Music Alright BMGF, what key is Unbeatable in?

[Shadow Yoshi]

(preemptive apologies if this was posted in the wrong forum; this looked like the right place)

So, having grown up watching Advanced Battle, I'm pretty well versed (haha...er) in its theme song, Unbeatable. Every time I'd watch it I would hear this.

However, I had to search a bit to find that one. This is because most of the AMVs and other Unbeatable videos use a version of the song that sounds like this. Play them side by side and you'll realize that the latter is pitched up a half step (it's in C#, while the former is in C and sounds more natural in my opinion probably because I grew up with it). I have a hunch that they might've pitched up the song for M08 (since most of those are around 2:00, the longer version, while the normally-pitched ones are 1:00 like in the TV show), but then I found this video that has the full version in the normal pitch. I remember the first time I watched M08 but I don't remember anything being off about Unbeatable - being a music-oriented person I feel like a half step pitch change would be something I'd remember.

So I'm kinda stumped here. Anyone know anything about this?

 

[Moe]

Sounds to me like the difference between PAL and NTSC. I can't identify key or anything, but try taking the first clip and speeding it up 4.2% and see if it sounds to you like the second one (it does for me).

 

[Kthleen]

Listening to my Lucario DVD right now, I'd say it's in A minor. I have heard about speeding songs up and flipping videos horizontally to get around copyright issues or something on YouTube (not sure how that works), though, so maybe that's what's up with the pitched-up ones, unless it's what Moe says (which I'm not familiar with).


...I wonder. Sorry that this might be off-topic, but did you say C because you think C's the tonal center/"home base," or (strictly) because the song doesn't seem to have any accidentals (except that E major at "They can never win, but they sure can try")? Maybe it's because I don't really know too much music theory, but it's a little confusing to me which key a song is considered to be in when it seems to have significant portions in different keys. Is it what a majority of the song is in? (What if it seems to be approximately half in one, half in another?) What it starts and/or ends with? (What if it starts in one and ends in another?) What the cadences seem to be (e.g. "Is this pivotal point a VII-V in minor or V-III in major?" "Does this song end on a i in minor or a vi in major?")? In cases with relative keys (like this one), does it just default to the name of the major?

To me, the song (using the short version) starts with a little IV-I-V/VI-III-VII blurb (explained later), moves to VII-i-iv in the key of A min, then that pivotal E major is a V (still in a), then the part after that could be either IV-I-V in C or VI-III-VII in a (in which case C sounds more... logical? to me, perhaps because I've seen/heard about I, IV, and V being used together a lot in major keys [or in general, but especially in major?]; then again, "This Dream," which I'd say is more apparently minor, also has VI-III-VII in it, and it's even preceded by VII-V [G-E], like in "Unbeatable"), then the song ends in VII-i v-VII-i in a (it just seems to me to have that finality of a one/tonic chord).

 

[Aestivate]

The key is most definitely A minor. There's a lot of Am F G, and E F C G F C is the verse I think and F C G F C Am is the chorus. There's a Dm somewhere in the chorus that replaces the Am and then follows the same progression but the song is still Am.

 

[Shadow Yoshi]

Thanks for the replies, everyone. I think it has to do with what Moe said about PAL vs. NTSC, that makes the most sense.

Kthleen, I said it was in C because, personally, I would identify C as the tonal center. In this case, C major and A minor are basically the same thing because they use the same pitches. Lots of different keys exist in music but they usually all use the same scale (in Unbeatable's case, the C major scale with the exception of that E minor at "we sure can try"). Season 6's "I Wanna Be A Hero" is a good example of song that, while using the C major scale, is considered to be in A minor.

Anyway, C vs. C# was really what I was looking for here because of the pitch differences in the videos I provided (listen to them side by side and you'll hear it).

 

[Kthleen]

...Are we using "tonal center" the same way? I meant the sort of "home base" note whose chord would provide a sense of finality (or perhaps "the strongest sense of resolution"?) at the end, which as far as I know is usually the tonic of the key/mode the song is "considered to be in." The progressions in songs in A minor don't revolve around trying to ultimately resolve to C major. The progressions in songs in, say, D Dorian also don't revolve around trying to ultimately resolve to C major. C may be the relative major/Ionian of those keys/modes, but it isn't where the progressions in those keys/modes are trying to resolve/"come home" to (i.e., the tonal center). Not that ending on six (or any chord other than one) is unheard of, but I just don't think "Unbeatable" is an example of a major key ending on a vi (though I could be wrong. I do still wonder...).

 

[Shadow Yoshi]

Unbeatable is something I can see left up to interpretation as it pertains to tonal home base. I understood what you meant by that. Even though it does end on a vi, I would say that's just a little thing they put on the end for style.

Regardless, the point of this thread was to differentiate between this video and this video (C and C#, respectively) as to which one's right.