Re: Re: Re: F_minor...

[jerry and judy <jerbidoc@zianet.com>]

>You can actually hear different effects in different keys.  Although D major
>is a half step lower than E flat, it speaks more brightly.  This has no doubt
>mostly to do with accoutics and physics, and I am not in posession of
>sufficient scientific data to explain it, but the ear certainly knows.

This must be a psychological affectation stemming from long years of
sight-reading or something to do with how the visual 'aesthetics' of a
score evokes a psychological response.   As a tuner, I'm often asked to
raise an old piano a half step or even a whole step and I never notice any
key 'speaking more brightly' than any others.  Would it be apparent even on
an old instrument?

>At any rate, playing a certain chord voicing in, for instance, F major, then
>playing it a half step up and a half down will show you the difference between
>the keys themselves.

Now this effect is (mostly) due to chord relationships and musical memory.  No?

> I heard Randy Newman once refer to "key sense" -- what
>key to pitch a piece in (or not) -- and I think this science is precisely of
>what he was speaking.

He might be referring to a vocalist's sense of key or maybe the 'key
comfort factor' for a composer.

>It almost goes without saying that Bach knew the tactile properties of any
>given key and its playability on the instruments for which he wrote.  On the
>other hand, it is pretty clear to me that he wrote from his imagination rather
>than his hands.

Pretty clear huh?  When I browse the Bm Mass and the Passions, I have to
agree with you, but not the keyboard music.

Jerry

>Skip Heller