I'm sure this was on the old forum at some point but I'd like to know if there is a list of what emotions are gerenally identified with various keys.
For example:
Eb Major = Heroism
Ab Major = Forgiveness
G Minor = Tragedy
C Major = Triumph
Is there a chart somewhere?
Well, D Minor is a popular key for requiems, so, arguably, it embodies sadness, sorrow, and similar "deep" emotions.
I just wrote a fairly long response to the OP and lost it during posting! >:(
The gist is:
1) it isn't just emotions, it is more generally 'states' and 'concepts' that are involved
2) a list
can be tentatively drawn up, but it is very generalised of course and
3) also has to be read as a work in progress - i.e., key associations acrue new levels, new meanings, as time goes by and great pieces of music impress their force upon them. For example, C minor took on a new heroic intensity after Beethoven even if its basic association-type remained the same
4) the associations are not particularly grounded in acoustical fact, even though some may have roots in the different acoustical properties of keys in pre-equal temperament tunings.
5) what they are more often grounded in is symbolism, based around the understandable idea that C major is 'neutral', 'pure', 'didactic' or 'scientific'. From this root, there is a basic idea that sharps move us 'upwards' and flats 'downwards' - positively or negatively depends on mode
We had a good, detailed discussion on this on the old board, on the mammoth 'Psychology of anti-modernism' thread starting in earnest here (http://www.good-music-guide.com/forum/index.php/topic,1196.msg234017.html#msg234017), though worked up to in the pages before in. It's been good to read it again, it was one of the most stimulating discussions I had on the old board. I want to extract from it one quotation I made, from Wilfrid Mellers, a fascinating musicologist who uses these and other similar principles (e.g. the associations pertaining to particular intervals etc. - all very similar to Deryck Cooke's book
The Languague of Music in some ways) a lot in his books. This particular quotation comes from the appendix to his revealing book on Vaughan Williams:
Quote from: Wilfrid Mellers
In equal-tempered tonality, which is essential if harmonic progression within the cycle of fifths is to be possible, all scales must be identical since each semitone is equal: the emotional effect of D major cannot be distinct from that of C major, whereas the dorian mode is distinct from the ionian mode because the intervals that comprise it are differently disposed. None the less the classical baroque era, in its rage for order, built up an elaborate system whereby the different major and minor keys were invested with psychological properties. There was an acoutical reason for associating D major with power and glory because it was the key of natural trumpets, and a good key for instruments of the violin family to play brilliantly in, owing to the ready availability of open strings. But there was no acoustical reason why D major's relative, B minor, should have become associated with tragic experience, pain and pathos, except that it was the relative of D major and by inference could be construed as its polar opposite and complement. All that matters is that the symbolism of key, in classical baroque music, worked: as the hierarchy of keys on which Bach's Mass in B minor is constructed wonderfully testifies. The Mass is not really in B minor but in B minor and D major, with the latter slightly more prevalent. D major and B minor are positive and negative poles; the subdominant (G major) is the flatter key of blessing and benediction, with its relative (E minor) as the key of crucifixion. A major and F# minor are intensifications of D major and B minor, enhancing joy or pain; E major, being the sharpest major key in common use, is paradisal - and comparativley rarely attained. Flatwards progressions work in similar ways. F major and Bb major were associated with pastoralism and the earth; C minor with human strife tending to darkness; F minor - the flattest minor key in common use - was the key of funeral experience and the infernal regions. And so on.
Although such rigid classification weakened with the decline of the classical baroque and of the absolute autocracies who created it, these symbolic attributes of key were too deeply entrenched to be lightly surrendered. Mozart has his benign G major, tragic G minor, radiant A major, demonic D minor, strifeful C minor, nobly enlightened C major, and so on, used in comparable contexts in instrumental works and in operas wherein words and action offer clues as to their meanings. Beethoven still writes 'dynamic' works in C minor (Pathetique Sonata and Fifth Symphony), benign ones in G major (Violin Sonata opus 96, Fourth Piano Concerto), 'infernal' ones in F minor (Apassionata Sonata, Quartet op 95), and uses D major and B flat major in association with power and glory both natural and supernatural (Ninth Symphony, Missa Solemnis, Hammerklavier Sonata). Schubert composes his final triptych of piano sonatas in keys (C minor, A major, B flat major) preserving their traditional connotations, and continues to write heavenly, or at least Edenic, music in E major - as the words of his songs testify; while his Young Nun is storm-buffeted in F minor. Unsurprisingly, the archaistic Bruckner never abandoned classical key symbolism, though his heavenly regions seem to have risen up the cycle of fifths from E to B and even F sharp major. Tchaikovsky's E minor and F minor Symphonies relish their precedents in the desperations of the past. Debussy and early Messiaen find their heavens way up in F sharp and C sharp major, bristling with celestial sharps.
Clearly the choice of one key rather than another must have been, as the centuries rolled on, an instinctive reflex. Composers did what had always been done,; and in the course of time an audience's respone to a work in a given key would be coloured by its foreknowledge of other, especially very famous, piece in the same key. This is a bonus the composer did not count on, though he may have been glad of it. He chose one key rather than another because instince and precendent told him to. He did not need to think about it, though some composers must have done so more than others....
Thanks, that's a very interesting excerpt.
Quotehornteacher
I'm sure this was on the old forum at some point but I'd like to know if there is a list of what emotions are gerenally identified with various keys.
For example:
Eb Major = Heroism
Ab Major = Forgiveness
G Minor = Tragedy
C Major = Triumph
Eb Major: Heroism? And what about Haydn's famous Quartet opus 33/2 ? I don't see anything Heroic about it.
Ab Major: Forgiveness? Bach had not that feeling in his Prelude and Fugue from the WTC: dynamic, powerful.
G Minor: Tragedy. Well, we all remember Mozart's Symphonies 25 and 40, the sublime Quintet K 516, the piano Quartet K 478. Yes, I believe it is tragic when Mozart uses it.
C Major: Triumph? Oh no it isn't, unless you are focusing in the end of the 4th movement of Bruckner's 8th Symphony. But the extraordinary string Quintet of Schubert is in C major and the only triumph I see there is death's triumph.
I don't believe in emotions assigned to keys.
Quote from: val on April 14, 2007, 04:55:28 AM
Eb Major: Heroism? And what about Haydn's famous Quartet opus 33/2 ? I don't see anything Heroic about it.
Ab Major: Forgiveness? Bach had not that feeling in his Prelude and Fugue from the WTC: dynamic, powerful.
G Minor: Tragedy. Well, we all remember Mozart's Symphonies 25 and 40, the sublime Quintet K 516, the piano Quartet K 478. Yes, I believe it is tragic when Mozart uses it.
C Major: Triumph? Oh no it isn't, unless you are focusing in the end of the 4th movement of Bruckner's 8th Symphony. But the extraordinary string Quintet of Schubert is in C major and the only triumph I see there is death's triumph.
I don't believe in emotions assigned to keys.
I'm not entirely sure about the original list myself, but there can be no doubt that composers did think in these ways, at least in the baroque - we have documentary proof of it. It matters not that acoustically the whole idea is nonsense, of course; the roots of it lie elsewhere and are perfectly clear and understandable.
