GG: Tuning

[Elisha Tseng <elisha-jt@juno.com>]

On Tue, 16 May 2000 14:16:20 +0100 Thayer A <A.Thayer@RHBNC.AC.UK>
writes:
> > Was it on this list recently that I read that the association of  the
minor key with sadness is a very recent, 19th-century historical
development?

> I'm not too sure if that's true. I've just been doing a really boring
music history course at university. Early vocal music, including Italian
madrigals tends to makes use of minor keys to display specific emotions
in > the  text.  Often a piece in a major key will briefly depart to the
minor if the mood of the text becomes optimistic. I'm no expert on this
because I find such old music unbelievably boring and take no interest in
it,
> but still that's what they told us, anyway.

The major as 'happy' and minor 'sad' tonality was probably not developed
and defined until around 17th century by a man of the name Corelli,
Archangeli ( correct me if I'm wrong...but you DON'T have to know this,
brain cells are more useful for other things if you're not a music
history major ) who was famous mainly for his trio sonatas.  In the past
minor was considered a 'happy' key and often pieces in the early 13th and
14th century were written in minor to express joy (and you thought we're
masochistic in this day and age :-).  Also, before the invention of the
tuning system call 'just intonation (which came around the Renaissance),'
 instrumentalists tuned their instruments by Pythagorean tuning, so they
had wonderful pure fifths and octaves but horrible thirds, and
major/minor tonality is defined by the thirds within the piece.  So many
pieces back then didn't emphasize so much what is major or minor, but the
thirds were out of tune.  Just as a suggestion, you can listen to music
by Josquin des Pres ( a more conventional composer ) or if you're in the
mood for 'just intonation' hell, listen to works by Gesualdo (I wouldn't
recommend it if you have equal-temp. pitch assoc).    Point is that the
rule of major/minor tonality wasn't definite and after 14th century
composers were experimenting mix uses of these tonalities...and later
composers wrote pieces that are essentially minor but with a major ending
(call piccardy thirds??? Bach used a lot of this technique in his
works..esp fugues).  Another useless trivial, but hopefully this might
clear something.

Come to think of it, since F-minor is Gould's favorite key, he may not
had been a sad chap after all... :-)

Regards, Elisha
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