What key would this piece of music I've just composed be in?

D

Dark Angel

New member
Starting and ending on D, yet it's all white notes on the piano (i.e. NO accidentals).

Can anybody help?!
I'm not totally sure I've been clear!

The tune revolves around the note D, yet it does not have the F# or C# to make it D major, and it does not have the Bb to make it D minor.

What I'm asking, what key does it make it now?

Sorry I was unclear to start with!
 
It's hard to say without seeing the music, but is it possible it is in the key of D? If it has no F# or C# maybe those are the accidentals (get what I mean?), Instead of playing F# you play the accidental of F etc.
That's my guess, but like I said (and somebody else too) it's hard to tell without seeing the music.
 
Your piece is in the Dorian Mode. Back in the day (prior 1600 approximately), music was written in one of the so called "modes". Major and minor did not really exist, though modes that are the same as them did (Ionian and Aeolian). So instead, composer wrote in one of the following modes (in order): Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, or Locrian.

To figure out the pattern of these modes, you just start on a different white note of the keyboard and play a scale on white keys only. Ionian is the same as the major mode, since it starts on C. Dorian starts on D, Phrygian on E, Lydian on F, and so on until you cycle back to Ionian again. You can have a modal piece that uses black keys, but the pattern of half and whole steps must remain the same as the white key version.

Classical composers mostly did away with this, retaining only the Ionian (major) and Aeolian (minor) modes for their compositions. The 20th century saw a resurgence in modal music with works like Ralph Vaughan Williams's Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Talis:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c3XvNZ3ns4

To learn more about modes, read the wiki article below, especially the "Modern" section.
 
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