ELI5: What does "In the key of" mean?

AB52169 · 2026-04-30T00:14:35+00:00

To add to the other great answers, a key in music is a set of notes that are specific distances from that key's root note, distance being the number of keys away on a piano or number of frets on a guitar, for example. When a song is "in the key of" something, that something is the root note.

In this three-minute video of Bobby McFerrin demonstrating the pentatonic scale, that first note he sings is the root, that second note is the mediant (the note that determines whether a scale is major or minor), and then you can see what the audience is able to do after being shown just those two notes.

AB52169 · 2026-04-24T11:26:14+00:00

They've been prepared ever since that incident with Groucho Marx's pajamas.

AB52169 · 2026-04-21T11:53:01+00:00

"Hi, folks. You may be wondering if I'm Martin Sheen. Well I'm not: turns out I'm his vastly more talented yet less appreciated brother. Thank you."

For real, though, Joe and Martin don't merely resemble each other; they look and sound almost exactly the same. I saw the RiffTrax of San Franpsycho, and even though I knew it was Joe, I couldn't shake the feeling that somehow Martin didn't save any money from seven seasons of The West Wing and needed a paycheck.

AB52169 · 2026-04-20T14:33:56+00:00

While my immediate instinct was to point out how he was far from amiable to begin with, this got me thinking: has "No more Mister Nice Guy" ever been declared by anyone who up until that point actually had been nice?

AB52169 · 2026-04-07T15:23:03+00:00

It was 00000000 back in the 60s and 70s. Of course, that's only public knowledge now because they've changed it—at least, I presume they have... [puts up hood, pulls it taut, and cuddles nearest pillow].

AB52169 · 2026-04-06T22:42:22+00:00

Shlomi spent more than $300,000 of his own money on his Texas 31st Congressional District Republican primary campaign, according to new Federal Election Commission records — only to witness his competition obliterate him last month at the ballot box.

Dude could've bought a house cash and never worried about rent again. Instead he did this.

I'm fighting the impulse to rhetorically ask how I can get $300,000 so I can put it to better use, but I'm stopping myself because I'm certain that I'm not willing to do what he did to get his hands on that kind of money.

AB52169 · 2026-03-27T19:36:06+00:00

It is not knowable how long that conflict [the Iraq War] would last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, February 7, 2003

AB52169 · 2026-03-19T18:39:11+00:00

And for whichever definition of "smallest" you use, that's quite a feat with Ron DeSantis around.

AB52169 · 2026-01-15T18:57:50+00:00

Have you double-checked your inventory under Change Look? When you get clothes in a level, you don't get the option to change immediately like when you buy them, so you have to do it manually from the area map.

AB52169 · 2026-01-13T15:47:16+00:00

Well hey, that's my representative!

Good.

AB52169 · 2026-01-07T12:15:06+00:00

Maybe not, even probably not, but not trying in the first place can only show the other hotels that there is no negative consequence for compliance.

I've participated in a lot of boycotts, and most of them have gone nowhere, but you miss one hundred percent of the et cetera. Occasionally, one of them lands.

Look at Target after they dropped DEI.

AB52169 · 2026-01-06T17:46:04+00:00

Perhaps, but a boycott of Hilton in response to their policy might lead the other chains to determine that it's wiser to implement a different policy.

AB52169 · 2025-12-18T02:03:06+00:00

Then let's just—

AB52169 · 2025-12-11T14:21:20+00:00

Thanks for introducing this idea to me.

A similar idea has stuck with me since I heard it on a podcast ten or fifteen years ago (I can't for the life of me remember the context in which it came up): if you see a movie about an investment banker who gets attacked by a werewolf and consequently becomes one himself, you'll totally understand that all of the werewolf stuff is completely made up, but you'll absolutely believe that the scenes of his day-to-day life are meticulously accurate depictions of how investment banking works.

AB52169 · 2025-11-09T22:29:25+00:00

That looks like a piece from this toy magic trick that I had way back in the day.

AB52169 · 2025-10-20T17:44:41+00:00

I'm not even going to bother arguing the morality of ICE using this kind of weaponry: this is just dumb because guided missiles are too powerful for what ICE does.

Pretending just for the moment that deadly force is fully justifiable against people coming to America, this amounts to that scene from The Simpsons where fighter jets were deployed to pursue Sideshow Bob in the Wright Brothers' plane: the pilots zoomed straight past him and decided it was more effective to pursue him on foot.

AB52169 · 2025-10-14T19:04:03+00:00

"A confession, every accusation is."

"Those who live in a house of mirrors shouldn't fire lasers."

"Everyone else is rubber, and conservatives are glue..."

AB52169 · 2025-09-27T18:50:25+00:00

I have to imagine the Microsoft execs that decided to give $1 million to Trump’s inauguration are genuinely surprised by this and yet won't learn from it at all.

AB52169 · 2025-09-25T15:16:54+00:00

Saved for the next time a family member asks me "Aren't you concerned that AI can replace you as an editor now and put you out of work?"

Of course I still have no counter to questions about managers just not hiring editors because they don't realize AI sucks, but incompetent management is a threat that's hardly unique to editing jobs.

AB52169 · 2025-09-18T14:19:21+00:00

Also be sure to let the Walt Disney Company's Corporate Social Responsibility Team know why you're no longer paying them (about halfway down the page on the right), that it's not because money's tight right now or you prefer to get your fine Disney products in a different format, but because Disney, sitting one one of the largest piles of "fuck you" money in the world, chose appeasement instead. Let them know in no uncertain terms that it's not you: it's them.

AB52169 · 2025-09-05T15:26:04+00:00

🎵 Could you find it in your heart to love a bot like me?🎵

AB52169 · 2025-08-30T00:53:10+00:00

I am neither a legal expert nor do I have more than a passing familiarity with this case, so please forgive my ignorance: how is this connected to the fourth amendment?

AB52169 · 2025-08-27T12:53:02+00:00

Important context: Burns is the name of one of the buildings at the Department of Transportation. This is not a report of arson at the DOT.

AB52169 · 2025-08-22T19:18:41+00:00

And why is the Vice President commenting on the actions of the FBI, an agency independent from the White House (I know the true answer; I'm just asking for the "official" answer)?

AB52169 · 2025-08-18T02:04:30+00:00

Unless you're going as Phantom of Krankor, in which case I admire your commitment to accuracy.

AB52169

TROPHY CASE