Different Keys for Different Moods/Feelings

[Richard Lindsey]

Originally Posted by silent method

lol i totally agree, i really dont think there is much to this, i just posted it cause he asked for it

I figured that.

[7flat5]

Originally Posted by Richard Lindsey

No one, to my knowledge, has ever convincingly shown that it does, so IMHO the whole argument is nonsense. A claim that has nothing to back it up isn't worth taking seriously. The burden of proof would be on those trying to show that keys are associated with moods, not on those who think this is "hooey."

The stuff silent method posted from 1803 or whatever seemed self-evidently ridiculous to me. I couldn't read it without laughing. I mean, A minor signifying "pious womanliness"? Please! Really more the stuff of Spinal Tap, as stretchcat may have been suggesting.

I am not sure that many here care much about this issue, really, but you have to remember what music was played on in 1806 to understand this. 1806 was not only pre-CBS but a little pre-Fender. On the instruments of the time, which regularly included natural (no valves) horns and woodwinds with far fewer keys than modern instruments have, different keys did sound different. A lot of this is explained by differences in intonation between instruments whose natural keys contain conflicting overtone structures. That this does not apply in quite the same way to your instruments does not mean it is laughable or deserves the scoffing which seems the order of the day here.

Another way to look at this is to think about the intonation problems fretted basses and guitars have. Buzz Feinten tuning, fretlesses, basses with non-intonation-adjusting piezo bridges, they all have their problems in certain keys, if you listen carefully. Get together your band, spend about 30 years playing the same instruments, apply your value system to describing the flavors of each key, and I bet you would come up with something which would be true for you and would be equally laughable to future readers.

My 2c.

[JazzBassvb]

Richard,

Thanks for the info. I tend to agree a little more with you and others now after reading that stuff a little more. I guess maybe the way it's worded seems a little 'eh', but I don't know.

I remember coming across this stuff several years ago and thought it was pretty interesting.

SilentMethod, thanks again for the legwork in getting that info.

I guess moods and stuff pretty much come from different chord tones and combos, then.

JB

[silent method]

Originally Posted by JazzBassvb

Richard,

Thanks for the info. I tend to agree a little more with you and others now after reading that stuff a little more. I guess maybe the way it's worded seems a little 'eh', but I don't know.

I remember coming across this stuff several years ago and thought it was pretty interesting.

SilentMethod, thanks again for the legwork in getting that info.

I guess moods and stuff pretty much come from different chord tones and combos, then.

JB

hey no problem man, i thought it was actually pretty interesting as well if not factual atleast somthing to think about eh

[Richard Lindsey]

Originally Posted by 7flat5

I am not sure that many here care much about this issue, really, but you have to remember what music was played on in 1806 to understand this. 1806 was not only pre-CBS but a little pre-Fender. On the instruments of the time, which regularly included natural (no valves) horns and woodwinds with far fewer keys than modern instruments have, different keys did sound different. A lot of this is explained by differences in intonation between instruments whose natural keys contain conflicting overtone structures. That this does not apply in quite the same way to your instruments does not mean it is laughable or deserves the scoffing which seems the order of the day here.

Another way to look at this is to think about the intonation problems fretted basses and guitars have. Buzz Feinten tuning, fretlesses, basses with non-intonation-adjusting piezo bridges, they all have their problems in certain keys, if you listen carefully. Get together your band, spend about 30 years playing the same instruments, apply your value system to describing the flavors of each key, and I bet you would come up with something which would be true for you and would be equally laughable to future readers.

My 2c.

I'm quite aware of what you're talking about, but I still think that list is laughable, for two reasons. First, it's unconvincing even in its own terms. Clearly what's being described are not attributes of the music itself but of certain cultural associations that the writer is making, and we don't even know from this how widely those associations were shared at the time. Second, the list was presented by the author as if these qualities were absolute or innate, and if our feelings about keys have changed over time, that shows that those qualities are in fact neither absolute nor innate.

Of course if I came up with that kind of "value system" to describe the flavors of each key, future readers would find it laughable. That's exactly why I don't think it's worth doing or would have any meaning! Any such effort would be so hopelessly bound to my own presumptions and experiences that it would have no chance of describing anything inherent in the music.

Frankly, I chalk the whole thing up to bad 18th/19th century science. Don't for one second think I'm equating these two things in seriousness, but as bad science, it's not totally unlike the way 18th and 19th century racial theorists tried to ascribe essential qualities to the different "races" of humanity (whose number they couldn't even agree on, but that's a whole other kettle of fish....).

