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Re: [F_minor] RE: Key associations.



I find it extremely interesting how, over such a short period of time, one question inspired such a theoretically deepand very interesting "conversation".
As for my opinion of the darkness or brightness of keys, I think that some keys are better for expressing some emotions than others. But, I cannot bring myself to put labels such as sad or happy on any particular key, because everyone hears them in a different way. On top of that, I think it is necessary to define "sad" in order to label something with it. How do we know what sad is? (not looking for a chemical formula proving sadness is caused by certain chemicals reacting with others inside the human body). Everyone, I think, feels sad about different things. And therein, in my opinion, lies the problem with this exchange of e-mails.
Singh



From: Brad Lehman <bpl@umich.edu>
To: "F_MINOR@EMAIL.RUTGERS.EDU" <F_MINOR@email.rutgers.edu>
Subject: Re: [F_minor] RE: Key associations.
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2006 17:15:09 -0400

Alwin Tong wrote:

It shows a huge preference for the key of c major (as all the white keys on a piano, or black keys on a harpsichord), a Very Huge preference
for Cmajor in fact, and almost all musicians start learning c major first. and i think herein lies the "key" to why moods maybe attached to keys.
i believe after the years, of playing c major, what happens is that some people's ears and their theory minds, become "atuned" to C, an arbitrary blip on the circle, that everything else is judged in relation to it.
in this way, it is very easy to see flat keys (such as both f (1 flat) and fminor (4 flats) ) as sadder, or more somber, as they are both moving downwards in key relative to cmajor (you can think of it as -1 for f major, and -4 for fminor). for the same reason, keys like e major tend to be bright (+4).
people such as beethoven (eb being his heroic key) and scriabin (key colour) tended to use keys in this way, probably for their own flow of ideas, as each key would be a touch stone, like a smell can be, while Bach, would openly transcribe pieces back and forth among key indistinguishably..
anycase, i really think it has something to do with the layout of the keyboard, and the fact that many musicians are made to learn c major for the early part of our lives.
*of the minor (sadness) and major (happiness), the answer is actually quite a bit simpler (and more solid), in that a major key has a harmony where the 3rd of the chord is more "in phase" (lower in harmonic series) than a minor 3rd which is used in a minor key. (** the harmonic series is like a ladder of consonance to dissonance). this means that the major 3rd clashes less against the other chord notes. and just like how families work, less clashing equals more happiness.
getting ahead of myself, but i hope that helps in some way to your question :)

Not just the *appearance* of the keyboard's layout, but the actual sound of the music whenever the keyboard is tempered in schemes other than equal temperament. The keys and scales sound objectively different from one another, in addition to shifting the whole thing up or down _en masse_ by pitch.


Some of my writing about this:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/larips/informal.html
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/larips/outline.html
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/larips/art.html

Typically in these tuning methods, F minor and Bb minor *are* among the darkest-sounding and most melancholic keys/scales, in character.

Another excellent book about this is Rita Steblin's historical study of key characteristics in the 18th and 19th centuries. This one:
http://www.amazon.com/History-Characteristics-Early-Centuries-Second/dp/1580460410



Brad Lehman _______________________________________________ F_minor mailing list F_minor@email.rutgers.edu https://email.rutgers.edu/mailman/listinfo/f_minor

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