The fact is that not all pieces in a particular key will partake of these associations fully or even partly, as your examples show. The WTC is free of them, for instance - but then the important thing about this set of pieces, looked at in context, is
precisely to show that all keys can now be used to relatively equal, effect, is it not? One would be surprised if Bach, in a piece designed to show off the new usuability of B minor for instance, would resort to the old affekts, whose roots were possibly also partly in the key-by-key variations of the older temperaments.
So it's a complex issue, with all sorts of byways, cumulative historical changes, special cases, double meanings, individual peculiaritiers etc. But nevertheless - or because of this - it is a very rewarding one to look into.
Quote from: val on April 14, 2007, 04:55:28 AM
Eb Major: Heroism? And what about Haydn's famous Quartet opus 33/2 ? I don't see anything Heroic about it.
Ab Major: Forgiveness? Bach had not that feeling in his Prelude and Fugue from the WTC: dynamic, powerful.
G Minor: Tragedy. Well, we all remember Mozart's Symphonies 25 and 40, the sublime Quintet K 516, the piano Quartet K 478. Yes, I believe it is tragic when Mozart uses it.
C Major: Triumph? Oh no it isn't, unless you are focusing in the end of the 4th movement of Bruckner's 8th Symphony. But the extraordinary string Quintet of Schubert is in C major and the only triumph I see there is death's triumph.
I don't believe in emotions assigned to keys.
Sure there are exceptions, but the labels from the examples I gave aren't mine.
MTT called Ab Major the key of forgiveness on his Keeping Score DVD dealing with the Eroica.
Speaking of which, the Eroica (Heroic) is in Eb Major, and Mozart used Eb to depict heroic characters in the Magic Flute.
C Major represents triumph in Mozart's Jupiter, Beethoven's 5th, and Brahms 1st.
Mozart called A Major the key of love (mainly because the clarinet, then pitched in A, was associated with love).
I agree in that assigning emotions to keys does not work in all cases, there have been enough documented cases in books I've come accross in which composers have chosen the key of a work based on what emotion they wished to convey.
Quote from: hornteacher on April 14, 2007, 05:11:26 AM
I agree in that assigning emotions to keys does not work in all cases, there have been enough documented cases in books I've come accross in which composers have chosen the key of a work based on what emotion they wished to convey.
Indeed. And if the composer doesn't choose the key, sometimes the key chooses the composer! One has to ask why, apart from instrumental considerations, pieces are written in particular keys at all if not for some conscious or subconscious leaning towards them on the composer's part. IOW, why is Sonata X in Key Y? Of course, often the reasons are fairly complex, or absent - but often some kind of key association will lie somewhere at the bottom of it. Examples could be given by the bucket-load!
Quote from: val on April 14, 2007, 04:55:28 AM
C Major: Triumph? Oh no it isn't, unless you are focusing in the end of the 4th movement of Bruckner's 8th Symphony.
This surprises me coming from someone who knows Mozart! ... he is the fellow who wrote the C major Symphony No. 41, after all...
As for tragedy, I see C minor as an "austere" sort of heroic struggle; D minor as a cosmic battle between tremendous soul-forces (is there a word for those?); E minor as a resigned, autumnal, bittersweet melancholia (ie, the battle is already over).
Just because something
begins in a key, doesn't mean the ending has to reflect that key's nature, by the way. For instance, nobody could argue that Beethoven's Ninth disproves the idea that D minor = tragedy, because the "Ode to Joy" itself is hardly in D minor!
Quote from: brianrein on April 14, 2007, 09:19:53 AM
This surprises me coming from someone who knows Mozart! ... he is the fellow who wrote the C major Symphony No. 41, after all...
On that old thread on the previous board which I mentioned above, during which we had a long old discussion about this issue - and it really was a good discussion, I recommend a look - I outlined 4 different 'types' of association (http://www.good-music-guide.com/forum/index.php/topic,1196.msg235130.html#msg235130) which C major picked up over the years. Rather than demonstrating, as some would have it, that in fact this means C major can 'mean anything' and therefore means nothing specific, I tend to see it as 'micro-meanings' being created from the basic one as time passes. In the case of C major, that means its traditional associations as a pure, open key can be seen to be focussed into various subsets of this association such as...well, why don't I just paste what I said?
Quote from: me, over a year ago :oThe other thing that needs to be emphasized again is that there is more than one association for alll keys. If these associations were a synaesthetic phenomenon then C major, for example, would be the trigger for only one mental reaction. But as it is, C major 'means' much more than one thing, as the weight of music history has passed it down to us:
1) It can, especially to the Classical composers, be an 'Enlightenment' key, or the key of God's/Nature's law - the 'perfect' key uniflected by the various persuasions, passions and perversions of the other keys. Mozart's Jupiter Symphony is a prime example - the Godlike play of counterpoint in the last movement could really only be in C major!
2) It can be a key of simplicity, lines honed to their bare bones. Stravinsky's 'pantonal' music often seems to work around C in this way. Fom a much earlier time, the opening of the Beethoven op2/3 Sonata, with its simple, pure string quartet lines is another example....but it leads straight to
3) didactic writing....in the Beethoven 2/3 we are soon plunged into arpeggios and broken chords in their rawest, most 'piano lesson' form. Again, a typical type of C major writing, for obvious reasons (see Czerny, Burgmuller, Hanon etc. etc) found wherever you care to look. Mozart's Sonata Facile or JSB's Applicatio, as I said earlier, are obvious examples from hundreds. Just take the example of some great piano Studies: Chopins first Etude is 'just' an arpeggio study in C major, Liszt's first Transcendental Study is a sort of keyboard-exploring toccata in C major; Alkan is typically rebellious in having the first of his Studies in all the major keys op 35 be in A major, but the C major study when it comes is didactic in tone again....another first etude which uses a didactic C major more ironically is the first of Debussy's, which starts as a dutiful five-finger exercise in C before being led astray into various keys; the ending is a startling juxtaposition of Db major scale with final clear cut C major cadence, and Debussy uses this same juxtaposition of keys in his other ironic didactic-daydream piece, the Czerny-based opening number of Childrens Corner Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum
4) C major as purest heaven, blurring/merging into the ether! A different sort of heavenly writing to Messiaen's sparkling sharp-laden music, though - this special use of C major seems to be reserved for equally special pieces. The Arietta of Beethoven's op 111 is the obvious example - the trill garlanded music makes C major something transcendental and also 'opens it out' so that melody becomes harmony, rhythm becomes timbre and and the tonality in general becomes slmost a vibration. If this were the only piece to end in this way perhaps we couldn't say it was anything to do with C major - but one of the few works which approaches late Beethoven in profundity also reaches its conclusion in a strikingly similar way: the last song of Das Lied von der Erde, with its famous fade out on 'Ewig, Ewig, Ewig.....' Here, instead of vibrating, blurring trills, we have pentatonic harmonies merging with one another, and the significance of their being in a sort of neutral, natural C major (instead of the warm human Bb or the funereal C minor heard earlier in the song) is quite clear. A more dynamically-charged ending which nevertheless uses a blurred pentatonic C major for symbolic effect is the end of Gurrelieder, where the C major sunrise is the literal inversion of the Eb major sunset which began the piece. Here the ending of the piece is intended to convey a message on the lines of 'the shadows and dreams of the old world are dead - this is a new, fresh beginning' - so we see that the use of C major in this sense partakes partly of this type of association, and partly of both association #1 (C major = Enlightenment) and #2 (C major = purity and simplicity) as described above....
