Musical key characteristics

D minor is the saddest key of all.

A related question - how is it that music connects so strongly with our emotions, to the extent that it can give us goosebumps. I can understand how a sad song can affect us emotionally through its lyrics - but how can mere music have such a powerful effect?

Nigel

quote:

Originally posted by 555:
D minor is the saddest key of all.

wowie zowie, it's Frank Zappa - there's got to be an album in there.

Lick my love pump!
Marvellous.
The change from major to minor keys (the 3rd note in the scale is flattened by a semi-tone) normally gives the change from bright/happy/upbeat to melancholy.
A key change part way through a song (often about 3/4's of the way through a pop song gives it a lift, as the key change is normally going up from the original key.
Why this works psychologically I don't know, or can't fully explain, but it is interesting.
On a basic level, simple musical phrases which are called "question & answer phrases", whereby the 1st part, normally only a few bars or so ends on the dominant (ie the 5th note of the scale) & the 2nd part, (the answer) will loosely repeat the question phrase, but end on the tonic note(the note of the key). Again, its difficult (for me) to put into words why phrases like this sound the way they do, but its fairly clear if you can play them on a piano & listen.
There are lots of tricks which composers use to draw us into music, & let us know, or anticipate when certain things are about to happen, & I guess these tricks are used across most musical forms (in the western world anyway), be it Bach, Bacharach or Nirvana.
I would think a classically trained musician (George maybe) would be able to better answer the question.
Matt.

quote:

Originally posted by Milo Tweenie:
How can different keys have different characters; melancholy, bright etc? You can transpose a piece by shifting everything up say a semitone. The musical intervals remain identical (assuming equal temperament), so how can this alter the character of the piece?

To a certain extent this is conventional wisdom - we are told this is the case and so we believe it. Cultural conditioning, if you like.
Take a piece of music written for a piano tuned to equal temperament and play it on the piano in a different key. Are you sure you're hearing a difference which would be described in more or less the same way by everyone who heard performances of the piece in its original and transposed keys?

However, there are a couple of things which do affect how the music sounds.

Play a tune using the notes of the G major scale on the G string of a violin. Then play the same tune transposed down a semitone (F sharp). It will sound different tonally. This is because a G played on the G string will not require stopping - the string is open, and it will sound out strongly. A D played on the G string is a natural overtone of the string so, although it will need to be stopped on the finger board, it will still resonate well. Or the D could be played on the open D string. In other words the most likely notes in a tune in G major correspond to the open strings, or strong overtones of the open strings, on a violin. So G major sounds 'strong' on the violin.
Now, the notes in the same tune transposed to F sharp cannot be played on open strings or their strong overtones, and so the sound of the tune in that key will be different. The violin physically cannot produce the same strength of sound.
However, detune the violin by a semitone and play the tune again. Allowing for the slight slackening of tension in the strings, the tune should sound stronger again.

All this applies to all stringed instruments and to all instruments which rely on resonating columns of air (brass and woodwind).

A further marginal factor which affects the less superb players: some keys are easier to play than others - it's literally about moving the fingers around. How many symphonies can you think of in F sharp minor? Psychologically, this may affect the performer.

Regards

All the comments mentioned before are beautifully written and very accurate. Please allow me to give forth my two pennies worth. I tought myself the guitar when I was around 13 or 14 and throughout my readings I stumbled across the science called music theory. Music theory explains where various musical keys originate from and how you can extrapolate a musical key through simple mathematical formulas. Furthermore, music doesn't just belong to keys (major/minor) which are (happy/sad). Music is also viewed within the context of "modes". A mode is referring to handing over the dominance to a particular note within the musical scale that doesn't necessarily have to be the "key" note. It has been a long time, but If i remember correctly we had about 9 modes. The characters of these modes vary from the scary, mysterious, dreamy or even wacky.

I know I haven't properly answered the question of Milo but hopefully added another dimension to the very valuable answers mentioned above

Regards...

Musical keys are like colors.

Here's an analogy: a musical phrase consisting of specific pitches in a specific sequence will sound different when transposed to another key even though the relationship between the intervals is identical, just as an illustration of a flower will look different when its color is changed even if the illustration is otherwise identical.

