Key and Character
Wed, Jan 2 2013, 11:13PM
#2
RE: Key and Character
The names may change but the face remains the same.
Wed, Jan 2 2013, 11:35PM
#3
RE: Key and Character
...but it makes a huge difference if you are called with the wrong name.
In other words, if anyone ever tries to play the monumental Beethoven's Fifth (so much identified with the c minor) in e minor, we will all witness one of the greatest joke in music. Likewise, if one performs Mozart's Requiem in B flat minor!
And if you think because of the same intervals, the different tonalities have the "exact" (identical) properties, well, that's very convenient. However, you admit that at least there is a different pitch according to the key used. You also admit that the brain can "adjust" itself to the new tone. But these are fundamental differences. By all means, you can sing the same thing in any key, but you sing it in a different way and it sounds differently. It is not an identical listening experience!
Parla
P.S.: Chris, I have no words for your great "thesis" on this matter in your previous post. Great work indeed.
Thu, Jan 3 2013, 12:11AM
#4
RE: Key and Character
You have simply got used to heaing these works in these keys. If the musical god Beethoven had written his 5th symphony in e minor you would be laughing at the thought of hearing it in c minor.
Thu, Jan 3 2013, 9:20PM
#5
RE: Key and Character RE: Key and Character
I think Hugh is probably right about this issue..........
Chris, I don't remember agreeing with you about the D-minorness of Mozart's Requiem........? No matter, but that isn't my view. Also, I think you are wrong about the tuning of orchestral instruments. I am fairly certain that they are usually tuned to equal temperament on a piano. This didn't used to be the case, of course, so perhaps that is what you are thinking about. Woodwind instruments, for example, were redesigned around 1850........so they are no longer tuned to an unequal system. I am not sure about Brass; there is some stubborness, there, with natural harmonics and so forth. (Though I believe they can accomodate all the usual keys with certain adjustments.) So the modern orchestra, going back around 150 years, is essentially a kind of piano and can move from one key to the other without any change in relative pitch.
Which still leaves the whole question unanswered. My view is that all this business of key-character is simply a historical hangover from the time when keyboards and other instruments were not tuned to equal temperament. At that point, different keys on the same piano (or wind instrument, for instance) would have had slioghtly different properties - slightly different internal pitch relationships. The more remote keys would probably have sounded a bit odd in places. So maybe D minor does have its own little sound world on older instruments..........But that can't be the case today for the reasons already set out.
Fri, Jan 4 2013, 12:23AM
#6
RE: Key and Character
Dear Hugh, if Beethoven had ever wrote a Symphony in e minor, it wouldn't be the Fifth we know. There will be another work, with different orchestration, tempi, even structure. Listen to his only major e minor work, i.e. the String Quartet op. 59, no.2 and see the struggle to compose in such a key for only four String instruments (or Mozart's Violin Sonata K.304, his only work in that key).
Besides, Classical Music, more than any other genre, is a precise music, where anything matters. So, a key chosen by the composer and observed by the performer(s) is a sine qua non. Any transposition of Beethoven "Waldstein" from C major to any other major key is going to be somebody else' s work. The issue is that in C major the very significant dominant note is the G and that's the C major property alone. If we move to D, the dominant is going to be A and, if we move to E, we'll have to face the B. If you give it to a singer, you'll see the difference right away. An average tenor or soprano can manage easily a G, often they have some strain in A and problems start arising seriously with a B natural. Imagine if in the score they have to move to the submediant and the leading tone...In the case of E, they will be in the stratospheric C# and D#! At the same time, in the structure of the work, all the striking modulations of C major have to change to some quite new (and quite different), suitable for D and E major respectively. Not so easy and not the same properties as the modulations suitable for C major. It is not surpising that Haydn wrote more than 20 of his Symphonies in C major!...
Don't get carried away by the unified tone of a modern piano. The voice is the reference. First we sing, then we play. Try to sing a melody from C major transposed to F major (either above or below the stave), and, then, we compare notes.