...and I'm sure there are other such C major associations which I've forgotten! And that is just one key...
One other thing I'd mention at this point is that we mustn't forget the composer in all this. Most people here, understandably, tend to focus on their own experience as listeners, but the composer is the one working with the material and making the choices, and, if they are anything like me, they will be automatically sensitive to these things from years of playing, reading scores, studying etc. I know that, in my own very small way, I am...
Coincidentally, I have heard F major referred to very frequently as the "nature" key.
luke - really neat year-old post! Thanks. I'm going to go listen to the Mozart 41 now... :)
Quote from: Egebedieff on April 14, 2007, 10:08:12 AM
Luke has left little room for more to be said in his posts on this topic. I find the tracing of prescribed symbolism from baroque to Mozart to be esp interesting, because I have trouble thinkg of these keys being rooted in meaning, especially from the view afforded to us from the rounded offtuning of a piano modern piano, as the Mellers quote suggests. I can certainly hear exploitation of slightly off pitches when one tunes in a way to sweeten 5ths and thirds of a particular key.
Reminded also of how in the early days, the pianist was also the piano tuner, and how that tuning might vary to fit the repertoire, and just how some of these ideas of key meanings are passed down, and reinforced by, as Luke says, the weight of history, and of particular pieces that reinforce the interpretation of a certain key, rather than anything intrinsic to the key, like words...
But what conveyance of emotion in herent to the key is overpowered by the pitch relationships of the piece, where lines fall in the registers of the instruments that are playing them or voices that are singing them.
So here is an alternative assignation of meaning to pitch.
C: greed
D: brilliance
E: selfishness
F: distance, isolation (esp in England)
G: not impressed, or sunniness
A: indifference
B: relaxed, refreshed
Explanation of this available upon request.
Thanks for this, very interesting - and consider that request made! ;D
I do find the way that temperament affected - indeed, Affekted ;) - key association to be fascinating indeed. However, I think Mellers' point about how these associations were refined, changed and developed for equal tempered music is also fascinating, above all because, as we all know, there is no real acoustical reason to hear
any difference between any given equal tempered keys, except perhaps in absolute height. Personally I love the slightly subversive way that ET's crowning glory, this pure, balanced system - the circle of fifths - immediately acquired these quasi-mystical associations! Human need, I suppose. However, they aren't that mystical after all, once one accepts their two basic assumptions, one based on symbolism, the other on fact:
1) C major is pure/neutral - you just have to go with this one, but it's understandable!
2) All other keys derive their character from their relationship, flatwards or sharpwards, to this neutral state - this one
is based in the psychoacoustical tensions that result from the relationships between keys in every modulation; the system of key asssociations simply took this audible truth and applied it to the circle of fifths, as if that circle represented a piece in C major itself.
So, for instance, because subdominant inflections tend to have a pastoral effect 'in real life' (think of the subdominant inflection from D to G right at the beginning of Beethoven's well-named-though-not-by-him Pastoral Sonata) the fact that F major exists in subdominant relationship to that reference key C major meant that it acquired this meaning of a kind of earthy, relaxed pastorale (think Vivaldi's Autumn, Bach's biggest and most outdoorsy Brandenburg, Beethoven's Pastorale (and particularly his peasants)). Again, to repeat, there's no acoustical reason for this to be the case, just the composer's subconscious feeling (maybe relating back to their own younger days where everything was worked from didactic C major...) that F is some kind of subdominant. But once it got going, the tradition began to built up, so that really Beethoven 6
had to be in F major!
rostropovich wrote of how he thought of bach's cello suites in the liner notes for his recording of them:
g maj: lightness
d min: sorrow & intensity
c maj: brilliance
e flat maj: majesty & opacity
c min: darkness
d maj: sunlight
of course he was referring to the cello suites specifically but after reading that i've found that i'm always tempted generalize to other works. (things in e flat tend to sound regal/majestic to me now) it's only a superifical thing though, & i know the mode that something is written in determines emotions more than which key.
LOL, this is all relative, you like apples, i like pears.
Quote from: biber fan on April 14, 2007, 12:01:13 PM
rostropovich wrote of how he thought of bach's cello suites in the liner notes for his recording of them:
g maj: lightness
d min: sorrow & intensity
c maj: brilliance
e flat maj: majesty & opacity
c min: darkness
d maj: sunlight
of course he was referring to the cello suites specifically but after reading that i've found that i'm always tempted generalize to other works. (things in e flat tend to sound regal/majestic to me now) it's only a superifical thing though, & i know the mode that something is written in determines emotions more than which key.
Peter Wispelwey expressed a similar view of the suites in the liner notes to his recording - I can't remember exaclty what he said as I lent that setout and never got it back! No, hang on, I've found his website, so here it is in the words of a review, which also compares his interpretation to Casals':
QuotePablo Casals called the suites "optimistic", "tragic", "heroic", "grandiose", "tempestuous", and "bucolic". Wispelwey, in a delightful essay on them, adds more biographical detail. The G-major suite, he says, is innocent, childlike; the D-minor suite hurt and sorrowful, like a teenage poet. The C-major suite he imagines as a swaggering crown prince, the E-flat-major as a philosopher peering into the depths. The C-minor suite is melancholy, "aloof and threatening". The D-major suite, he says, is innocence regained; the music should defy gravity and dance in mid air.
Note that he not attempting to link the suites to an accepted theory of Affekts, but his interpretation is interesting nonetheless, I think.
BTW, yes, E flat does often have regal associations. Which, one imagines, Beethoven had somewhere in mind with the
Eroica (note that the funeral march is in the relative minor, C minor, which as often with key associations is a kind of flip-side to regal pomp - heroic tragedy/strife) and the
Emperor, just to start with.
Quote from: MahlerTitan on April 14, 2007, 12:12:17 PM
LOL, this is all relative, you like apples, i like pears.
That is not really the point under discussion though. I refer you to what I said above - this is less about the listener, who can take or leave these associations/apples/pears as he wants, than it is about music history, about the composer's place in this history, and the choices he makes. You can ignore it all and probably miss out on very little - but it is interesting nevertheless, I think, to delve a little into the way the composer's mind works and the way music takes on all these associations, unsuspected by many listeners.
Quote from: lukeottevanger on April 14, 2007, 12:21:19 PM
That is not really the point under discussion though. I refer you to what I said above - this is less about the listener, who can take or leave these associations/apples/pears as he wants, than it is about music history, about the composer's place in this history, and the choices he makes. You can ignore it all and probably miss out on very little - but it is interesting nevertheless, I think, to delve a little into the way the composer's mind works and the way music takes on all these associations, unsuspected by many listeners.
okay, this is what i think.
