Off-key

Off-key is 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 or in-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.

Off Key

Off Key (also known as Desafinado) is a 2001 Spanish-British-Italian comedy film written and directed by Manuel Gómez Pereira. In it Joe Mantegna, Danny Aiello, and George Hamilton star as three celebrity tenors. Although they perform and have some good times together, they are rivals onstage and in their private lives. They also undergo intense scrutiny from the paparazzi and gossip press over their love lives and careers. The film was loosely inspired by the real life Three Tenors, Plácido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, and José Carreras.

Plot

The movie opens with a shot of a poster with three men in tuxedos under the name "Los Tres Tenores". Inside a theater in Mexico, one of the men, the dapper and refined French tenor Armand Dupres sings an operatic aria. Backstage, Spanish tenor Ricardo Palacios' wife tries to shoot him in the groin for cheating on her. Police take her away screaming, as Palacios and superstitious Italian tenor, Fabrizio Bernini, prepare to go onstage. Palacios hands his colleagues large Mexican sombreros and tells them to their disgust they must sing a mariachi number together. The concert turns into a disaster. A series of newspaper headlines follow their performance asking "Tenors or Clowns?" and explaining that his singing partners are suing Palacios for fraud. Paparazzi photographs follow showing Bernini kissing Palacios' wife and Dupres mourning his own wife's death.