Parla
Fri, Jan 4 2013, 12:59AM
#7
RE: Key and Character
Absolutely ridiculous to state that transposing a piano sonata in c into another key would make it the work of somebody else. If you had only ever drank milk in which someone had added a tasteless green colouring and then one day your milk came as white, you would think 'This white milk is so strange and unnatural, it doesn't taste at all like milk, I want my milk green, as nature intended.' You would be fooling youself again. Some singers might have difficulty reaching certain notes in certain keys, but that doesn't change the nature of the key.
Fri, Jan 4 2013, 1:59PM
#8
RE: Key and Character
Whether it seems "absolutely ridiculous" or not, a Piano Sonata (or much worse a work with more instrumental forces) in C loses or changes its identity, when it is transposed to another key. That's why always when we refer to a Classical work, we refer to its key (Symphony No.1 in C major, String Quartet in c minor, Piano Concerto in E flat, etc.), unless it has a name, or nickname to be identified.
Except for short works, a Piano Sonata, written in C major, dictates what and, more or less, how the composer is to move. In the First movement, normally a sonata form one, the second theme should be in the dominant (G), and in the recapitulation they come back both themes in the tonic. The modulations, that will take place in between will be based on the relationship with the tonic and the dominant or any related key used. The slow movement, most of the times should be in the subdominant, the dominant or, not that often, in the minor tonic or the relative minor. Likewise the Scherzo and Finale are going to use the relevant keys and modulations accordingly. So, if one has to be a bit audacious and move to F sharp major, he will have practically to "rewrite" the whole work, even if it may be still quite recognisable.
Finally, the issue with the singers demonstrates the "funny" character a song or aria can get, if it is sung in the "wrong" key, not necessarily because "certain singers have difficulty reaching certain notes in certain keys".
Parla
Fri, Jan 4 2013, 3:41PM
#9
RE: Key and Character
Just to respond quickly to Parla and Hugh, Eliza, I will return to your longer interesting post a little later! It's not lack of interest but need for thought that delays me!
I completely agree with Parla about the Beethoven symphony. If he had wanted a work in E minor he would have written one and it would not only have sounded different, it would have been different.
With regard to the important distinction between playing and singing, perhaps it is slightly misleading, or at least too literal, to refer to 'singing'. Correct me if it is not what you meant Parla, but I think the distinction of which you write is between the notes being played (or in the score) and what one hears in one's head, either as a listener, or indeed as a performer, whether we actually sing it or not. Ultimately, in this discussion, IMO, we are concerned with what we can hear, and about things that some of us can hear, whilst others cannot. Each of us is trying to explain what we perceive (and why). Since each of us has a different sensibility to pitch and to key, perhaps we should not expect definitive answers
Chris
Fri, Jan 4 2013, 4:30PM
#10
RE: Key and Character RE: Key and Character
Eliza, now to respond to your response to my post!
First of all, I couldn't agree less with your statement that "the modern orchestra, going back around 150 years, is essentially a kind of piano and can move from one key to the other without any change in relative pitch." Whatever else, I would strongly deny that this is either an ideal or a reality. To suggest such is to deny one of the great joys of music, and an essential component of the character of a great orchestra. As long as orchestras consist of humans playing instruments which offer some scope for 'personal intervention' as regards tuning, I believe that the variations that arise will always be there, and long may they remain so!
One 'scientific' reason is simply because of the distinction between 'natural' tuning, which is what each of us hears (to a greater or lesser degree) and the brilliant fudge of equal temperament (see the postscript below). You can eliminate some of this 'flexibility' using computer generated music (say write a piece using Sibelius and ask it to playback the piece transposed by a semitone, or a third or whatever), but heaven forbid that we'll ever get to that.
Next, I stand by my comments on orchestra tuning. No orchestra I know tunes "to equal temperament on a piano". If there's a piano concerto in the programme it may take its 'A' from the piano (otherwise usually from the oboe) but that is all. The tuning that follows (as far as all the other notes are concerned) comes from the basic characters of the instruments, and the sensitivity of the players. A horn in F may be able to play in F sharp but ask a horn player whether it would sound the same! Subsequent to your riposte I did check my facts with several musicians who confirm what I wrote. One can summarise by saying that tube lengths are dominant.