Major keys: happy
Minor keys: sad
Quote from: Egebedieff on April 14, 2007, 01:13:49 PM
But C = how many Hz? Does anyone account for this?
That's a different issue though. As I say, the associations as I've learnt about them are entirely divorced from actual acoustics. C's associations simply come about because it is 'the first' key. Well, you know what I mean....
Quote from: Egebedieff on April 14, 2007, 01:13:49 PMI remember in college that some students loved the door that understadning the circle of fifths opened, and so they overexercised that bit of knowledge.
This makes me think of, as a pianist, the dread of treading past four sharps or flats.
;D Well, there is even a bit of that, in that Baroque composers tended not to go past four sharps or flats, so that, as Mellers points out, that number is the upward and downward limit. Therefore, E major is used for Edenic/Heavenly pieces, F minor for Hellish ones. Whereas, especially post ET, later composers climb higher to reach their Heavenly regions (check out Messiaen and Scriabin particularly).
I don't think - if you are meaning to imply this - that this is 'overexercising that bit of knowledge.' All this is exactly what I've been taught by respected musicologists - not just what I've read in Mellers, but substantiated by various figures with experience in the subject; it also chimes with basic harmonic theory, especially as it was used and understood in the Baroque and Classical.
Quote from: Egebedieff on April 14, 2007, 01:13:49 PMInteresting to think of the Waldstein in this context, since it is in C, and the development starts off in F, rather than G) (which Schencker said had something to with man (aka Beethoven) following God's example of the IVI pattern by reflecting that with a I-IV-I.
Well, that is indeed a strange piece in its modulatory scheme. After all, it's already in the dominant by bar 3, before the tonic has even been established as such. It's poised so neatly on the cusp of dominant directions and subdominant ones, it seems to me.
Quote from: Egebedieff on April 14, 2007, 01:13:49 PM
C: greed (Dough)
D: brilliance (Ray)
E: selfishness (Me)
F: distance, isolation (esp in England) (Fa[r])
G: not impressed, or sunniness (So!/Sol)
A: indifference (La as in hoopla, or la ti da) -- I realize nowI should have said A represents a sense of justice).
B: relaxed, refreshed (Tea!)
Well, this only goes to prove how relative all these things are, because England's not Fa for me!
Quote from: MahlerTitan on April 14, 2007, 01:14:44 PM
okay, this is what i think.
Major keys: happy
Minor keys: sad
Oh, deliciously witty. ::) But not really leaving much to discuss, which is a pity, because this is all quite interesting stuff, even if ultimately no more than that. BTW, this judicious and subtle understanding of tonality you demonstrate must really help your Mahler appreciation ;D! (I'm kidding ;))
Mahler's music also can't be just summed up by one emotion, try to find one emotion for mahler's symphonies, it's not possible.
Well, exactly! so Major = Happy and Minor = Sad doesn't help! With regard to the topic, no one has suggested that all pieces in a particular key are permeated by the same emotion. But the fact that, historically, keys had their Affektive qualities which were often kept to is pretty undisputed (we're talking especially about the Baroque here, where the theory of Affekts meant that 99.9% of individual movements stayed more-or-less within one 'emotional state'); nor is the fact that the influence of this permeated into later composers, not all the time, but enough to be interesting, and especially noticable in certain composers, such as Vaughan Williams. Actually, you could do worse than look at Mahler in this way - his 4th, for instance, which has a sort of progressive tonality eventually ending up very pointedly and deliberately in E major, traditionally a 'heavenly key' as I just mentioned, for the song 'The Heavenly Life.' Couldn't be much clearer than that! That's one of the more extreme examples, however....
Edit - not worth a new post, but there are more examples of Mahler symphonies partaking of this tradition. The C minor funeral march of No 2 is, apart from anything else, continuing the line of the Eroica's Funeral March in that key, and surely deliberately (it's too big a precedent to ignore); Beethoven's piece, and his C minor mood in general (about which Rosen says 'in every case it reveals Beethoven as Hero..not..at his most subtle...but..in his most extrovert form...most impatient of any compromise' - see the 5th Symphony or the 3rd PD!), in its turn, was an intensification of the special statuesque, noble seriousness Mozart and others invested the key with (compare Mozart's C minor PC to his D minor; look at his C minor Mass etc.) And so on. I could go on with the Mahler, but I won't, you'll be pleased to hear ;)
Don't know. Anything to do with this? (in an earlier incarnation, natch) ;D
(http://www.musicroom.com/images/catalogue/productpage/WMR000176.jpg)
Quote from: Egebedieff on April 14, 2007, 02:12:29 PM
But, er, your Fa is different from an, uh, American Fa. In England, are Fa and Far homonyms?
Here in the Southern US we say "yonder".
http://www.wmich.edu/mus-theo/courses/keys.html is an interesting account.
Plus, I've leafed through this book in the OSU Music Library.
http://www.amazon.com/History-Characteristics-Early-Centuries-Second/dp/1580460410
This topic reminds me of a few words from Aaron Copland's What to Listen for in Music.
"How close should the intelligent music lover wish to come to pinning a definite meaning to any particular work? No closer than a general concept, I should say. Music expresses, at different moments, serenity or exuberance, regret or triumph, fury or delight. It expresses each of these moods, and many others, in a numberless variety of subtle shadings and differences. It may even express a state of meaning for which there exists no adequate word in any language. In that case, musicians often like to say that it has only a purely musical meaning. They sometimes go farther and say that all music has only a purely musical meaning. What they really mean is that no appropriate word can be found to express the music's meaning and that, even if it could, they do not feel the need of finding it."
I am a strong believer in classical music as a way to convey emotion which cannot be explained in words; thus, to some extent, I certainly do agree with Copland, although I feel it almost natural to at least pin some feeling or emotion onto a piece (usually not with word(s) but with inner thought and feeling) as a way of relating with composers.
The same theory can be applied to the idea of keys conveying particular types of emotion. It's apparent that composers frequently use particular keys for certain compositons; for example, symphonies, requiems, and concertos with mysterious and dark color were sometimes written in D minor (Brahms D minor VC, Beethoven's Ninth, Mozart's Requiem). Bright and sometimes heroic pieces are written in the key of C Major (Schubert's Ninth). But these generalizations, inherently, are contradicted by such pieces as Bach's Violin Sonata No. 3 in C Major, a piece with dramatic tension and a lack of heroism.
I admit its interesting to examine the commonalities between compositions/composers, and key is one such topic which one can observe many similarities between the tone of a piece and its home key. I don't think that emotions have been "assigned" to keys, but rather that keys have an inherent color to them and composers have similarly utilitized these natural qualities of certain keys. And because of the many pieces by composers, we can observe how these choices manifested into a pattern of choosing and using certain keys to convey emotion.
Quote from: btpaul674 on April 16, 2007, 08:05:48 PM
http://www.wmich.edu/mus-theo/courses/keys.html is an interesting account.
Yes, that first one is very interesting. It shows how precisely these things were thought of at the time, and the mania for pinning down and labelling things which is characteristic of the period, and which we also see, for example, in Mathesson's descriptions of the Affekts. These designations are at the same time overly-precise and, therefore, inevitably, lacking in realism - after all, these are trends that can just about be traced in some, but enough, pieces of the period (and some of them are new to me).
