Key and Character

Well Eliza, I'm not sure. I'm more inclined than you to believe that the points we have agreed on above (and before) are enough to account for much or even most of the 'key' effect.

If there is something else, the question arises: what would be admissible evidence, either for or against? I haven't the faintest idea, except for the sort of anecdotal evidence I presented above.  I don't think random testing (like double-blind testing of hi-fi parameters) is the answer. For myself, I notice the feeling of particular keys only in music with which I am very familiar, and then more so when it is played with impeccable intonation. The first chord of the Emperor concerto, perfectly tuned by a great orchestra, say.

That's not much help I'm afraid.  Perhaps, with Wittgenstein we have to accept that "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence".

Anyway, best wishes for a melodious Christmas and a perfectly tuned New Year!

Chris

And all the best to you Graham for 'Xmas and your wedding day!

Mark

Scientifically there is no difference between any major key and any minor key.

All the major keys have exactly the same intervals and all the minor keys share the same intervals. To suggest that they have any individual personality is pure poppycock. They may be more enabling for various instruments but that is all. We really do need to drop this uneducated romantic drivel once and for all.

Mr. Hugh (or whoever you may be), as long as the different keys cannot share all the exact properties, they have some differences. That's why very few works exist in F sharp major (six sharps compare to seven natural notes in C major is something to take into serious consideration before you go up to it).

Even the fact that different keys "enable" a different orchestration is a substantive difference to notice, let alone the pitch.

Anyway, Happy New Year (at any key you can herald it),

Parla

I'm with you, Hugh, as for that there is no firm "label" for any key. However, there are different properties for each one of them, allowing them to function in different ways, which are "detectable".

The fact that the C major does not give always the same "feeling" (while it functions always the same way), it has to do with other factors of the composition (tempo, structure, orchestration and the eventual modulations chosen by the composer).

However, the easily "detectable" thing about two (major or minor) keys is the arias. An Aria in C major with some high Cs for the tenor will sound like pop song (easy come easy go), if he sings it in the F or even in the G (he might, however, exercise his lower notes unnecessarily).

Parla

Back after a Christmas break, time to offer New Year Greetings to all!

And then back to music! Though I've been away from the Forum, thoughts on this topic have not been far from my mind.

Hugh wrote "Scientifically there is no difference between any major key and any minor key.

And then: "Different keys do not have different properties, they all share the same properties, exactly the same."

Would that it were so! However let's start with what can be explained scientifically. We can describe pitches by frequency (or by wavelength, its reciprocal). Starting with the obvious, octaves sound good to us because they are simple multiples in terms of frequency. e.g. A'=440, A"= 880 Hz. Because they are simple multiples the waves always re-inforce one another and sound strong. Same with the interval of a fifth, scientifically a fifth above has a frequency of 1.5 times the base note (so G above C should be 1.5 times the frequency of C), and a major third 1.25 times. The perfect harmony that we hear with such a chord say of C major is scientifically logical, because of the simple ratios between the frequencies (and wavelengths of these notes). But the logic stops here.

We could go on tuning all the notes on the basis of that perfect fifth (ie. G from C, D from G, A from D, E from A etc. If we do that we find that by the time we get round to C again, the C is well on its way to becoming C sharp.

Since in all tuning systems (so far!) the octave is more important than the fifth, we tune the octaves first in all known tuning systems. The rest is fudge rather than science. We may either keep the thirds and fifths perfect and 'squeeze' the other notes in as best we can (the various methods of 'unequal temperament' tuning') or we can fudge all the notes ('equal temperament tuning'). Both methods are based on what 'works' rather than on science. (For the record the ratio of a fifth in equal temperament is 1.498 instead of 1.5; not much different but it starts to add up).

Now when it comes to playing (or singing) music, matters get more complicated.

The natural way to tune a violin (or other string instrument) is not equal temperament.  The violinist, having chosen a reference 'A', tunes the other strings so that they are perfect fifths (G, D, A, E).

The brass and woodwind instruments have natural fundamental pitches, and again the thirds and fifths that they 'naturallly' produce are the perfect 'scientific' one of 1.25 and 1.5, not the fudged ones of equal temperament.

Take these factors into account the different 'home' keys of all the instruments in the orchestra and it's easy to rationalize 'scientifically' the different sound worlds of different keys in orchestral music, even before taking into account things like the 'resonance' effect of sympathetic strings, for example.

There is an even more obvious 'scientific' reason why different keys sound different.  They differ in the pitches!!  Parla had it perfectly when he wrote: "How can the famous aria with the 9 high Cs (for the tenor) from Donizetti's Opera "La Fille du Regiment" (Pour mon ame) sound in a transposition where the high Cs turn to high Gs, for instance?" This is so blatantly obvious that we may be tempted to regard it as trivial. But I'd be willing to bet that a much smaller transposition, from top Cs to top B flats, say, would result in cheers being replaced by boos at la Scala Milan. OK, some transpositions may not be obvious, but don't underestimate the human ear! (and brain).

Finally to the music itself and the way composers write in different keys. Early in this discussion I wrote "Mozart's D minor music has a particular character that we can all hear, and arguably would do even if the music was subsequently transposed into another key." and Eliza agreed, so we stopped discussing this. However, on further thought I don't think this is so.  On the contrary, I would argue that Mozart had a supreme awareness of all the things about the 'orchestral sonority' of D-minor when he wrote his Requiem or piano concerto (K466), and that this is a significant contributor to the sound of his music that would not readily survive transposition to another key.

In short, there are plent of logical reasons why different keys could sound different. Is there something else 'mystical' about different keys? Who knows. 

With keyboard works played on instruments tuned to equal temperament, things are different. But that's for another day. This post is already too long! Sorry!

Chris