How do I find the key of a song?

Drop the audio file on this page. It measures which of the 12 notes the song uses most, compares that with every major and minor key, and shows the closest match with its Camelot code, relative key and BPM. Then check the result by ear, because it is an estimate.

How accurate is a song key finder?

It is right more often on songs with clear chords and one key throughout, and less often on music with heavy drums, few chords or key changes. When it is wrong, the answer is usually the relative key or a key a fifth away. The confidence label tells you how close the runner-up was.

Why does it say A minor when my song is in C major?

A minor and C major are relative keys: they use exactly the same seven notes and share the Camelot number 8. The only difference is which note feels like home, and that is hard to measure from the notes alone. Check the relative key shown under the result.

What is the Camelot code?

It is a label for a key on the Camelot wheel, a numbered circle of fifths used for harmonic mixing. The number runs from 1 to 12 and the letter is A for minor or B for major, so C major is 8B and A minor is 8A. Tracks with the same or a neighbouring code share most of their notes.

What happens if the song changes key?

You get one overall answer, usually the key the song spends the most time in. To find the key of one section, open Analyse a part of the file, mark that section on the waveform and analyse it on its own.

No. The file is decoded and analysed inside your browser and is not sent to a server. When you close or reload the page it is gone.

Song Key Finder

Find the key of a song from an audio file. Drop the file and the page listens to which notes it uses, then shows the most likely key, its relative key, the Camelot code DJs mix by and the tempo in BPM. The result is an estimate, and the file stays in your browser.

Drop a song here or click to browse

MP3, M4A, AAC, WAV, OGG, OPUS, FLAC, WEBM or MP4, up to 100 MB and 30 minutes. Up to 10 minutes are analysed at a time.

The key is an estimate. Check it by ear before you rely on it.

The file is processed in your browser and is not uploaded.

How to find the key of a song in three steps

It works on a file you already have. Nothing is installed and nothing is uploaded.

1
Drop the song
Use the song as an MP3, M4A, WAV or FLAC file, or another common format, no larger than 100 MB and 30 minutes. The whole file is analysed, up to 10 minutes at a time.
2
Read the key, the code and the tempo
The large name is the estimated key. Under it are the Camelot code, the relative key that shares the same notes, the tempo in BPM, and a confidence label that says how far ahead of the other keys the answer is.
3
Check it, or analyse one part
Look at the next closest keys and the bar chart of the 12 notes. If the song changes key, open Analyse a part of the file, drag the handles around a verse or chorus and run it again.

What the result means

Four things come back for every song.

The key
A key names the note a song comes home to and the scale around it, such as C major or A minor. Each key gets one fixed spelling here: F♯ major and not G♭ major, E♭ minor and not D♯ minor.
The relative key
Every major key has a minor key built from the same seven notes, starting three semitones lower. C major and A minor are such a pair. A song can lean either way, so this is the first alternative to try.
The Camelot code
A number from 1 to 12 with a letter: A for minor, B for major. C major is 8B and A minor is 8A. DJs use it to see at a glance which tracks share notes.
The tempo
The BPM comes from the same detector as the BPM Detector on this site, which looks for a steady pulse between 60 and 200 BPM and shows the half and the double next to it. Music with no steady beat gets a key and no tempo.

The Camelot wheel as a table

The same number means the same notes. One number up is a fifth higher.

Number	Minor key (A)	Major key (B)
1	1A: G♯ minor	1B: B major
2	2A: E♭ minor	2B: F♯ major
3	3A: B♭ minor	3B: D♭ major
4	4A: F minor	4B: A♭ major
5	5A: C minor	5B: E♭ major
6	6A: G minor	6B: B♭ major
7	7A: D minor	7B: F major
8	8A: A minor	8B: C major
9	9A: E minor	9B: G major
10	10A: B minor	10B: D major
11	11A: F♯ minor	11B: A major
12	12A: C♯ minor	12B: E major

After 12 the wheel starts again at 1.

