ChoiceOfKey

(When not found on iPad,
set "iPhone only" in top left corner)

Did you ever wonder why composers write
music in so many different keys?
ChoiceOfKey can help you to find your own
favorite one.

* * *
How does ChoiceOfKey work?

ChoiceOfKey will be driven by touch buttons:

1. Button „hurdGurdy“
Enjoy the endless loop of performances of
music samples based on Preludes of
Johann Sebastian Bach.

2. Buttons „major“, „minor“
Listen to different scales and try to
distinguish major-minor first, giving
attention to the characteristic thirds.
e.g. choose C - major - play

3. Button „JSBach“
You can select a Preludes „manually“.
For the keys A, B, C, D, E, F and G you
will find the Preludes in this way:
F - minor - JSBach - play

The robot plays a couple of bars of the
respective Prelude, which are more or
less characteristic for this composition.

With the set of 12 compositions for the
major keys and another 12 compositions
for the minor keys, Johann Sebastian Bach
proved that they all can be played on
a keyboard with a special tuning called
„well-tempered“.
The robot of ChoiceOfKey provides 14 of
these Preludes, however you can play also
in all further keys, e.g. F#. You can
force the robot to turn to another key
by doing the following:
C - major - JSBach - F# - play
i.e. you can listen to one of the
Preludes in any other of the keys.

4. Button „turntable“
Why do we use both sharps (#) and flats (b)
in key notation?
Turntable demonstrates that this is only a
question of practical usage. In practical
usage there is a limit of 7 sharps or
7 flats in one given notation.
You can verify this watching turntable
moving scales clockwise or counterclockwise
through all keys.