These descriptions are also overly-precise in that they focus, necessarily, on their own time; it's most interesting, for me at any rate, to see how the associations changed by becoming divided into 'subsets' over the years (as with my C major example earlier).
To delve more deeply into the text:
C and D majors chime exactly with what has been said:
QuoteC Major
Completely Pure. Its character is: innocence, simplicity, naïvety, children's talk.
D Major
The key of triumph, of Hallejuahs, of war-cries, of victory-rejoicing. Thus, the inviting symphonies, the marches, holiday songs and heaven-rejoicing choruses are set in this key.
C's description includes the key words 'pure', 'simple' and 'children' which interestingly correspond to the divisions I ascertained in an earlier post. In later years the 'childlike' quality of C major, for instance, became used in works of a didactic nature, or works which referenced didacticism, such as
Dr Gradus ad Parnassum. D is the one everyone always talks about - a key of earthly triumph ('war', 'victory', 'marches'...) - because it is so clearly assignable to instrumental fact - open strings of a violin and all that.
I'm interested to see the designations for E major and F# major:
QuoteE Major
Noisy shouts of joy, laughing pleasure and not yet complete, full delight lies in E Major.
F# Major
Triumph over difficulty, free sigh of relief utered when hurdles are surmounted; echo of a soul which has fiercely struggled and finally conquered lies in all uses of this key.
E major, as I said earlier, was traditionally a 'heavenly' key, as it used more sharps than any other commonly used key; here, I'd suggest, because
all keys are being accounted for, the 'heavenly' honour goes to F# major ('echo of a soul which has fiercely struggled and finally conquered'), C# major being left to its enharmonic here.
There's an interesting distinction between F and G majors which we can observe in quite a few pieces but which is lacking here
QuoteF Major
Complaisance & Calm.
G Major
Everything rustic, idyllic and lyrical, every calm and satisfied passion, every tender gratitude for true friendship and faithful love,--in a word every gentle and peaceful emotion of the heart is correctly expressed by this key.
The accurate identification of G major as a pastoral key could be modified to include the fact that this is usually a pastoralism-without-humans, whereas the F major pastoralism I mentioned earlier is usually in the context of some merry peasants/dancing/hunting scenes etc.
F minor fits precisely the funereal implications that Mellers assigns to it; and this probably explains the fact that its relative major Ab is (unusualy in my experience) given similar conotations:
QuoteF Minor
Deep depression, funereal lament, groans of misery and longing for the grave.
Ab Major
Key of the grave. Death, grave, putrefaction, judgment, eternity lie in its radius.
Fascinating to see the more flat/sharp-laden keys (5 or more) given the most precise and overwhelmingly negative descriptions (majors as negative as minors, except F# major, probably for the reason I gave above), a fact probably not unrelated to their wolf-note-laden past in pre-ET days:
QuoteDb Major
A leering key, degenerating into grief and rapture. It cannot laugh, but it can smile; it cannot howl, but it can at least grimace its crying.--Consequently only unusual characters and feelings can be brought out in this key.
D# Minor
Feelings of the anxiety of the soul's deepest distress, of brooding despair, of blackest depresssion, of the most gloomy condition of the soul. Every fear, every hesitation of the shuddering heart, breathes out of horrible D# minor. If ghosts could speak, their speech would approximate this key.
F# Major
Triumph over difficulty, free sigh of relief utered when hurdles are surmounted; echo of a soul which has fiercely struggled and finally conquered lies in all uses of this key.
Ab Minor
Grumbler, heart squeezed until it suffocates; wailing lament, difficult struggle; in a word, the color of this key is everything struggling with difficulty.
Bb minor
A quaint creature, often dressed in the garment of night. It is somewhat surly and very seldom takes on a pleasant countenance. Mocking God and the world; discontented with itself and with everything; preparation for suicide sounds in this key.
B Major
Strongly coloured, announcing wild passions, composed from the most glaring coulors. Anger, rage, jealousy, fury, despair and every burden of the heart lies in its sphere.
Great stuff to read, thanks for the link. :)
Quote from: op.110 on April 17, 2007, 12:39:47 AM
I am a strong believer in classical music as a way to convey emotion which cannot be explained in words; thus, to some extent, I certainly do agree with Copland, although I feel it almost natural to at least pin some feeling or emotion onto a piece (usually not with word(s) but with inner thought and feeling) as a way of relating with composers.
I think you are right, actually - I find tables such as the interesting one linked to above useless in the long run, because they tell us nothing about the music as it is in reality. And in any case, even if they did, there are far too many variables (temperament, instrumentation etc. etc.) to take into account to really be able to say anything. But they are a fascinating indication of the way these things were
thought about - by composers too - at the time. And I think it is always a valuable and revealing thing to be able to get inside a composer's mind.
Quote from: op.110 on April 17, 2007, 12:39:47 AMThe same theory can be applied to the idea of keys conveying particular types of emotion. It's apparent that composers frequently use particular keys for certain compositons; for example, symphonies, requiems, and concertos with mysterious and dark color were sometimes written in D minor (Brahms D minor VC, Beethoven's Ninth, Mozart's Requiem). Bright and sometimes heroic pieces are written in the key of C Major (Schubert's Ninth). But these generalizations, inherently, are contradicted by such pieces as Bach's Violin Sonata No. 3 in C Major, a piece with dramatic tension and a lack of heroism.
I have an ambivalent position. I don't think the key assocations apply to all pieces, that would be stupidity in the extreme; I also don't think it's important that we are aware of them when we listen, although it may be more important to know that the composer was aware of them. But OTOH, one argument that is often put forth against the key association is the one you make in your last line here - essentially 'piece x doesn't subscribe to the association of key y with emotion z, ergo, the theory of key associations is weakened'. Three responses to that point:
1) the one already made many times: that not every piece has to follow the pattern for the pattern to exist. Indeed, even if only a small percentage of piece clearly follow a strong trend, that trend is there and is good to know of
2) the argument ignores the fact that the associations are more subtle than simple one-word linkages. C major, for instance, isn't really 'heroic' in association (certainly not as a one-word description) even if some/many heroic pieces are written in that key. C is more a key of bright simplicity and directness (which apply to both the Schubert and Bach examples, I think); it's also a key for purely musical play (hence its didactic associations - which are seen in Bach fairly often) - in the case of the C major violin sonata there is an evident puposeful concentration on musical basics suitable to this particular use of C major right from the beginning.