[7flat5]

Originally Posted by Richard Lindsey

I still think that list is laughable, for two reasons. First, it's unconvincing even in its own terms. Clearly what's being described are not attributes of the music itself but of certain cultural associations that the writer is making, and we don't even know from this how widely those associations were shared at the time. Second, the list was presented by the author as if these qualities were absolute or innate, and if our feelings about keys have changed over time, that shows that those qualities are in fact neither absolute nor innate.

You're right, of course. Maybe the qualities were inate, in a sense, in the orchestra of the time, but certainly not applicable even to a modern orchestra.

Originally Posted by Richard Lindsey

Any such effort would be so hopelessly bound to my own presumptions and experiences that it would have no chance of describing anything inherent in the music.

Whether it would be hopeless or not would be "in the pudding" after it was done. Time moved slower in 1806, I think, too. Worth the time? Not perhaps in 2005 minutes. I don't know about "no chance of describing anything" worthwhile. Might be an interesting task.

Originally Posted by Richard Lindsey

Frankly, I chalk the whole thing up to bad 18th/19th century science. Don't for one second think I'm equating these two things in seriousness, but as bad science, it's not totally unlike the way 18th and 19th century racial theorists tried to ascribe essential qualities to the different "races" of humanity (whose number they couldn't even agree on, but that's a whole other kettle of fish....).

I'm with you there, except... This was not science, but I suspect better understood in the context of romantic music and literature as based in emotion in opposition to reason. Poetry, not prose, and as such reflecting cultural values we now find objectionable. An interesting modern parallel is Messiaen's notion of harmonies in certain keys being colored. "That's a green chord." Same orchestral context (ignoring the organ for the moment) and an attempt, perhaps, to describe similar effects in another way. And, certainly not science.

Thanks for the opportunity to discuss this. Hope someone other than me finds it interesting.

[Richard Lindsey]

Originally Posted by 7flat5

Thanks for the opportunity to discuss this. Hope someone other than me finds it interesting.

[munificent]

If I remember correctly, Bach was a strong proponent of even-tempered tuning, so it makes sense that he was fine with transposing the keys of his work. Even-tempered tuning was specifically designed to make that as pleasant-sounding as possible.

Before even-tempered tuning, different keys actually did sound different because the intervals in any two keys (of the same type, like C major and D major) were actually slightly different.

Even-tempered tuning evens that out (at the slight expense of the keys that sounded best in natural tuning).

Aside from "major keys sound happy and minor keys sound sad", I don't think there is much of a correlation between key and emotion.

I would look more towards the emotional content of chords and more importantly certain chord progressions.

[reiver1]

Originally Posted by Richard Lindsey

Frankly, I chalk the whole thing up to bad 18th/19th century science.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, tha science wasn't "bad". It was the science they had developed.

100 years from now folks will be ridiculing what we believe to be scientific "facts" too.

[Boplicity]

Originally Posted by reiver1

In the 18th and 19th centuries, tha science wasn't "bad". It was the science they had developed.

100 years from now folks will be ridiculing what we believe to be scientific "facts" too.

Amen to that statement. Recently the ceaslessly fascinating web site newscience.com posted "Thirteen Inexplicable Facts." To me it seemed that in order to explain some of the thirteen puzzles, we would have to turn some of our currently lauded thinking especially in physics on its heels. Can you imagine how scientists in 2105 or 2205 will regard our naive notions?

[Richard Lindsey]

Originally Posted by Boplicity

Amen to that statement. Recently the ceaslessly fascinating web site newscience.com posted "Thirteen Inexplicable Facts." To me it seemed that in order to explain some of the thirteen puzzles, we would have to turn some of our currently lauded thinking especially in physics on its heels. Can you imagine how scientists in 2105 or 2205 will regard our naive notions?

All that would prove is that some of our own current science is "bad" too. Which should surprise no one.

But to be clear, what I mean by bad science is not science that comes to wrong conclusions. It's hard to get the right answer if you can't get all the facts. A lot of things we now know to be factually incorrect were, in their time, brilliant conjectures on the basis of what was know, or unknown, at the time.

What I mean by bad science is science that was wronger than it had to be. That is, science that wasn't even the best possible at the time--things that could have been, and often were, seen to be wrong even back in the day. Like the various absurd racial theories.

And course in years to come, we will be seen to have our share of that too.