Tasty Keys
I'm not one of those synesthetes, those freaks who associate colors or odors with certain notes or keys (and whom should probably just all be killed). Nevertheless, like a lot of people (perfectly normal, healthy people who deserve to be allowed to live) I do feel each musical key naturally "harmonizes" with a certain emotional state. Even the tin-eared Nigel Tufnel knew that D-minor was the saddest of all keys.
Assigning boy band archtypes to the various keys would be really stupid. Nevertheless, I'm not going to do it. Instead, I offer this list. Others are urged to add their own opinions. Please don't take this too seriously; like almost everything I write here, it is offered as a stimulus for real thinking.
A final note: my opinions are heavily influenced by my main instrument, which is the voice. Singers have long noticed that certain notes are difficult for various voices to keep in tune. Choirs find certain keys problematic because of certain notes which predominate. Perhaps the worst key for choirs is F major; choir directors frequently transpose an a cappella piece in F up a half step, since it is in danger of transposing itself up (or more often, down) a half step on its own.
| C major | classical | A minor | pure | |
| G major | wholesome | E minor | lonely, remote, ancient | |
| D major | optimisitc | B minor | serious | |
| A major | happy | F sharp minor | noble | |
| E major | lyrical | C sharp minor | desperate | |
| B major | frenetic | G sharp minor | really desperate | |
| F sharp major | manic | D sharp minor | who the heck writes music in D sharp minor? | |
| C sharp / D flat major* | gorgeous, complex | B flat minor | romantic | |
| A flat major | elegant | F minor | something between romantic and pedantic: call it prodamtic! No - call it Wagner! | |
| E flat major | earnest | C minor | pedantic | |
| B flat major | clumsy | G minor | stolid | |
| F major | it barks | D minor | on the sadness scale, this one goes to eleven |
*I recall reading somewhere that Scriabin, the crazy synesthete (who probably just should have been killed) would reportedly go violently nuts at the suggestion that C sharp major and D flat major were the same key. Scriabin, dude. I hope they had paper bags in Russia a hundred years ago, because you really needed to breathe into one for a while.
Umie the Umlaut says, "ask your doctor about the Fredösphere!"
3 Comments:
Why "freak"? That makes no sense whatever.
When you think about it, ever since Bach and the Well-Tempered movement, every key is exactly like any other key. Transpose from b-flat minor to g-sharp minor, and unless you have perfect pitch (or almost-perfect), you can't tell the difference. (Unless, as a singer, you try to hit the high notes.)
The frequency of every note is 1.05xxx times the frequency of the note below it (twelfth root of 2).
What makes some keys different (I remember reading about "the sunny key of D major" (Brahms)? It turns out that orchestrally, what makes one key "sunnier" or "grander" than another is where the open strings are for that key.
I'm fascinated by what you say about choirs and F - especiallly the a capella part.
And of course, before Bach, C# and Db WERE different.
Bach did not invent or even use equal temperament. He wrote for the well-tempered keyboard, otherwise known as mean-tempered. In mean tempered tuning systems, each key is still different sounding, just not as extreme as just tuning or Pythagorean tuning. And even as far as the end of the 19th century many keyboards, especially organs, were constructed for nonequal tempered systems. And contemporary performers of period instruments use a variety of different tuning systems. String players prefer to play sharp keys, brass players prefer flat keys, and who the hell cares what woodwind players prefer. As for F major barking, I would rather say that it grooves like corduroy pants.
I would love to hear some contemporary music (what about a Madonna track ?!) written in these days of equal temperament, put into a non-equal tempered tuning. Even MIDI assumes that the world is only equal tempered; if you would like to try replaying a piece in an unequal tuning, you would have to retune nearly all of the notes.
The difference in feel I believe comes from the fact that in unequal tuning, some chords or intervals are a much better/much worse "fit" than the smeared-out error that results from equal tuning.
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