Is it possible to work out the 'key' of a song by ear?

[digiman08]

Just wondering if its at all possible hearing the 'key' of a track with your ear?

Or what degree of accuracy can you pick two tracks by ear and them being Harmonically compatible?

[maxonemillionone]

It's like who or whom

Play it on a guitar or any instrument you do know how to play and find out what the most resonant key is.

[VanGogo]

You can usually tell if songs blend together well by ear, DJ's have done this for a long time before there was software to do it for you. Sure some worked it out on an instrument, but alot just did/do it by ear.

Having that information readily available makes things a lot easier though.

And.......
There are people who have what is called perfect pitch, and can tell you the note just by hearing it.

[Jester]

Its how it was done before computers mate

[josh@firestorm]

even without any musical background or knowledge you should be able to tell if a song blends well with another

[MuzicFreq]

I been able to mess with songs and mixing randomly and sometimes will come to a track and remember a popular one then I compare and usually is the same key.

[xtianw]

i have no idea what the names of the keys are. but jesc tells me i mix harmonically. i just listen for what blends, and go with it. if it wont harmonize in any way, i know its out of key.

[wrong chris]

just takes practice and careful listening.

once you know what to listen for you should be able to detect key clashing similar to how you detect beat/phase matching.

it'll sound bad if the keys clash, if the keys match it'll sound beautiful.

[MrPopinjay]

By ear is far more accurate than using a program ever could be.

[Florian Arndt]

Oh yes,

these programs got it so wrong...I tried all of them cause I wanted to know how good technology is,...and they suck. They got it wrong most of the time. If you want to mix harmonically just train your ears, learn to play an instrument, learn about scales, etc.

Don´t rely on software - it´s not there yet.

And YES, you can detect the key of a track by ear...much faster then software does.