3) Because 'emotions' are of course in the ear of the beholder, it becomes impossible to say with certainty that piece x 'is' heroic (or whatever). In general, if we lack other evidence, the only way we can say with more certainty (though not complete certainty) what emotion/Affekt the
composer himself meant the piece to subscribe to is: the notation of the music (which, like handwriting, reveals more than you might at first imagine); the way its shapes and gestures slot themselves into what Cooke meant by 'The Language of Music'; and, yes, the fact that we know incontrivertibly about the theories of Affekts (which depend on key, as we are discussing, but also on metre and tempo etc.) and the fact that we can also trace the way that once they were defunct, their influence filtered on down, ever-changing. IOW - your response to the piece is your own, and is its own justification, but if you are interested, as a purely intellectual pursuit, in inquiring into what the composer might have 'meant' (consciously or not) the only way to do so is through the notes themselves. To put it bluntly, if we are thinking about how the composer
worked, it doesn't matter how you or I
hear the resultant piece ;D
Quote from: op.110 on April 17, 2007, 12:39:47 AMI admit its interesting to examine the commonalities between compositions/composers, and key is one such topic which one can observe many similarities between the tone of a piece and its home key. I don't think that emotions have been "assigned" to keys, but rather that keys have an inherent color to them and composers have similarly utilitized these natural qualities of certain keys. And because of the many pieces by composers, we can observe how these choices manifested into a pattern of choosing and using certain keys to convey emotion.
This is an interesting point in the discussion. On the old board, Sean asserted vigorously that there was an inherent difference between F major and F# major, one not due to perfect pitch or the fact that in absolute terms F# is higher than F (indeed, Sean contested that the 'difference' was the same whether the F# major piece was played in a higher or a lower octave). I argued that this was patently impossible, since under ET all intervals are identical; what was more likely was that Sean was either 1) hearing one key in relation to the other through juxtaposition or 2) picking up on the different characters of the pieces themselves, which in turn could be down to the composers picking up, consciously or not, on an aspect of key associations. Interestingly, in Sean's example, he heard F# major as brighter than F major (one of Sean's favourite pieces, which perhaps is what he was listening to, is Messiaen's very heavenly
Vingt Regards, a piece with more F# major in it than anything else, and certainly very bright-by-association, if nothing else). But, and again ignoring absolute height, we know that F# major
cannot be 'brighter' than F major. However, in the
key associations F# major is indeed brighter than F, because sharps were seen as screwing the music upwards - according to the above link, for example, F major is 'complaisance and calm', F# major is 'hurdles surmounted', and though these particular designations were subject to almost infinite change, the basic point - one is lower and more 'relaxed' than the other - remained pretty constant.
So, in contradiction to your post, I'd say that, no, keys don't have an inherent colour to them - they simply can't have. However, in pre-ET days they
did, and the interesting thing about the key associations is that they can be explained both in purely ET terms and in terms of the old temperaments.
Essentially, what we have is a circle of fifths that was seen, unwrapped, as a smooth progression along the line:
very flat --------------------------------C major---------------------------------------very sharp
In the pre-ET tunings, that effectively meant:
too-discordant-to-use---------------------fine---------------------------------too-discordant-to-use
which, association-wise, meant:
extreme, bizarre---------------------------well balanced, wholesome--------------------extreme, bizarre
In ET tunings, though, that same circle:
very flat --------------------------------C major---------------------------------------very sharp
sounded fine all the way round:
fine---------------------------------------fine-----------------------------------------------fine
however, because moving flatwards in a piece of music is generally a 'relaxing' or 'downwards' tending move, emotionally, and moving sharpwards a 'tension-building', 'upwards' tending one, the circle itself began, unavoidably to be symbolically seen in terms of its central point, C major:
relaxed, earthy/human------------------pure, balanced-------------------------a higher level, heavenly
(which, for instance, explains why one-sharp G major is often an idyllic, natural pastoral and one-flat F major balances it with its more rustic, human association, to generalize)
The minors, of course, take on related but different symbolisms simply because they sound, to put it simplistically, 'sadder'!
You can see, I think, how easily the two sets of associations
extreme, bizarre---------------------------well balanced, wholesome--------------------extreme, bizarre
and
relaxed, earthy/human------------------pure, balanced-------------------------a higher level, heavenly
came to be conflated. This was pretty much the position by the second half of the 18th century - ET more or less established, but the associations of the old tunings still hanging on - and this is the period at which the interest in Affekts was at its height. These are the roots of things, ET-wise, but of course everything changed over time.
One more thing - to repeat what I said earlier - these things were in the back of composers' minds, often subconsciously, no doubt. Sometimes they are audible in pieces, or even reflected in titles, programmatic devices etc; at many other times they may not be present at all; usually there is a complex mixture, a dialogue going on within the piece itself; we as listeners may or may not be aware of all this. In the end they are only a matter of interest, I think - though to me as a working, creating musician the ways composers think are a very personal interest.
i was looking through the history of string qrts and noticed the first appearance of Dbmajor in D'Indy's qrt. No3, written in the late 1920s.
haydn wrote a qrt in f#minor...beethoven wrote one in c#minor...taneyev's No.1 is in Bbminor...
i also noticed that Aminor for qrts didn't get popular until post-beethoven.
ARE CERTAIN KEYS HISTORICALLY LOOKED UPON AS DIFFERENT "STATES"? isn't Dmajor called the happiest key?, and so on?
anyone?
i have noticed that the key of Cminor can usually be garaunteed to be slightly uneasy and fast, like a chase. i'm thinking of beethoven's op18 and schubert's quartettsatz.
This has been done here in the past. Ask Luke (sul G)- he's the expert.
Quote from: snyprrr on February 22, 2009, 06:40:07 PM
ARE CERTAIN KEYS HISTORICALLY LOOKED UPON AS DIFFERENT "STATES"? isn't Dmajor called the happiest key?, and so on?
anyone?
Yes, they are historically looked at as conveying different emotional states. I think that D major was considered the key of glory during Baroque times. It's certainly a great key for works for violin.
Quote from: Bulldog on February 23, 2009, 09:52:53 AM
Yes, they are historically looked at as conveying different emotional states. I think that D major was considered the key of glory during Baroque times. It's certainly a great key for works for violin.
Yes: Check out some of the D major Trumpet Concerti by anybody!
Tuning has already been thrown in here, and that is the real "key" (he-he) for the question: "pre-ET" music expected more of a distinction among the keys.
There are various quarter-tone scales in 17 or 19 tones, which can give you the impression of a "double minor", i.e. they sound very gloomy and doomy.
Whilst there is evidence that many composers had individual emotional responses to keys there seems to be little evidence that these responses are absolute. We must also bear in mind that there have been variations in concert pitch over time. Moreover in the field of song it is common practice amongst amateur singers to transpose songs to suit voice range. I have never found this to have any significant effect on the feel of the music (other than it sounding lower, or occasionally, higher).
Quote from: Ten thumbs on February 23, 2009, 12:32:01 PM
Whilst there is evidence that many composers had individual emotional responses to keys there seems to be little evidence that these responses are absolute. We must also bear in mind that there have been variations in concert pitch over time. Moreover in the field of song it is common practice amongst amateur singers to transpose songs to suit voice range. I have never found this to have any significant effect on the feel of the music (other than it sounding lower, or occasionally, higher).
I don't want to get dragged into this type of thread again - it's one I've done dozens of times. But I do have to say that I've always found the pragmatic type of response above surprising - even though every word of it is spot-on accurate. Larry Rinkel used to give the same sort of answer in this sort of thread, too. We'd rehearse the same discussion time and again, never disagreeing - Larry was never, to my knowledge, wrong about anything musical! - but with a fundamental difference in the way we valued key associations and what they imply.
