they were most probably using this as an excuse just to “force” you to exclusively use their iTunes program and iPod.
 
Anyway, enough about my opinion on Apples marketing rights and wrongs!
 
If the song you want to send me was NOT purchased from iTunes (i.e. you have it on a CD) then you can make a copy of it and send it to me without restriction.
 
To do this, you need to “rip” the CD to your computer and save it as mp3 format, then email the mp3 to me.
 
But you can’t just “drag” a CD from it’s tray on to your computer hard disk, nor can you copy and paste it, nor can you just “attach” it to an email.
 
CD’s are in CDA (compact disc audio) format so need to be “ripped” (i.e. converted) from the CD to your hard disk first.
 
There’s a good article I wrote a while back about how to convert CD to mp3 at http://www.mp3backingtrax.com/article37.htm).
 
MP3 is an open format. It isn’t restricted to any one music player like Apples AAC format - ALL good music players can play mp3 files which is why mp3 is the most popular music format on the planet.

The freedom and universality of mp3 is why we, MP3 Backing Trax, supply backing tracks in this format. After customers buy their mp3 backing tracks from us, they can play them on ANY music player they want, including their iPod (wake up Apple)!
 
When you have a song in mp3 format you can do pretty much anything you want with it, as long as it’s within the licence restrictions of the copyright owner.
 
And this is the BIG difference between the open mp3 format and Apples more closed AAC format.
 
MP3 music files are only restricted by what the copyright licence owner says you can use that music for.
 
Apple restricts you by what the copyright licence holder says you can use the music for AND restricts you to WHERE you can use that music.
 
So if you have an mp3 file, you can play it on iTunes, play it on Windows Media Player, make it in to a CD and play it in your car, play it on your home hi-fi, put it on to ANY mp3 player eg Creative jukebox, Microsoft Zune, Apple iPod, etc etc.
 
But if you have an Apple AAC music file that you purchased from iTunes which has their DRM copyright protection in it, you can ONLY play it on iTunes or your iPod.
 
Hope this helps!
 
Regards
 
Kenny

Tom from Leicester contacted me a while back asking for advice on ways he could set up some simple drum loops to play along with.

Now Tom has decided to buy a fully fledged dedicated drum machine and is looking for something that sounds good but is not over expensive...

Hey Kenny!
Can you help? I want a simple drum machine to give me some basic rock and pop rhythms to back me when I am playing guitar. Don't need to programme any stuff. Just plug it into an amp and operate with a footswitch. Don't want to spend a load on it. Got any ideas?
Tom Matthew

Hi Tom

If it's a hardware drum machine you're looking for and you don't want to spend a lot, then the ideal place to look is eBay.

Do a search by typing in to the search box below for Alesis drum machine, Roland drum machine, Boss drum machine, Korg drum machine, Yamaha drum machine and any other manufacturers you can think of and try to find someone on eBay who's selling off a good cheap second-hand drum machine.



The great thing about buying something like this second-hand is that if it is in perfect working order then it will sound every bit as good as when it was new.

Certainly the buttons and casing may wear or scratch with age but the sounds will still be as good as they were the day the seller bought it.

If you want to get an ever cheaper deal on a drum machine, go to http://www.mp3backingtrax.com/ebay/ and type in the manufacturers name and it'll bring up a list of MIS-SPELLED ebay listings.

The idea behind eBay mis-spellings is that if a seller has mis-spelled an item, then less prospective buyers will find the listing, less people will be bidding on it, and it'll probably sell for less than it would have if the seller had listed it correctly.

You could end up getting a real cheap bargain, not just on drum machines but also any musical equipment. 

Sellers often mis-spell words like sennheiser and behringer and peavy and lots of others...

Regards

Kenny

Ah, the Essex girl done good! Mama do is the first number 1 hit for Pixie Lott and a great catchy tune it is too. Our backing track is the radio play version. The vocal begins straight away with this song so in our backing track we've put a piano chord to pitch you then a two bar count-in so you know where to start singing. Listen to a 30 second audio clip (below) or buy the full backing track from our catalogue: Audio Clip:

A customer called George contacted me to ask a question about music licencing... Hi Kenny, Greetings: Thanks for the great info. I found a track recently on the web. I contacted the site owner about getting permission to use the track. However, they can't say who the author is. Its a reggae track. What can I do? George Hi George Put simply, if you don't have permission from the author of the song through the proper licencing and you don't know who or which company produced and created the backing track, you can't get permission to use the track. The only alternative is to obtain the track from elsewhere - preferably from a reputable backing track company who can give you all the information you need about the track, it's author, and permission to use it. From what you say in your email, I'm guesing that the backing track you have at the moment is most probably an illegal backing track that you downloaded from the internet. It will most probably infringe copyright so that's why the website you got it from are unable to help you or give you permission to use it. It's worth noting that all MP3 Backing Trax backing tracks are fully licensed and we can grant you whatever permissions you require to use our tracks. But you will find that there are lots of illegal websites out there on the internet and they are NOT licensed, so they can't give you the permissions you need. Also bear in mind that you take a huge risk if you use illegal backing tracks. If you get caught at a gig singing with illegal music, you can be fined . Also the venue you are singing at can be closed down for allowing illegal music to be performed (and/or have their music licence revoked) so beware! Kenny

Often referred to as the original boy band, Take That are all grown up now and still producing hit records. This backing track is of the song Up all night and is a foot tapping hand clapping cracker. Listen to a 30 second audio clip (below) or buy the full backing track from our catalogue: Audio Clip:

A typical rock song by a typical rock chick. Please don't leave me is a great backing track and easy to sing. It's not too high so female singers shouldn't have any trouble reaching the high notes in this one. Listen to a 30 second audio clip (below) or buy the full backing track from our catalogue: Audio Clip: