What Key Is This?

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwjNu4xbm_A[/youtube]

The staccatos in this music are some of the best film music ever recorded, I think professionals in the field agree with it because it has been copied to many other franchises.
At this point a man is being fished out of the water. Turns out he’s a live.

this post was deleted because Iambiguous deleted his answer

[answer deleted]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rueJpG3GZk4[/youtube]

what key is this you darned elusive technocratic genius.

This is a really good track

[tab]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACHrkCouANQ[/tab]

Try A Minor (not to be confused with ‘try a minor’).

I can hear an A, Bb, C and E. :-k There must be something online to give details about the score? If you find out, I’d be interested to know.

PS: nice piece.
.

Thanks!

Yeah I can sure find it out online but was hoping someone here has the ear.

Are you a musician?

Used to be but music’s just a hobby now and a very neglected one. I’m also very rusty theory-wise which is why I was eager to hear how A Minor sounded. I don’t have any instruments atm so it’s only guess work.

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A major chord for base, throwing in an F major in every now and then, and riffing on E major scale, as far as I can tell. Only listened about a minute cuz I got toys to deliver.

https://youtu.be/ScKttHpqkLo

it’s all major chords because my boy jason is a man of action
they just hit low notes on the bass chords though, because you know, he’s dark

ahhh they go into a double harmonic scale a little further in
fucking love double harmonic
makes you want to eat dates
and get fanned over with a palm leaf
by your slaves

thats what Im saying though. the double harmonic.

speaking of stacatto, compare this:

https://youtu.be/puATfHLAW5w?t=148

to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkJC8p48g6g

This piece begins with some broad strings playing in C, but only root and dominant notes so no extra harmonic information about the key is yet suggested.

I believe it’s a horn that then begins soloing over the top of this, at first suggesting a regular diatonic C major after playing a G into a the major third E.
But then it jumps up to an Ab, which is not in C major, before repeating the G into the E. This Ab is a minor 6th.

Then for its second phrase it really throws off that major key suggestion with a G into an Eb, then Eb, F, Ab, G - all notes in the C minor scale.
With the third phrase we’re back to the major third after the G goes into the E, but then again with the minor 6th and a minor 7th as well as it plays Ab, Bb, Ab, G.

So now that we have all the harmonic information we need for a nice 7 note (heptatonic) scale, what do we get?
C, Eb, E, F, G, Ab, Bb, C
This certainly doesn’t look like a regular diatonic scale with the opening one-and-a-half step, and the whole feel suggests an exotic non-traditional-western scale anyway. And yet I can’t find any exotic scale, or any mode of any scale that fits this tonal progression… It’s close to a Phrygian dominant scale, but with a double augmented 2nd. Edit - I might as well have called this an Aeolian Dominant with an augmented 2nd.
Back to western terms, perhaps we have a C major augmented 2nd with diminished 6th and 7th, or a C minor augmented 2nd and 3rd?
My simplest conclusion can only suppose a kind of fictitious hybrid scale like “C maj/min” or just an alternation of the two scales C major and C minor - though it feels more like a single scale in itself than an alternation.

The rest of the song doesn’t seem to give us any more information, it seems to remain in this same mysterious key all the way through.
At 1:09 some percussion enters to progress the piece into a spiccato (a better term than staccato in this context) string ostinato section, which actually throws another curve ball into the mix with the occasional F#, but that seems more like an accidental (which for laymen doesn’t mean a mistake, it just means in this case that the 4th note of the scale is intentionally sharpened for extra “colour”).
At 1:23 the bass gives us an Ab, to an F, and back to C - again remaining in this same key.
At 2:16 the bass gives us an “E, Eb, Ab, A” a couple of times, and at 2:42 it gives us “Eb, Ab, E and back to C” a couple of times - so we see a new “A” note, but harmonically it functions more like a kind of leading note (but using the 6th rather than the 7th) - we’re still in the same key.
Finally at 3:42 the piece closes with a revisitation of the opening strings that faded in over the previous 10 or so seconds, with the horn playing just the first phrase of the same opening theme again, only this time over the string ostinato that continues to play.

Very nice Sil, thanks. Thats what I was looking for.
Now Im going to listen to the piece again with your post in front of me.

As a few people have already pointed out, this piece begins in A with some harmonic overtones starting with E, then C with a G then a D over that - all suggesting A minor.

Then at around 0:25 we begin a 2 and a half octave scale from the root A up to the D#, 2 and half octaves higher, which is held to then harmonise dissonantly with a G.
It’s been suggested that this is a double harmonic scale, which is half true.
The first octave is actually octatonic, when double harmonic scales are heptatonic, but the 2nd octave and a half does in fact revert to a double harmonic scale: the 2nd mode of the double harmonic major (or “Lydian #2 #6”).
The initial octatonic variation just includes an added F# (major 6th), which makes it look like the Hungarian Major with an added leading tone, but it’s otherwise the same as a double harmonic scale.

Then at 0:38 the piece immediately changes key to F minor (add major 9th? - with the G sustained over the top), to C major, with the G maintained over the top, sliding up a semitone to G# as we get back to A, leaving us with a kind of unresolved A major 7th chord. This “question” is then answered with the same G over the F chord, sliding up to G# for the C major chord (making it augmented), and resolving up to A as we get back to the A chord.

Kinda glossing over the rest, at 1:43 we get some bass riffing over some snare paradiddles until 2:04, which gives way to a string bridge to set up the next section at 2:16, which transitions nicely through Am, G, Gm, Faug6 three times before a string build-up that finally at 3:12 breaks the suspense by transposing the whole piece from A minor up to C minor! This section then repeats a Cm, Bb, Db, Fm transition four times. At 3:49 the piece then suddenly transposes again, one step higher still up to D minor!! The same 4 chord transition repeats four more times, each chord 1 tone higher than before. No wonder it’s called “To The Roof”.
From around 4:40 the piece closes out with some ambient Bb minor (over Gb?).

;

Thats awesome. I can work with that.

I guess Ill leave my dumbass meme.

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