The above sort of post suggests that because there is no universality to key associations, because nothing can be 'proved' and no general rule ascertained, they're not really that important and oughtn't to bother us too much. I disagree. and the reason for my surprise at this attitude is that in all other ways music lovers such as those we have at GMG are always desperate to know more about their favourite composers, to understand more about what made them tick, to get more 'intimate' with them. It's my contention that to a composer there is little more personal than their 'individual emotional responses to keys' - the fact that Beethoven felt B minor was a 'black key' (IIRC), is, IMO, far more interesting than what he liked best for breakfast or any of the other minutiae of his biography with which we often concern ourselves. It actually tells us about Beethoven's primal response to a pure musical fact; people spend time speculating on Beethoven's mentality, his spirituality, his religion, his politics, and yet routes such as this, which go straight to the heart and soul of him as a musician, are dismissed because 'there seems to be little evidence that these responses are absolute'. I should emphasize that knowledge that Beethoven thought B minor was black doesn't
necessarily help us get much 'further' - but that it is a deeply personal and absolutely fundamental response to music from one of music's greatest brains is enough to make it truly valuable.
Quote from: Ten thumbs on February 23, 2009, 12:32:01 PM
Whilst there is evidence that many composers had individual emotional responses to keys there seems to be little evidence that these responses are absolute.
Responses don't have to be absolute to have decent viability.
Quote from: Bulldog on February 23, 2009, 01:11:56 PM
Responses don't have to be absolute to have decent viability.
Indeed not. They are often of great importance to individual composers but different composers have differing responses and should anyone want to compose tonal music, he should examine his own heart and not try to ape another's feelings.
Personally I love the use of C major to create a shaft of dazzling sunlight into a passage full of black notes.
Odd that such a simple topic can be so controversial.
Back in the days before equal temperament the keys actually sounded different, and how different depended on who tuned your harpsichord. There is no doubt that composers took advantage of that, and that composers views of different keys was partly subjective, and partly depended on what tuning method they used. A list could probably be compiled of feelings associated with each key, but it would presumably not be consistent across all composers, and might vary with time of composition.
With equal temperament only changing keys conveys an "emotional" sense (modulating to the dominant, etc). But there is no intrinsic difference between keys. In orchestral music there may be a difference in sound of keys because instruments (particularly wind instruments) play some notes more naturally than others, and that can be a factor. But ultimately, it is of interest how an individual composer felt about a certain key, whether or not this feeling is reflected in modern performance practice.
On the other hand, maybe we should take into account the sense of anxiety the musician feels when he or she looks at the page and sees seven sharps in the key signature.
Apart from the last paragraph, which is really a different discussion - the amateur's fear of G# minor - that's pretty much what I've said all along. Except that I have put particular emphasis on what you imply when you say:
Quote'But ultimately, it is of interest how an individual composer felt about a certain key, whether or not this feeling is reflected in modern performance practice.'
and that I also find is of interest that key associations over the years have in certain cases tended to have a central core which has been added to over the years (as in my C major example earlier in this thread, made a couple of years ago)
Quote from: sul G on February 23, 2009, 12:51:45 PM
I don't want to get dragged into this type of thread again - it's one I've done dozens of times. But I do have to say that I've always found the pragmatic type of response above surprising - even though every word of it is spot-on accurate. Larry Rinkel used to give the same sort of answer in this sort of thread, too. We'd rehearse the same discussion time and again, never disagreeing - Larry was never, to my knowledge, wrong about anything musical! -
I always heard he was something of a pompous fool myself ("the Rush Limbaugh of classical music," as a friend put it), especially if he said such things. But although there's no doubt that composers have personal and/or cultural associations with keys, they are also not tied dogmatically to those associations if practical reasons intervene. Bizet in Carmen doesn't mind indicating a transposition to F# minor from F minor if the Card Song is too low for the singer; Beethoven when arranging the "heavenly" E major (with middle movement in "melancholy" E minor) sonata for quartet didn't hesitate to transpose it to the "pastoral" F major (with middle movement in "funereal" F minor). Why? to change the character of the music? Not a bit, and I doubt anyone hears it that way - but because by transposing it to F, he could use the low C open string of the cello as the dominant. And note both these transpositions are just by semitone, to keep the overall registers of the music intact.
But another interesting question is what all these key associations should do for the listener. One of the peculiarities of musical conventions is that works of absolute music are almost invariably identified by their keys — Beethoven's 7th symphony in A, Brahms's 4th in E minor, etc. — while program and vocal music is never so identified. We don't as listeners think of Mendelssohn's MND Overture in E minor or Wagner's Meistersinger in C or Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel in F, perhaps unless we are so informed. And it would sound downright silly for a composer to write, for example, a piece called "Christmas" in A major. So does it do the listener any good to know what key a piece is written in? If I lied and told you the Jupiter symphony was in D rather than C, would you hear it differently?
Quote from: nut-job on February 25, 2009, 07:07:43 AM
On the other hand, maybe we should take into account the sense of anxiety the musician feels when he or she looks at the page and sees seven sharps in the key signature.
We certainly should! when doing the C# major p/f from WTC 1 I had to write the "actual notes" above all the double sharps because they were so damned hard to read.
Quote from: Sforzando on February 25, 2009, 09:26:11 AM
I always heard he was something of a pompous fool myself ("the Rush Limbaugh of classical music," as a friend put it), especially if he said such things.
I kind of liked the old curmudgeon....
Quote from: Sforzando on February 25, 2009, 09:26:11 AM
But although there's no doubt that composers have personal and/or cultural associations with keys, they are also not tied dogmatically to those associations if practical reasons intervene.
Completely agree
Quote from: Sforzando on February 25, 2009, 09:26:11 AM
Bizet in Carmen doesn't mind indicating a transposition to F# minor from F minor if the Card Song is too low for the singer; Beethoven when arranging the "heavenly" E major (with middle movement in "melancholy" E minor) sonata for quartet didn't hesitate to transpose it to the "pastoral" F major (with middle movement in "funereal" F minor). Why? to change the character of the music? Not a bit, and I doubt anyone hears it that way - but because by transposing it to F, he could use the low C open string of the cello as the dominant.
Funny, that was always Larry's favourite example in this sort of thread too!
Quote from: Sforzando on February 25, 2009, 09:26:11 AM
And note both these transpositions are just by semitone, to keep the overall registers of the music intact.
