The Tyranny of Key
Looking at a piano, there are certain rules associated with each key. If you play these notes over here, you cannot play that note over there. Them's the RULES, and you don't break the RULES. If you do, you have nothing but aimless note abuse, something a toddler or a jazz musician might play.
If those Rules apply to my key, however, it's a cinch to follow the pattern. I know which chord to jump to next, what notes can be played with that chord, what notes cannot be played. It's so easy, it's almost mindless.
Until, of course, I decide to sound out a song like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_Fin8uf88g
Every time I do this, I immediately regret it. I tend to forget that there are people in the world foolish enough to play in a key different than mine. It's a bit like waking up in a foreign country and not knowing the language. Suddenly the notes are alien, and I fumble through the song like a five-year-old at his first piano lesson.
Over the years, I've learned that artists tend to favor one key more often than not. Guitarists--with the exception of my brilliant and gifted brother, Travis, who actually plays in a reasonable key sometimes--always use the worst possible key ever invented. A song written on a guitar first will almost always translate into a whole lot of flats and sharps and very few of those precious, easy to hit white notes on the piano. (Yes, pianos are inherently racist.)
Thankfully, the song above--although played on a guitar (or guitar-esque instrument)--was probably not written on a guitar. Which means it isn't in the worst possible key ever invented for the piano. But it still feels backwards to me, which tells me the artist is likely right-handed, since I'm left-handed. It also tells me my brilliant and gifted and proper-key-sometimes-songwriting brother may lean a little to the left at times. (Or he may just be insane.)
There's a reason musicians feel naked when they expose their music to the world. There is more intimacy in music than we give it credit for. And I don't just mean the lyrics. Sounding out another person's song feels like climbing into their head, wondering why they made the choices they did. Some of those choices are obvious and pure, and they lead to a kind of symbiosis between the listener and the songwriter. (I think I've just abused the word symbiosis.) Some choices are surprising. Some are questionable. Some are just stupid. All are revealing.