Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2015 February 24

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February 24

Keys in music

Is there really a difference between keys in music? I find all major keys to give the same mood and all minor keys to give the same mood. It's only if i keep using the same key (e.g. A minor or C major, no black notes so easy to use) i get tired of it and prefer another key. Do most people have a preference for keys? E.g. alot of people say D minor is the saddest key. Why do i find everything to be completely relative? Money is tight (talk) 11:13, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart's Ideen zu einer Ästhetik der Tonkunst certainly asserts that there are, giving different keys a range of differing characers based on their tonic. These do seem to have currency with musicians - the BBC's Key Matters program uses similar language to describe several of the keys; it's notable that for some (particularly Fm) it attributes the character to practical concerns - some early instruments weren't very accurate in Fm, so its tempestuous reputation is due to composers exploring that. Like you, I'm a bit sceptical that an untrained listener (one uncontaminated with the tonic-implies-character idea) would really attribute these moods to a piece of music transposed into different keys and played on a neutral instrument like a synthesiser. But I can't find actual empirical studies to find out. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 11:52, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

It may even be that the western idea of a major scale as having a "happy" character and a minor an "unhappy" one is pure acculturation - that as a small child you heard happy songs in a major and sad things in a minor, and that has caused the association. In about 1992 Scientific American published an article about childhood acculturation to different scales (comparing european and east asian scales) - the authors argued that when parents spoke to their children they unconsciously used their culture's scales, giving the infant an idea of what notes go together properly. The paper said that this fixation happened pretty early in the child's development - that by some young-ish age (I forget when - it was something like 3 or 4 years of age) the child had fixed on what was "right", and that after that time music in other scales would sound "wrong", or at least "exotic". If that's really true (and one paper I dimly remember from a quarter century ago don't make it so), it's fair to think that Fm is funereal because, and only because, we've all heard lots of funereal music in Fm. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 12:08, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

The answer is it depends. What it depends on is the tuning system: how the notes are spaced determines the differences between keys. Depending on the kind of instrument, and the particulars of the tuning, you may be tuned to just intonation, or some other musical temperament, such as 12-tone equal temperament or (as was done with older music), quarter-comma meantone temperament. The "differences" between one key or another can be more or less pronounced depending on which temperament you're working in. Vocal ensembles, for example, often naturally tune to just intonation, because among tunings, it is the most perfectly harmonic. Keyboards and fretted string instruments (like guitars) are more commonly tuned to 12-tone equal temperament, because it allows one to change keys without retuning. Indeed, if a guitar was tuned to just intonation, it would only be able to play correctly in one key. Temperament allows guitars to play in any key; it means every note is slightly out of tune for perfect harmony (see comma (music) for a description) but the difference is almost unnoticeable in equal temperament, and the ability to play across any key is far more important. Of course, this discussion assumes you're dealing only in like keys or modes, like all major keys. There are well-documented differences in feel between major and minor keys, for example.--Jayron32 12:13, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I have key preferences, but I have a feeling that some of this is due to conditioning, as stated in the above responses. What would be a nice test of key preferences is by listening to songs in transposed keys, or Baroque music at A 415; if there are really key characteristics audible to the general listener, and the composers are exploiting these, it ought to be possible to guess what the original key was, or at least tell that the piece has been transposed.

Schubart's key characteristics (linked above, though this might be more convenient) are sometimes not so much characteristics as full-blown personifications: consider D♭ 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." and B♭ 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." Part of this may be the tuning, of course: Young's well temperament (1799) apparently (well, according to Kyle Gann) makes D-flat major harsh, instead of the soft colour I perceive. Double sharp (talk) 15:28, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Regarding the test: I'm wondering what would happen if it were also conducted only using sine tones (well, one thing that would happen is that the experimentees would suffer a very unpleasant hearing experience of Baroque music). To use a different aspect of colour in music: I think we're also very familiar with the timbres of instruments and voices in different pitches, something the composers will exploit too, of course, and that might interfere with testing the key's "pure character" (or colour, as you put it, q.v. chromesthesia perhaps) in the sense that is being asked. ---Sluzzelin talk 20:50, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Hmm, it's interesting that the chromesthesia article mentions something very much like the concept behind my suggested test: "There may be an effect of semantic mediation in some individuals with sound-color synesthesia. One subject, MH, self-triggered notes on a synthesizer and noted the color associations. When the synthesizer was transposed without her knowledge, she reported identical color associations to the notes that she believed she was hearing, rather than the absolute pitch of the tones." Double sharp (talk) 12:29, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Equal temperament says "there is a great deal of variety in the particular opinions of composers about the moods and colors of particular keys." (But it's tagged ^{[citation needed]}.) -- BenRG (talk) 02:41, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Piece by Ravel

As one of the comments already mentioned, what's the name of the Ravel piece used here? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsDyX3trkdM --2.245.147.109 (talk) 23:13, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I think it's from the second movement ("Adagio assai") of his Piano Concerto in G major. I believe the passage is often performed at a faster tempo than that, see for example Martha Argerich here. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:16, 25 February 2015 (UTC)