When I grew up, I wasn’t going to be an ag journalist. In fact, I wasn’t going to work in agriculture at all. I was going to be the lady at the department store who played the piano.

I started playing piano before my feet could reach the pedals and continued taking lessons into my late teens. In addition to gracing my family with at-home practice, I played at church, accompanied my high school jazz band, and participated in regional music festivals. Then I went to college and took some time off from piano, which turned into a much longer leave of absence than I expected.

After a five-year hiatus from tickling the ivories, I got the itch to invest in a piano of my own. It was a struggle to move the slightly used Facebook Marketplace find down one flight of stairs and up another, but it has since brought me a lot of joy to sit on the bench and learn to play again. I started on a handful of songs that I previously mastered to get reacquainted with reading music and counting time. In doing so, however, I reopened the old wound of my love-hate relationship with key changes.

The thing I love about key changes is that they introduce a new cast of sharps and flats to the page and breathe new life into a piece. A good key change is confident and strong without being bossy or distracting. It has the power to enhance an entire song while maintaining the same musical direction.

Key changes like to make an entrance, but they don’t show up unannounced. In most compositions, there is typically a fermata written above the leading note, telling the musician to hold that chord or rest longer than normal in anticipation. There could also be a ritardando — or a gradual slowing of the tempo — that begins several measures prior, clueing listeners in on the shift. Volume dynamics like crescendo and decrescendo further emphasize key changes as the preceding notes are progressively played louder or softer to build suspense.

All of these embellishments make key changes exciting to hear, but they can be rather challenging to play. This is where the second half of our love-hate relationship comes in.

One of the songs I recently relearned contains a key change from G-major to E-major. That means I go from hitting an occasional F-sharp to pounding three additional black keys, often simultaneously. Physically, all I need to do is recalibrate my fingers to their new positions. Mentally, though, I must train my ear to accept that what sounds like dissonance in the first few beats is really just a different pitch.

Farmers experience their own versions of key changes, ranging from small to substantial. These may include adding a crop to the rotation, upgrading to new equipment, reassessing a marketing strategy, or entering into a new enterprise. Key changes can also occur with decisions to hire new employees or let go of existing help, form a new partnership or dissolve a nonviable one, or begin the transfer of farm assets from one generation to another.

The principles of musical key changes are not unlike those of a farm. In most cases, there is an impetus for change — a pause in production that requires reorganization, slowing output that signals unsustainability, amplified feedback about a functional issue, or diminishing enthusiasm for farming in general. In theory, the physical steps toward change can be relatively straightforward, like repositioning your fingers on a piano. But the mental — and oftentimes financial — hurdles can make change a more complicated endeavor.

One of the greatest obstacles to a key change is the likes of the phrase “This is the way it’s always been.” It’s a vague argument, yet a common roadblock, especially for young or beginning farmers. When that resistance is met with persistence, though, it can result in more streamlined systems, better profits, and an overall sweeter song. Cooper and Katie Hurst are great examples of beginning farmers who have performed countless key changes on their beef farm in southern Mississippi, which you can read more about on page 6.

Key changes don’t alter the melody or affect the tune — they simply refresh the tone. Playing new notes will be awkward at first, but with the right approach, doing so can make a song — and a farm — more engaging. As I dust off my sheet music and embrace those transitions, I encourage you to do the same. Do you like the sound of your operation, or is it time for a key change?