All best,
Fred

I have a friend who is reading Oliver Sack's book "Musicophilia, Tales of Music and the Brain"

He says it is very interesting.

quote:

Originally posted by Wolf2:
I have a friend who is reading Oliver Sack's book "Musicophilia, Tales of Music and the Brain"

He says it is very interesting.

I'm reading it, too. It's wonderful.

Fred

Thanks for all your thoughts.

Jeremy's point about instrument harmonics certainly makes sense, and maybe there's no more to it than that. Does this mean the different keys would loose their different characteristics on say an electronic keyboard where no such harmonics come into play?

Is it also possible that a "bright" key on a stringed instrument could take on a sombre mood on say the woodwind because the overtone harmonics are working in a different way?

In my original question I wasn't thinking of major/minor key changes or changes of key during a piece; there you have a reference and will clearly pick up on the relative change.

quote:

Originally posted by Milo Tweenie:
Thanks for all your thoughts.

Jeremy's point about instrument harmonics certainly makes sense, and maybe there's no more to it than that. Does this mean the different keys would loose their different characteristics on say an electronic keyboard where no such harmonics come into play?

That's my contention.

I'm sure that people who have better pitch recognition than I have will spot what key a piece of music is in and, because they have been conditioned to believe that key is bright/sad/whatever, will ascribe that description to the piece of music. It's sort of assuming what you intend to prove.

Each composer [who took care of the key he or she set music in] tends to have an individual voice for each key, so Beethoven's use of E Flat major tends often to be for bright, even sunlit, on occasion, music, whereas Elgar's E Flat music tends to the more inward and reflective. For examples, Beethoven's Eroica Symphony and Emperor Concerto, and Elgar's Second Symphony and large stretches of The Dream Of Gerontius.

D Minor was the key Mozart used to show an undercurrent of restlessness, and even moments of something close to musical terror. D Minor Piano Concerto, Reqiem Mass, and the Don being dragged to Hell in Don Giovanni, whereas For Beethoven the key represents music such as the Choral Symphony, and the Missa Solemnis, which have more a sense of cosmic vision and even in the end, optimism.

Bach employed B minor for profoundly deep statements such as the B Minor Mass, whereas Elgar employed the key for the serenely sweet Violin Concerto.

So perhaps we can understand that composers often have an association in the minds between certain musical aspects and certain keys, but it is hardly Universal. For the listener it is largely a question of conditioning - related to the music they love.

As a matter of interest in song, where a soloist is accompanied by a piano with even temperament, the fact remains that the songs have [like all music] an individual mood, which remains even if the actual performance is transposed up or down to suit the voice of the solo singer, so particularly in the case of the even tempereed keyboard, it is fairly safe to say that the mood evoked is in the music, and not so much the pitch it is performed at.

In the case of strings there are brighter and softer sounding keys because the strings [of the whole familly] tend to a more open sonority in certain keys because the overtones of the open strings contribute to a bigger brighter sound world. Keys such as D Major and especially G Major are resplendant on a string orchestra. On strings probably the softest sounding key is the related D Flat major B Flat minor pairing [both with five flats in the key signature], and a great example of this gloriously gentle sound world may be found in Barber's Adagio.

The winds and brass instruments each have their own particular characteristic warmth or softness in any given key, and the master orchestrator knows exactly how to employ them to bring out what he wants in the music.

I do tend to agree that certain keys from certain composers have a colour association, though personally I find that this assciation is related not just to the key, but the combined factors of the key and the composer. For me Beethoven's E Flat is majestically golden, whereas Elgar's E Flat is the beautiful spring green of young tree leaves, whilst Sibelius's E Flat is a much darker green, as in the colour of pine forests, even if wondefully sunlit.

Bach's B Minor is that wonderful dark blue of ceremony, whilst Mozarts D Minor is like lava, sometimes glowing deep red as the underling power shows through.

ATB from George

He does know his music, doesn't he!
Thanks for that info George. It'll be interesting to listen to a few of the pieces you mention & note the way the different composers use the same key.
It would be difficult for me to get this kind of insight elsewhere, & posts like this really make the forum a positive thing.
Matt.

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:

I do tend to agree that certain keys from certain composers have a colour association, though personally I find that this assciation is related not just to the key, but the combined factors of the key and the composer. For me Beethoven's E Flat is majestically golden, whereas Elgar's E Flat is the beautiful spring green of young tree leaves, whilst Sibelius's E Flat is a much darker green, as in the colour of pine forests, even if wondefully sunlit.

