I’ve got a song that I would like to learn, that contains four different key signatures and I am unsure how to play it. I would really appreciate some help because at the moment, I am stumped.
I have created a simplified example to illustrate my dilemma.
The following “song” is written in the key of G so if I wanted to play it in G, I would simply play the notes: E F# G A B C D E.
If I wanted to play the next song in the key E, I would not need to do anything special because it is written in E and I would simply have to play the notes: E F# G# A B C# D# E.
If I wanted to play the second song in the key of G rather than in E, I would transpose all notes up 3 semitones to get the following in G. I could then play the notes: G A B C D E F# G.
So far, so good. My question is how should the following song be played?
The first measure would play as E F G A B C# D E like in the first example, but would the second measure be played as apparently written as E F# G# A B C# D# E or would it have to be transposed to the first key and come out as G A B C D E F# G?
Is there a saying about not swapping whistles in the middle of the stream 
or was that equines 
Trisha
No help whatsoever.
You play the last one as written, namely with FCG and D sharp. This is, of course, more difficult on a D whistle. Classical music players see this sort of thing all the time, that’s why they like all those keys on their instruments.
Yes, the second piece (along with those following) would be played with differing keys, as you suggested. If you want to transpose it all to the same key that might make smoother transitions, because you want have to pick up differing whistles. But one of the great things about the whistle is you don’t have to transpose between keys (other than finding which whistle will play with the music). I always hated doing that as a saxophonist. Damn guitar players always wanted to play in E, which translates into F# on the tenor, not a very friendly key, although you get used to it.
Just in case you don’t already know this, the first phrase is in E minor (in fact it is just an E natural minor scale) and the second is in E major.
E minor is the relative minor to G major, so they have the same key signature. It is an effective composing technique. I feel like I’m in the dark and gloom of the E minor and the all of the suddent the light shines through with the minor changing to a major but using the same tonic!
Incidentally, a Picardy Third (my screen name) is a technique where you may play an entire piece in a minor key (like E minor) and at the resolution your ear would be expecting that E minor chord, but instead the third is raised a half step making it an E major. It takes a sad and gloomy piece and just adds a ray of hope at the end with that major chord.
I hope this helps explain a little what the composer may be trying to do in your piece. These are just some techniques to make the music more interesting.
picardy
Thanks everyone for your input.
What was really throwing me off was that the song I am trying to learn is in two different song books I have. In the first book, the song starts in the key of F, then changes to Ab, then back to F, then to Gb and then finally to A. In the second book, the song is written entirely in the key of Bb. Neither book contains a single accidental anywhere for this song.
What the second book has done is to take the first section (key F) in the first book and transpose it to Bb. The second section of the first book was then transposed from Ab to Bb and tacked onto the end. And so forth.
I even went so far as to enter the song from the first book into Noteworthy as written, complete with key signature changes. I then transposed each section independently from its current key to the key of Bb (which should be incorrect), but wound up with exactly what was contained in the second book.
To me, it made absolutely no sense that the second book could be correct. If each individual section could be independently transposed to a common key and then be stuck back together, there would be no point in creating multiple key signatures in the first place.
You have confirmed my suspicion that the second book in simply incorrect.
Hey Picardy!
Deep River Blues!
I used to play that on my guitar years ago, thanks for the flashback! I’ll have to drag out the old strumbox and get fingerpicking again…
So much music to play, so little talent!
M