Re: [F_minor] RE: Key associations.

[Alwin Tong <alwintong@yahoo.com>]

thanks Brad, you learn something new everyday!!!  I had no idea, as i assumed most would have gone equal temperment after the WTC, but alas am wrong. 
   
  I enjoyed hearing the differences in the pieces, and now wonder about wanting to hear mood pieces, in tunings other than equal temperment. i suppose with a modern synthesizer, it would likely possible to just dial in different tunings, if anyone knows anything about this. 
   
  the subject is very fascinating.
  thank you for the read' 
   
   
  A
   
   
   
  

Brad Lehman <bpl@umich.edu> wrote:
  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
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