I just want to clarify that my mention of color as an analogy to key was not in the sense that certain keys are associated with certain colors (although they certainly are for many composers, musicians, and listeners, albeit with no consensus on specific correlations), but rather strictly to illustrate that a musical phrase will sound different when transposed to another key even though all its other parameters are identical, just as a photo of a red flower, for instance, looks different when the identical flower is tinted yellow.

Subjective associations of key and color are another matter in this context.

Best,
Fred

Dear Fred,

I wrote:

For me Beethoven's E Flat is majestically golden, whereas Elgar's E Flat is the...

From this it should be clear that I am describing a personal, and subjective response, especially as I had also said that composers' use of key for differents styles is hardly Universal.

On the other hand as the pitch of performance varies between different perfomers and orchestras, from some HIP perrformances adoption of A = 415 Htz, which is analogous to Baroque Kammerton, to A = 435 Htz, which is the pitch that would have been used for Viennese orchestral perfomance in Beethoven's time [and was used in Britain as recently as 1914 in Henry Wood's Queen's Hall Orchestra, established initially to perform the London Prom Concerts, the series now known as the BBC Proms Concerts], to modern Philharmonic Pitch [A = 440 Htz] and even as high at A = 456 Htz, used in certain Eastern European and Russian Orchestras, though this is less common than it was. This high pitch equates to something akin to the old Baroque Chorton [the pitch for Church Choirs and Organs], and a whole tone higher than Baroque Kammerton. I have never found that my personal association of any given colour with a key used by a certain composer was changed by this range of about one whole tone, even though musically speaking the most distant relationships [harmonically] between keys are indeed those where the tonic notes are separated by the semitone, and even at the wholetone, rather distant in terms of modulation.

[I have heard of performances given with a A tuning as low as 407 Htz. I have never actually encountered tuning pitch this low though].

It seems that colour associations are for me related to the music and conditioning. This is particularly shown as being likely as art songs, when performed [as I mentioned above] in a transposition to another key to suit the solo singer's voice, does not seem to me transformed to a point where it is remarkable at all.

Indeed it seems one of the advantages of the even temperament tuned piano that this is possible without obvious transformation of the musical content for most people without absolute pitch in their hearing, which might be the case where this to be done with an accompaniment on string orcheatra, where the reasons for tone colour changes explained above will occur between different keys - though not between higher or lower pitched performances of those specific keys as the result of the use of a different tuning A.

E Flat Major sounds very different on a String Orchestra, from D Major. However, if the whole orchestra where to tune down a semitone, then the pitch of E Flat Major would be that of D Major, but the sound world would still be the softer less resonant sounding E Flat, rather than the glorious open D Major sound [as I explained above].

For a completely direct comparison, a complete change of the strings employed would also be necessary to avoid the inevitable slight softening that lower tensions [when used on the same strings] does produce. Lower tension stringing, as often used in Baroque HIP performance [and slightly lower pitch] often, but not always, does result in a sweeter and softer [as well as frequently more articulate] sound world, even if the naturally bright open sounding keys, or softer less resonant keys retain their relative characteristics. G Major is still one of the most resplendant keys on modern strings at high pitch as it was in Baroque days in the old low Kammerton pitch.

Of course for those blessed with "absolute pitch" [a thing that can be taught, and yet is by no means a blessing] the issue can be different! These poor souls will find the variations in tuning pitch schemes quite irksome! For those with the more ususal sense of "relative pitch" the issue is unlikely to cause difficulty.

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:

Dear Fred,

I wrote:

For me Beethoven's E Flat is majestically golden, whereas Elgar's E Flat is the...

From this it should be clear that I am describing a personal, and subjective response, especially as I had also said that composers' use of key for differents styles is hardly Universal.

Yes, it was perfectly clear.

Best,
Fred

George shows that keys do not have universally agreed consistent characteristics.
Of course, key in itself doesn't have any characteristics at all. We're talking about the beliefs people have about these keys.
Some further points.

(1) For any given key and composer it will always be possible to find counterexamples.

(2) If it were the case that D major was generally believed to be bright, or whatever, composers wanting to express brightness would be likely to select this key, if only subconsciously, for their bright composition. So arguing that this shows that D major is bright is simply assuming the very thing you're trying to prove.

