Having Several Songs In The Same Key,

[SunnyShading]

Is it bad to have several songs in the same key?

[MikeRobinson]

Keys can be shifted ... e.g. by a computer, or even by a kapo on a guitar.

And BTW it's quite informative and useful to do that. For various mumbo-jumbo technical reasons, the keys are not the same.

Another thing that you can easily do with a computer ... and it's not the same as a key-change but rather is a mode-change ... is to shift a block of notes up-or-down the staff, so that "C becomes C#" and so-on but the key does not change.

When you're putting together a melody or a song, "first, just get it out of your head and onto paper." Once you've accomplished that, you can actually do a lot of rather-amazing things with it, e.g. using your trusty digital computer as your able assistant. In the same way that, say, Photoshop can transform a photograph, the computer can really help to do surprising(!) things to a song.

But ... "it all starts with a song." Get the song first. Get "the idea that gets to me." Get it to a place where you can't lose it. Don't judge that process ... just do it. Because that's the one thing that a computer can never do.

"Writing is rewriting," and you can never change that. Accept it. Get those first-drafts out of your head and do not destroy or tamper-with those "precious original first-drafts" in any way whatever. It don't matter if you're writing music or text or art: first, the gold must come out of the ground. Only then can it be refined.

Edited October 22, 2012 by MikeRobinson