Mixing with the Camelot code

The wheel is the circle of fifths with numbers on it. Keys that sit next to each other differ by a single note, so tracks in those keys tend to blend without clashing. From any code, the usual moves are to stay on the same code, to go one number up or down with the same letter, or to switch letter on the same number.

Take A minor (8A). The same code is another track in A minor. One number down is D minor (7A) and one number up is E minor (9A). Switching the letter gives C major (8B), the relative major. Tempo matters as much as key in a mix, which is why the BPM sits next to the code.

A matching code is a starting point and not a promise. Two tracks in the same key can still clash if one is tuned a little sharp or flat, and a code from a wrong key estimate will mislead you. Listen to the blend before you commit to it.

How accurate is the key finder?

Key detection is an estimate. The page measures how strongly each of the 12 notes sounds across the song, then compares that pattern with the typical pattern of every major and minor key and picks the closest. The patterns are the Krumhansl-Kessler key profiles, a standard choice for this method. In this page's own tests, chord progressions built from plain tones in all 24 keys come out right. Real recordings are harder.

The usual mistakes are close relatives of the right answer. The most common is the relative key: a song in A minor reported as C major, or the other way round, because both use the same notes. Next are the keys a fifth above and a fifth below, which differ by one note: for C major those are G major and F major. That is why the result lists the next closest keys.

Some audio has no single key. A song that changes key gets one overall answer, usually the key it spends the most time in. Drums on their own, rap over a bare beat, speech and noise have no key: the page then says no clear key was found, or gives a low-confidence guess from whatever pitched sound is there, such as a tuned kick drum. The page also assumes standard tuning with A at 440 Hz, so a recording that runs about a quarter tone sharp or flat can land on the neighbouring key.

How to check the key by ear

A minute of listening settles most doubtful results.

Play the key note over the song
Set a tone to the frequency of the key note from the table below and play it quietly while the song runs. The right note sounds settled, most of all at the end of a chorus. A wrong one keeps wanting to move.
Hum where the song comes to rest
Sing or hum the note the melody lands on at the end of a section, then name that note with a pitch detector. It is usually the first note of the key.
Decide between major and its relative minor
If the estimate is C major, try both C and A as the home note. The one that feels like the end of the song is the key. Brighter, settled endings point to major and darker ones to minor, though plenty of songs sit between the two.
Try a cleaner part
An intro with only drums or a breakdown with effects can pull the estimate off. Analyse a verse or chorus on its own and see whether the answer holds.

Name a note you hum with the Pitch Detector, and play the key note with the Online Tone Generator.

Key note frequencies to test by ear

The frequency of each note in two octaves, with A4 at 440 Hz.

Note	Octave 3	Octave 4
C	130.81 Hz	261.63 Hz
C♯ / D♭	138.59 Hz	277.18 Hz
D	146.83 Hz	293.66 Hz
D♯ / E♭	155.56 Hz	311.13 Hz
E	164.81 Hz	329.63 Hz
F	174.61 Hz	349.23 Hz
F♯ / G♭	185.00 Hz	369.99 Hz
G	196.00 Hz	392.00 Hz
G♯ / A♭	207.65 Hz	415.30 Hz
A	220.00 Hz	440.00 Hz
A♯ / B♭	233.08 Hz	466.16 Hz
B	246.94 Hz	493.88 Hz

Computed as 440 × 2^((n − 69) ÷ 12), where n is the note's MIDI number.

A music tool from a notes app

This page is for music; the ParrotNotes app is for speech, recording voice notes and meetings on your phone, transcribing them and summarizing them.

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Song key finder questions

Sources

Key profiles: Krumhansl, C. L., and Kessler, E. J. (1982). Tracing the dynamic changes in perceived tonal organization in a spatial representation of musical keys. Psychological Review, 89(4), 334-368.

Song Key Finder

How to find the key of a song in three steps

Drop the song

Read the key, the code and the tempo

Check it, or analyse one part

What the result means

The key

The relative key

The Camelot code

The tempo