(3) It might even be the case that a statistically significant number of pieces in D major are bright. But it doesn't follow that the brightness is caused by the key. A composer wanting to write a bright piece of music has other techniques he/she can deploy to achieve brightness, whatever the key (see Deryck Cooke, The language of music, OUP 1959).

quote:

Originally posted by Jeremy Marchant:

George shows that keys do not have universally agreed consistent characteristics.

That's a given. As far as I can tell, no one in this thread has maintained otherwise.

A musical phrase played in different musical keys will sound different; that is an objective fact. The nature of that difference is, to a large extent, subjective, aside from objective considerations such as "it's lower" or "it's higher."

Best,
Fred

Dear Fred,

Thanks! Nice to agree with a composer, as a mere former player!

Dear Jeremy,

Thanks for finding that Derek Cooke seems to be saying the same thing. Though it might be born in mind that certain instruments, such as those in the the violin, lute, and guitar families, do have characteristics that are different in diferent keys, because of the issue of the strength of harmonics on resonant open strings that do produce quite specific sound worlds for individual keys where the important harmonic notes in the scale correspond with the natural resonanses of the harmonics in the open strings.

____________

There is another issue which no doubt has its ongoing effect on the way different keys are employed by composers and so on the way these keys are perceived by listeners, and that is the old tuning of keyboards, which Bach overturned in his moves towards the even temperament tuning scheme that allowed all keys to be used without a change in basic character, beyond the pitch, as Fred says, being simply, and objectively, lower or higher pitched.

The old tuning schemes on keyboards tended only to be beautifully in tune in C Major, and as the number of sharps or flats in the key signature increase [ie. the key becomes more harmonically remote from C] the tuning becomes increasingly painful to a point where such a remote key a B Major becomes intollerably horrible [Google Silbermann's Wolf for a description of the problem].

JS Bach pioneered a keyboard tuning scheme very close to the modern even temperament of keyboards, where all the semi-tones are exactly equal. This revolution in tuning was enshrined in the Two Books of Preludes and Fugues [in all the keys, major and minor] known popularly as the Well Tempered Clavier, and also as the 48 Preludes and Fugues.

The old tuning schemes gave different results in different keys, and the more proximate [to C] keys gave acceptable tuning, and a tuning which did indeed give a specific character to these keys, sometimes piquant, sometimes softer than even temperament yields. No doubt this had its effect on the historical collective tradition of using certain keys - due to historical precident - long after the old tuning schemes pertained.

ATB from George

quote:

Silbermann's Wolf

http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/tmprment.html

This is a splendid link, and discusses at some length the whole issue of even temperament, organ registration, and the old meantone, modified meantone, and circular tuning schemes, with respect to the specific colours available in different keys [and the significant relationship of Baroque Chorton and Kammerton], and thus the historical relationship of key colours in the old tuning systems [Silbermann, Werkmeister, Valotti etc] which goes a long way to explaining why keys have been ascribed colours by composers, which still have associations for listeners today, even if the old keyboard tuning schemes are much rarer today except in Baroque HIP performances on antique or antique style instruments. Strongly recommended.

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:

Dear Fred,

Thanks! Nice to agree with a composer, as a mere former player!

George, to a composer no player is mere.

All best,
Fred

quote:

Originally posted by Milo Tweenie:
How can different keys have different characters; melancholy, bright etc? You can transpose a piece by shifting everything up say a semitone. The musical intervals remain identical (assuming equal temperament), so how can this alter the character of the piece?

I think there's a simpler explanation. Different notes on a musical instrument excites different harmonic overtones.

Take the piano for example. Play, say, a major third interval ... maybe a C-E. Then play another major third, say a Bb - D.

Now while the intervals are the same, they will have very different overtones, not just because one is higher than the other. On the piano, this will include the sympathetic resonance of the instrument.

To me, that accounts for the different character.



Here are three interesting exercises:

1. Play the same tune on the same key, but different octaves. On a well tuned instrument the intervals between the notes will be the same, yet they still give different "feel", and not necessarily because one is higher than the other (though that DOES play a part too)

2. Play the same tune on the same key, same octave, same instrument, but different brand. Say a Shigeru Kawai piano and a Bechstein. Do they still give the same "feel"?

