Writing in different keys

[Pharaoh's Curse]

I usually come up with a riff and build around it, never really caring what key it's in, if it's cool I use it.

Should you when writing for an album mix it up and write in different keys, or does it even matter?

 

[Terminus]

Yes, all the time. in metal yeah sure you have your open string tendencies as most guys who like thrash and melodeath know all too well, but I try to shy away from that as much as possible with most stuff I do. I use two slightly different tunings for one project also. B standard and drop Bb.

 

[H-evolve]

I think that writing in different keys through an album is important, as you'll make sure that when somebody listens to it all, they won't end up feeling like every song was roughly the same.

Of course, don't spend hours trying to figure out a different key signature for every song. But having a couple of songs in a different key signature is nice.

Moreover, I personnaly like to experiment with different types of metal through an album (not really related to key signatures...). I'm not saying that you should switch from Black, to Death, to Thrash, to Melo, etc. But, it's good to have some "different influences" through your songs. If you're all around the place, sure, people might get lost and wonder what exactly you're trying to do. But, if you mix it up just enough, it can give a nice feel to the whole album. At least that's what I like to do...

 

[He's Dead, Jim]

Sort of depends on the song and style. Black metal usually focuses around an identifiable key, with some notes (flatted 3rd of the relative major key or flat 2nd of the minor key, for example) added. Technical death metal often does some really interesting musical stuff involving diminished, whole-tone, and other scales. Thrash is usually the easiest to fudge I guess.

 

[Kohugaly]

Yes... writing in different keys is important. We're currently working on an debut album and 80%of the songs are in D minor. They are good when we listen to them alone, but when we listened to all of the tracks the way they will be on CD it sounded gray and booooooring after 3rd song. Especially because the D minor songs are one after another and we can't really switch them with the non-minor-D-songs cos' the album epic (it roughly has a story and it'd mess up causality). It was a beginner mistake and we'll avoid it in the future for sure...

 

[smy1]

I really don't think most people can tell a difference between the keys of different songs. The biggest difference lies in which keys are good for the vocalist. A lot of vocalists work as far way as possible from their naturally best key, simply because that's what the guitarists tune to.

Just adjusting the key of a song to fit the vocalist will improve his vocals by 1000%.

 

[Kohugaly]

Just adjusting the key of a song to fit the vocalist will improve his vocals by 1000%.

Holy True!!! Or you may find vocalist to fit the key

 

[smy1]

Holy True!!! Or you may find vocalist to fit the key

If your vocalist is so average that you can just swap him out easily, you might wanna re-consider spending any time with him in the first place.

 

[Kohugaly]

If your vocalist is so average that you can just swap him out easily, you might wanna re-consider spending any time with him in the first place.

I'm on a hunt for a vocalist pretty much 2 years now with poor results so far. Mainly because of 3 reasons:
1.he/she's a bad/average singer in the first place
2.he/she's is not comfortable in singing clean parts in christian black metal band
3.combination of above two

it is so hard to find band members when playing underground subgenre of underground genre.

 

[Jormyn]

I find that it generally comes down to what works for the riff and how it's most efficiently played. For instance, Thin Lizzy's Jailbreak and Diamond Head's It's Electric (or at least the Metallica cover) are easiest if your root is F# (or whatever the second low E fret in your tuning is) because they frequently make use of A and E.

Or, if you wanted, you could full-on Dream Theater and have each song on the album start with on the next key in the circle of fifths, eventually working your way through them all, and while you're at it have the album start on the same phrase that the previous album ended on and blah blah blah. Neat idea, but too much effort for me.