What is the tonal center? Tonal center is that predominant tone that you hear when you're playing a progression or when you're playing a song. It's like ground zero. It's like the anchor note that's played or that's heard. So, the tune that I played just in a second ago is in key of C. That sound right there. That note. That tone. That's the note you hear that keeps coming back. See how everything gravitates back to that. That is our tonal center. The center of what we are doing. Tonal center. So if I play the song like this, the tonal center there would be the center of the tone. The center of all that we were doing. The tonal center. The key that we are in. A tonal center. Sing me the tonal center here. That would be tonal center. How about this rhyme? Where's our tonal center at? That would be our tonal center. How about this song? Where's our tonal center? Right there. That's the key that the song is in. The tonal center. Okay? So what is the tonal center? The key that the song is in. To help me explain this even further are some of my beloved Berklee College of Music students, and I want to ask them to introduce themselves because you're going to see them sporadically throughout the course. Hi, I'm Courtney. I'm from Tampa, Florida. I'm a music business marketing major, and I'm a vocalist. Hi, I'm Grace. I'm from Singapore. I'm a piano principal, and I'm a music therapy major. Hi, my name's Jeanay. I am from St. Louis, Missouri. I'm a vocalist, and my major is songwriting. Hi, my name is Juliana. I'm from Lynn, Massachusetts. My major is professional music, and I'm a vocalist. Hi, my name's George. I'm from Boston. My major is music education, and my principal instrument, voice. So, there you have it. My Berklee All-Stars. So what I'd like to do now is I'm going to play a song. It'll be a short song, and I'm going to ask them to sing the tonal center. Okay. You can try it also, but they're going to sing you the tonal center. When I point to you guys, that's when I want you to sing. I'll try to do it right at the beginning of a measure. Okay. Good job. Let's do another one now. That will be the tonal center. Let's do another one. Can we do it? One more time. So, another way to say tonal center is what key are we in? Here, we were in the key of D flat. This would be C. Tonal center. The center of the tone where everything goes back to. Okay. That is what a tonal center is. So, we're talking about tonal centers here, and you notice that the students were able to pick up the tonal center very quickly. Now, one thing that helped them was they identified that tone that seemed to work with every chord that was being played. That predominant sound that you were hearing. So, if I'm playing in the key of C, that would be my tonal center, you'll hear that sound. It seems to work with every chord. So, when you try to recognize what key a song is in or what is the tonal center for that song, that's what you want to focus in. That note that seems to fit every chord that's being played because a little later on, I'm going to give you an assignment that's going to see if you can figure out the tonal center for a number of songs perhaps in the key of C since that's what we're talking about. The key of C. Alright. Tonal centers.