Now, all of this is all very well when we deal with an orchestra but what of a piece for piano played on a 'well tempered' and equal temperament piano? Again to stop this post becoming too long I'll defer my responser to later.
Chris
PS: Whilst researching the question of tuning on the Internet I came across reviews of what sounds like an interesting book: "How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony by Ross W Duffin " I haven't read it but from the reviews I think it might make interesting and relevant reading. Anyone read it?
Fri, Jan 4 2013, 7:38PM
#11
RE: Key and Character
It is quite laughable to see modern educated people cling on to a fictitious belief of a mystical quality in a system of equally tuned keys. The music produced maybe mystical but the key system! We live in a world where a piece of music, once recorded, can have the pitch (key) altered. All the instruments magically and effortlessly raised a tone, or lowered a tone. Your own ears can change the pitch in which you hear. However Parla would have us believe this changes the fundimentals of the music so much that it is no longer the work of the composer but a work by someone else completely. Classical music is indeed great but the choice of key is purely down to practical considerations. Many composers have of course simply changefd the key of a piece of music when they have published the work for various instruments, if only they had been made aware by Parla, that it was no longer their work. Such beliefs may belong in a church, but they have no place elsewhere.
Fri, Jan 4 2013, 7:47PM
#12
RE: Key and Character
..and how laughable will it be to watch Parla rename all the works in his infinately vast CD collection if the pitch of his hearing wanders off a semi tone.
Fri, Jan 4 2013, 7:54PM
#13
RE: Key and Character
Chris,
Alright - let's say you are right about orchestral tuning. (The last time I played in an orchestra, it cost 25p to buy a bag of chips on the way back to the bus station. We tuned by handing our violins to the teacher who sometimes went to the piano and sometimes didn't.) But it is still something of a red herring since we are still left with the equally-tempered piano itself and the fact that composing almost always takes place before instrumentation (and often on an equally tempered piano itself!)
In addition, if you are right about orchestral tuning, then tuning will vary from orchestra to orchestra and piece to piece and person to person. We need a systematic difference to explain the (apparently) different character of each key. Frankly, there just isn't such a difference.
I think, to be honest, that you are trying to defend or explain something that doesn't actually exist.
Parla,
No-one denies the importance of keys within a piece of work. Or the fact that changing the key will make it more or less difficult for this or that singer. The question is about the absolute character of any given key, not its significance in relation to other keys in the same piece of work. Are you absolutely confident that you would notice the difference if something by Mozart was transposed up or down a semitone? My electric piano has a modulator switch meaning I can go up or down without moving my hands........I just can't believe that the music changes character with each and every click of the dial.
Fri, Jan 4 2013, 8:54PM
#14
RE: Key and Character
Eliza wrote "We need a systematic difference to explain the (apparently) different character of each key. Frankly, there just isn't such a difference."
Is this what 'we' need? If you need that, OK. I agree that there is no (single) systematic difference..... but that would be different from the question we are discussing. On the contrary, the numerous differences that have been discussed each contribute in their myriad ways to the significance of particular keys, and to our (differing) perceptions of it.
Then you write: "I think, to be honest, that you are trying to defend or explain something that doesn't actually exist." Your argument seems to be "I don't hear it so it doesn't exist". You could perhaps make the more modest statement that it doesn't exist for you.
Sorry if that sounds offensive. Anyway, enough: I have to listen to this week's music for the listening project now.
Chris
Fri, Jan 4 2013, 9:27PM
#15
RE: Key and Character
I can't believe it, but I've just been watching a programme that I recorded over christmas that explains the situation and apparently I have been wrong and each key does have a different character. It can all be explained pictorially, so here goes. Apparently, DO is a deer, a female deer, RE is a drop of golden sun, MI is a name, I call myself..... I think I've got this correctly, let me know if you think I have missed the point. I'm certainly not climbing every mountain though.
If you change the name of 'C' to 'D' and move all the other keys accordingly, then nothing changes.
Well Hugh, you know more about changing names than most of us!
Chris
Chris A.Gnostic