Absolutely. As I'd have said to Larry (and did), that sort of practical consideration always comes first, and so it should. But all it shows is that, once the original piece was complete, 'stuff' could be done to it to create new versions. The key association, if it was important, was mostly important only in the very initial stages, the point at which the composition began to from in the composer's mind. But you see, it's precisely these mysterious early stages of the composing process, when we are closest to the composer's subconscious, in which I, personally, am most interested - in this case, then, we're talking about the
initial urge which led to Beethoven's 'choice' of E for the original piece. Given that the questions of range aren't quite as important in a piano piece as in a string piece, Beethoven was free to 'choose' his key according to his own predelictions - and the result was a sonata in which the traditional key symbolisms are quite important, I think (witness the appearance of C major in the centre of the movement - how does C manifest itself? With the placid E major of the opening reimagined as 'technical', didactic-style scales a la Czerny....). Now this is what interests me, because it suggests something about Beethoven's mind nearer to the source of inspiration than does the later, pragmatic transposition for the quartet version. As I said before, I find it strange that we listeners who are supposed to be fascinated by the mental workings of the great composers seem happy to put give fairly brief attention these fascinating scraps of evidence before moving on to more pragmatic concerns. Why this keenness to put aside these little traces of the way great minds have worked? Do people feel embarrassed by the fact that Beethoven (or whoever) was not always strictly logical? I don't get it... ??? :) :)
I don't have the concentration to read this entire thread though what I read was very interesting. From my humble lack of knowledge in musicology I will take what I feel from my experiences while composing. The 2 "strongest" key, meaning the ones most apt to a specific emotion for me are Eb and em. Eb always has seem very triumphant and majestical. Very powerful. em on the other hand seems to be very dark and sad, mournful. I write mostly in cm though, which to be seems to have the perfect blend of sadness and almost a melancholic nostalgia to it without being overly dramatic. Now am seems to be purely melancholic nostalgia. C is a very calm key and open to interoperation, it really doesn't point at a specific emotion. But this is all according to my ear, and to be honest i really don't think there is any real backing to say that a key has anything in particular to say, i just seem to write a specific kind of music while in a key. Maybe it's the way it's laid out on the keyboard? Who knows. Interesting conversation though
Sorry to respond to your post in this completely irrelevant way, but when out of the corner of my eye I saw that you'd written I misread the thread title (even though it's a thread I've posted on far too often) as What emoticons are assigned to keys? Now that's a whole other discussion; how's about:
F minor = >:D
E major = 0:)
(though B, F# and C# majors each accrue one extra 0:) , I presume)
D minor = >:(
C minor = $:)
D flat major = :-*
etc. etc. ;D ;D
(that's A major A major, perhaps)
Quote from: val on April 14, 2007, 04:55:28 AM
Eb Major: Heroism? And what about Haydn's famous Quartet opus 33/2 ? I don't see anything Heroic about it.
Ab Major: Forgiveness? Bach had not that feeling in his Prelude and Fugue from the WTC: dynamic, powerful.
G Minor: Tragedy. Well, we all remember Mozart's Symphonies 25 and 40, the sublime Quintet K 516, the piano Quartet K 478. Yes, I believe it is tragic when Mozart uses it.
C Major: Triumph? Oh no it isn't, unless you are focusing in the end of the 4th movement of Bruckner's 8th Symphony. But the extraordinary string Quintet of Schubert is in C major and the only triumph I see there is death's triumph.
Many ideas and opinions on this thread. Yet for me some composers who have used the 7th chord have created a certain saddness. Strauss and Wagner were notable for me. This is not to say that this one chord is "standardly" or universally a sad note. Depends on how it is structured or conceived.
I don't believe in emotions assigned to keys.
Not reading through all the previous posts, I am sure its been said but I will go ahead anyway - absolute concert pitch has changed quite alot over the past few hundred years, to the point where what Beethoven's actual C was could be a semitone or two away from modern concert pitch. That said its hard to see how any key can have a "feeling" outside of the technical considerations unique to a particular instrument
http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Concert_pitch/
QuoteUntil the 19th century, there was no concerted effort to standardize musical pitch and the levels across Europe varied widely. Even within one church, the pitch used could vary over time because of the way organs were tuned. Generally, the end of an organ pipe would be hammered inwards to a cone, or flared outwards to raise or lower the pitch. When the pipe ends became frayed by this constant process, they were all trimmed down, thus raising the overall pitch of the organ.
Some idea of the variance in pitches can be gained by examining old tuning forks, organ pipes and other sources. For example, an English pitchpipe from 1720 plays the A above middle C at 380 Hz, while the organs played by Johann Sebastian Bach in Hamburg, Leipzig and Weimar were pitched at A=480 Hz, a difference of around four semitones. In other words, the A produced by the 1720 pitchpipe would have been at the same frequency as the F on one of Bach's organs.
Pitch levels did not just vary from place to place, or over time - pitch levels could vary even within the same city. The pitch used for an English cathedral organ in the 17th century for example, could be as much as five semitones lower than that used for a domestic keyboard instrument in the same city.
The need to standardize pitch levels, at least within one city or country, rose as performance of music which combined the organ with instrumental ensembles became more popular. One way in which pitch could be controlled was with the use of tuning forks, although even here there was variation - a tuning fork associated with Handel, dating from 1740, is pitched at A=422.5 Hz, while a later one from 1780 is pitched at A=409 Hz, almost a semitone lower. Nonetheless, there was a tendency towards the end of the 18th century for the frequency of the A above middle C to be in the range of 400 to 450 Hz.
Throughout the first half of the 19th century, there was a tendency for the pitch used by orchestras to rise. This was probably largely due to orchestras competing with each other, each attempting to fill increasingly large concert halls with a brighter, more "brilliant", sound than that of their rivals. They were helped in this endeavour by the improved durability of the violins' E-strings - in the 16th century, Michael Praetorius had rejected various high pitch standards as leading to snapped strings, but the new strings could take the higher tension without breaking.
The rise in pitch at this time can be seen reflected in tuning forks. A 1815 tuning fork from the Dresden opera house gives A=423.2 Hz, while one of eleven years later from the same opera house gives A=435 Hz. At La Scala in Milan, the A above middle C rose as high as 451 Hz.
The most vocal opponents of the upward tendency in pitch were singers, who complained that it was putting a strain on their voices. Largely due to their protestations, the French government passed a law on February 16, 1859 which set the A above middle C at 435 Hz. This was the first attempt to standardize pitch on such a scale, and was known as the diapason normal. It became quite a popular pitch standard outside of France as well.
There were still variations, however. The diapason normal resulted in middle C being tuned at approximately 258.65 Hz. An alternative pitch standard known as philosophical or scientific pitch, which fixed middle C at exactly 256 Hz (that is, 28 Hz), and resulted in the A above it being tuned to approximately 430.54 Hz, gained some popularity due to its mathematical convenience (the frequencies of all the Cs being a power of two). This never received the same official recognition as A=435, however, and was not as widely used.
In 1939, an international conference recommended that the A above middle C be tuned to 440 Hz. This standard was taken up by the International Organization for Standardization in 1955 (and was reaffirmed by them in 1975) as ISO 16. The difference between this and the diapason normal is due to confusion over which temperature the French standard should be measured at. The initial standard was A=439 Hz, but this was superseded by A=440 Hz after complaints that 439 Hz was difficult to reproduce in a laboratory owing to 439 being a prime number.
Despite such confusion, A=440 Hz is now used virtually world wide, at least in theory. In practice, as orchestras still tune to a note given out by the oboe, rather than to an electronic tuning device (which would be more reliable), and as the oboist himself may not have used such a device to tune in the first place, there is still some variance in the exact pitch used. Solo instruments such as the piano (which an orchestra may tune to if they are playing together) are also not universally tuned to A=440 Hz. Overall, it is thought that the general trend since the middle of the 20th century has been for standard pitch to rise, though it has certainly been rising far more slowly than it has in the past...