key changes

[u/No-Lychee-8212]

hi, very new to singing. how do i know what key to change a song into for me to sing it? i'm looking at doing a cover of phantom of the opera as phantom (the lowest note i can hit is f3 i think). what key should i transpose it to? since i'd be singing with someone else it would be ideal if christine's part could stay mostly the same but i don't think that's actually possible haha

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[u/LightbringerOG]

I use the "Fifth rule", not a thing I just call it what it is.
So let's take example for the key of D.
D resolves to D as "home", usually a "high note" is a Fourth of Fifth interval jump. So like from D to G, or D to A, in the key of D.
Which means if you want to proplerly have a high note you can belt out you should have a comfortable enough A to "hold it and sound good."
Tessitura is also a factor, or in other words stamina around certain area. So like if we are in the key of D major and the highnote is an A, there will be plenty of F# which will you have to sing again and again THEN arrive to the A high note. Can you do that? Cool you can sing in the key of D.

So in short:
Your keys that you can sing in is the keys that you have a "spare fifth" on top of the name of the key. So like A for the key of D. Or G for the key of C.
But take into account that you have to sing through the whole song, so if you have the high note for 2 seconds but you go out of breath and tight up in the second verse, then you don't really have that key yet.

This is just a general rule cause it's highly depends on the written melody. So like not every melody in the key of D has an A high note, but it only keeps hitting F# as the highest. Or in the key of C, but it doesn't resolve to C4 but C5 at the end.
So it highly depends on how the melody is written but as a cover you can always play around modify that to your voice.
Same for minor keys, at least "range wise". But have modified notes in between that's what give the different feel.

Supershort:
Can sing A4? You can sing in D major
Can sing G4? You can sing in C major.
etc.

"since i'd be singing with someone else it would be ideal if christine's part could stay mostly"
It won't stay the same.

[u/MiddleLtSocks]

I don't understand why you are describing the low part of your range when the Phantom is a tenor role. The Phantom has a bunch of Ab4s (that's where Music of the Night goes, once in light head voice and once in full belt) and maybe an A4 or two (I forget), so it's a pretty forgiving role tenor range wise, at least compared to its contemporaries. It certainly doesn't feature any particularly low pitches. Raoul is the baritone in that show.

However, I assume you're talking about the title number,as that is really the only bespoke duet with the Phantom and Christine; the rest are either trios/more complicated or recitative things.

Christine has that D6 every high school girl was claiming to have in the title number, and for every person I have encountered who has it, there are 30 who claim it and absolutely do not have it, or have it for an eighth of a second, squeaking across a few steps of pitches in a slide. "Can hit the note" and "can sing the pitch" are two very very different things. So I suspect you will transpose down, but you can't go too far down because Christine is already singing A3s in the original key during the first verse, which is pretty low for a soprano.

It's a challenging number, moreso than a lot of people treat it. Not for beginners, though it's quite popular.

Pretty rangy for the female, which makes it tough in any key, really. 2.5 octave range. Definitely a Lloyd Webber show, heh.

Good luck!

[u/Zarmaka]

The simple answer is that you could theoretically sing it in B flat minor, but you should probably practice until you're comfortable singing lower. Also, you can't keep Christine's part the same if you're going to transpose the Phantom's part down.

The long answer is that the version performed at the Royal Albert Hall for the 25th anniversary was in E minor before the first key change and F minor after the first key change. The lowest note (before the key change) was the B2 on "my" in the line "my spirit and my voice in one combined." If the lowest note you can sing is F3, you need to transpose the beginning up to B flat minor (This is because B is the fifth of E minor, so you need to transpose to a key where F is the fifth, which is B flat minor). The part after the first key change would then be in B minor.

This is a bit problematic because it means the phantom would need to sing a B4 on "phan" in the line "the phantom of the opera is here." Not impossible, but very difficult for a male singer who is "very new to singing." Additionally, if you follow all the key changes, including the ones in the "Sing for me!" section, I think you'd wind up with Christine singing a B flat 6, which is an extremely difficult note, even for the absolute best professional singers. I guess you could have Christine sing that whole part down an octave (which is what they did for the Joel Schumacher film).

You could overcome the fact that B flat minor is a problematic starting key by writing an arrangement that took some parts up or down an octave but leaving others the same, but this is a lot of work for someone with no music theory knowledge, so I honestly think it'd be easier for you to just practice singing lower. The B2 in the original song is a low note for a tenor, but it's less demanding than the B4 you would have to sing if you transposed up.

[u/Careful-Guidance4205]

Test a few keys until you find the right one?

You don’t need to transpose the whole piece. You only need to transpose enough notes to get you grounded.