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MUSIC in all keys

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(@introuble)
Estimable Member
Joined: 20 years ago
Posts: 58
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hi i was just wondering has anybody ever written a piiece of music in all 12 keys? except for js bach 's well-tempered clavier


   
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(@noteboat)
Illustrious Member
Joined: 21 years ago
Posts: 4921
 

The short answer is yes.

Bach's two Clavier books don't really qualify, though - each is a collection of pieces that move sequentially through all keys (i.e. #1 is in C major, #2 is in C minor, #3 is in C# major, etc). Each of the two books actually has 48 separate compositions arranged in pairs, with one prelude and one fugue in each key. Other composers have also used this model... for example, Milhaud's "Le Carnaval d'Aix" (with a different key for every dance theme), or for something more off the wall, Rex McGee's "24 Creations for Solo Banjo".

Then there's the atonal music of Schoenberg and others. His idea was that if you took all 12 tones and arranged them in some sequence, then played each note in the row before you were allowed to play the next, you would give equal balance to each tone... and therefore not have a tonal center. One way to think about this music is to say it's in all twelve keys at once.

Next up would be compositions designed to teach... there are lots of exercises that wind melodically or harmonically through all the keys, using secondary dominants to modulate. Check out Mel Bay's "Rhythm Guitar" for examples.

Jazz has exploited key changes more than other styles, starting in the Bebop era. Some solos run through all keys, either through the cycle of fifths or chromatically, although this was often an improvised structure on the whim of the soloist, rather than a deliberate composition. Then some composers created performance peieces that did the same, like Bill Evan's "Sugar Plum", which takes a ii-V-I through all 12 keys.

One of the coolest ideas I've read about (but not yet heard, as I haven't found it on CD) is a choral composition called "Peace Circle" by John Mackay that won second place in the Composer's Guild composition two years ago. Written for ten voices, it not only moves through all twelve keys, but also through twelve major musical styles - it begins in Gregorian chant, and ends in a contemporary setting.

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