off-key

Dictionary: off-key

(ôf'kē', ŏf'-)
adj.

Music. Pitched higher or lower than the correct notes of a melody.
Being out of accord with what is considered normal or appropriate: a high-flown, off-key speech by a newcomer.

offkey off'key' adv.

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Antonyms: off-key

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adj

Definition: not harmonious
Antonyms: concordant, harmonious, on-key

WordNet: off-key

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Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The adjective has one meaning:

Meaning #1: inaccurate in pitch
Synonyms: false, sour

Wikipedia: Off-key

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This article does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2009)

For the record label, see Offkey Recordings.

For the jazz standard sometimes known as Off Key, see Desafinado.

Look up off-key in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Off-key is a term often used to denote musical content that is not at the expected frequency or pitch period, either with respect to some absolute reference frequency, or in a ratiometric sense (i.e. through removal of exactly one degree of freedom, such as the frequency of a keynote), or pitch intervals not well-defined in the ratio of small whole numbers.

The term may also refer to a person or situation being out of step with what is considered normal or appropriate.

Explanation of on-key

The opposite of off-key is on-key, which suggests that there is a well defined keynote, or reference pitch. This does not necessarily have to be an absolute pitch but rather one that is relative for at least the duration of a song. A song is usually in a certain key, which is usually the note that the song ends on, and is the base frequency around which it resolves to at the end.

The base-frequency is usually called the harmonic or key center. Being on-key presumes that there is a key center frequency around which some portion of notes have well defined intervals to.

Deliberate use off-key content

Examples include the words "Thought He Was a Goner" in the song "And the Cat Came Back" and the words "Yum Yum" in the children's song "Five Green and Speckled Frogs."

		Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more
		Antonyms. © 1999-2009 by Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more
		WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. Read more
		Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Off-key". Read more
		Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved. Read more

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off-key

Explanation of on-key

Deliberate use off-key content

See also