3. Play the same tune on the same key, same octave, same instrument, same brand, but different tuning. Not recommended on a piano ... but easy for a guitar. First tune the guitar normally (string 1 = E) then play the tune. Then drop the tuning for all the strings (say string 1 = D) then play the same tune again, of course transposing your fingering up to compensate. Avoid open chords. Does it still give the same "feel"?

quote:

Originally posted by Asp:

quote:

Originally posted by Milo Tweenie:
How can different keys have different characters; melancholy, bright etc? You can transpose a piece by shifting everything up say a semitone. The musical intervals remain identical (assuming equal temperament), so how can this alter the character of the piece?

I think there's a simpler explanation. Different notes on a musical instrument excites different harmonic overtones.

Take the piano for example. Play, say, a major third interval ... maybe a C-E. Then play another major third, say a Bb - D.

Now while the intervals are the same, they will have very different overtones, not just because one is higher than the other. On the piano, this will include the sympathetic resonance of the instrument.

The only difference between the overtones on a well regulated piano tuned in even temoerament is the [relative highness or lowness of] pitch as the piano has a completely chromatic tuning scheme which favours no particular key or note, and the mathematics of the relations of any chord at a similar interval is in formula the same. Thus the only realistic difference is the actual pitch. You almost prove against your case by saying there is a difference [clearly only the pitch] but then do not say what [apart from the pitch] what the difference is. If one assumes in terms of harmony that these are the intervals I-III in the keys of C Major and B Flat Major then your assertion makes nothing clear except that C Major is [a major Second] higher pitched than B Flat Major. Colouristically there is no difference at all, but you actually miss the vital issue in this and that is the issue of modulation, or changing of key. B Flat is rather a long way harmonically from C so if you play one before the other [either way round] of course the ear feels the tonality wrenched from C to B Flat or vice versa.

Now modulation is a very powerful expressive device in music. A study of harmony is crucial to understand the full implications, but as far as can be explained in a post like this, it is easy to modulate to the Dominatant (V), or Sub-dominant (IV) [of the tonic, which is root of the key] so from C it is easy to move to G or F which has one sharp or one flat in the key signature, with a sense of key change, but not a wrench of atonal proportions. The shift directly to B Flat from C is such that it disrupts any possible normal tonal scheme, and such a modulation in music would only every be used at a moment designed to give a feeling of crisis. Thus it is hardly surprising that the Major Third of B Flat sounds odd after the Major Third in C, or vice versa.

quote:

Here are three interesting exercises:

1. Play the same tune on the same key, but different octaves. On a well tuned instrument the intervals between the notes will be the same, yet they still give different "feel", and not necessarily because one is higher than the other (though that DOES play a part too)

What other aspect is at play, apart from the higher or lower pitch? What is the effect at an emotional expressive level?

quote:

2. Play the same tune on the same key, same octave, same instrument, but different brand. Say a Shigeru Kawai piano and a Bechstein. Do they still give the same "feel"?

Why should they between two brands of pianoforte? But the effect is by this very admission not Universal, but the subject of variation between instruments, of differening ages, makes, and models. Random in other words, actually.

Try the same thing on various violins for example, and the effective changes will be more similar than the differences caused by the individuality of the instrements, and hence the significance of key to music played on the violins group of instruments [as explained already].

quote:

3. Play the same tune on the same key, same octave, same instrument, same brand, but different tuning. Not recommended on a piano ... but easy for a guitar. First tune the guitar normally (string 1 = E) then play the tune. Then drop the tuning for all the strings (say string 1 = D) then play the same tune again, of course transposing your fingering up to compensate. Avoid open chords. Does it still give the same "feel"?

This is called scordatura [the retuning of one or more strings usuall to a lower pitch], and is employed for special colouristic effects by composers especially in the violin group of instrments, but also found on lutes and guitars. The effect of shifting the harmonics of the open strings does have an effect on the result, which is the explanation for the scheme in the first place.

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by munch:
C
Will always do it for me.
Munch

C is "the people's key."

Best,
Fred

Fantastic response; thanks for all your inputs, but particularly to George for the time you put into your explanations.

So, if I understand correctly, the character of a key is determined by harmonic responses excited in particular instruments by virtue of their design and construction. A different key excites a different set of harmonics.

Very interesting, many thanks.