The questions readers send most often, answered as carefully as the evidence allows.
Often, but not reliably. Many melodies begin on the fifth or the third of the scale, and some begin on a pickup note that belongs to neither. A better guide is the end: the final note of the melody and the final chord usually confirm the tonic. Part Two explains why endings carry this weight.
No. We explain every technical term where it first appears, and nothing in the argument depends on notation. If you can notice when a song sounds finished, you already have the essential skill.
The capacity to hear a centre appears to be very widely shared, and octaves and fifths frame home in many traditions. Which other notes feel stable, though, depends on the music a listener has absorbed. Part Three discusses a study comparing Indian and Western listeners.
They are closely related but not identical. The key names the tonic together with its mode: C major and C minor share a tonic, C, but differ in scale and colour. The tonic is the centre; the key is the whole territory around it.
No. Absolute pitch, the ability to name a note without reference, is rare. Hearing the tonic is a relative skill: you sense which note is central compared with the others. The probe-tone experiments found it in listeners with no musical training at all.
Because home is not defined only by the overtone series. In practice the minor key's dominant chord usually raises its seventh note into a leading tone, so the pull to the tonic is just as strong as in major. Add a lifetime of exposure, and the minor tonic feels every bit as settled.
Composers have tried, in passages described as bitonal, and some pop songs built on loops leave listeners divided about which chord is home. In our reading of the evidence, listeners tend to settle on one centre at a time, sometimes switching between candidates as they listen.
No, though it asks for a different kind of attention. Without the promise of return, the ear turns to texture, gesture, register and line. Many listeners find that rewarding. Part Four discusses what happens when the tonic is withheld.
Pause a song in the middle of a phrase and hum the note that feels most like an ending. Then let the song play to its close and compare. Repeat with different songs. Within a week most readers tell us they find home faster.
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