Why do Composers select particular keys for their music?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ต.ค. 2022
- This is the first of five videos I will be making on the immense subject of musical key.
If you wish to buy me a coffee, that would be appreciated:
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And BTW, the first scale I learned on the piano was not C Major, but rather, B Major, because it utilizes all the black keys and sits under the hand so perfectly. Almost all Russian pedagogues begin with B Major. C Major is one of the most difficult scales to play…with all white keys…like a blizzard…no landmarks to tell you where you are.
B is easier for the hand. But with C you can very easy explain the hole hole half hole hole hole half principle of the major key and from there out learn very easy all the keys. The for example F, Bes, Es, As, Des,Ges Start all the time on the new moll and get every key one moll more till you got them all. And then G, D, A, E, B, Fis Every new cross on your fourth vinger till you got all the black keys. Put fourth to trird and the thump is on you next key with one cross more.
@@RubenHogenhout Well, yes, if pedagogy is our only consideration. But after the 24 keys and modes are understood, C becomes the most excruciatingly boring of all keys, I think. I fell in love with 10 keys to the exclusion of all others: C#, Eb, F#, Bb and B (Maj + min for each tone).
I long dismissed the importance of choosing a key, thinking they're all just transpositions of equivalence, but just recently began to notice my own preferences; so I really appreciate the topic addressed here.
It does seem that register is at least as important as key signature. I am not a fan of strained tenors and sopranos reaching for the stars when street lamps are perhaps their more realistic goal.
There's nothing like the power of a full orchestra with every instrument given an engaging line and entire sections humming in the vigor of their midrange. Schumann's Piano Concerto is a type specimen, as are Brahms' Song of Destiny and Sibelius' Symphony #5.
I call it the power of chestnut brown, especially in my favorite key, Eb major. And wouldn't you know--that's the key Beethoven chose for "Eroica.," the watershed moment of his ascendancy, the "Apres le deluge" of tonality, the landmark pivot between Classical and Romantic eras, the apex of symphonic form, the day Beethoven left Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Cervantes and Rembrandt in the dust (they were never close competition; however, Beethoven is still picking bugs out of his teeth after a trip to Leipzig left him hopelessly behind some well-fed, Engel aus der Hölle, who was composing so loud even Ludwig could hear the eight-voice, inverted, retrograde polyphony with a theme that grew progressively dazzling through 24 keys, all while teaching his kids how to fool Euler with a superior proof if they should ever meet him. This guy swung through inner-voice sublimity like an Olympic gymnast plays hopscotch.(
And on the strength of that cadence, I rest my Picardy Third.
I always felt like the landmarks for C major are the black notes you're not using.
As a keen amateur guitarist, I have always favoured the vowel keys. Thanks for a wonderful video… I really appreciate your lucid and good humoured style.
I think Chopin chose keys based on how the hands could access the notes, but he also wrote piano pieces to help people learn to play piano, so he wrote in a wide variety of keys for that purpose too.
He has a very wide palette I would have liked to see him in the statistic
An important factor is that for the piano, the equal temperament where all halftones are the same distance from each other didn't exist back then. The "well tempered" tuning allowed more keys to be played without too much distortion, but each key had slightly different intervals in terms of HZ. Thus it makes sense for barrock composers to give each key a different character.
*laughs in baroque*
In baroque music, a tendency that I notice is for compositions in a given key to actually be played a half-tone lower. For example, a concerto or chorus in D major (as part of the title) might actually be played in D-flat/C-sharp major.
Scriabin simply had synesthesia, so his color coding was quite concrete. Many of us have strange cross associations between senses.
Pianist Helene Grimaud experiences the same visualization of harmonic frequencies.
As a composer, I can confirm that the instruments I'm using in a piece when choosing a key is an important factor, as it should be. D flat is not a good choice of key for clarinet because the base note of the scale is barely out of its reach. The register is an important factor too. I happen to also have perfect pitch and to me, keys just sound different and convey different moods.
I'm currently writing something for an instrument that has a range from C4 to C6, and I think C is one of the worst keys, because there's only one C in the range that you can approach from both above and below. I think D or E still works better than A or B though (like F or G instead of D♭ or C for the clarinet), because going just below the tonic to the lowest notes and then back up a note or two is much better than having to go six or seven notes up to hit the nearest tonic.
That last bit happens to everybody, and is widely talk in the circles of baroque music playing. It's a different colour and character for every tonality lol
I'm surprised no one commented that certain keys are chosen because the composer heard a musical idea in that "original key". Alma Deutscher a 21st century composer develops musical ideas in their original key, until later to transpose melodies if necessary for opera voices.
I feel the same, keys definitely have their own distinct feelings so it's really hard to get a great range of all those emotions when an instrument is limited in what it can play
That's why I like adding in plenty of chromaticism and borrowed chords where I can, otherwise everything on a particular instrument starts to sound the same
@@karolcpm- That's definitely a part of it for me. I'll have a melody just pop into my head sometimes and hum it into a voice recorder, having no idea what the notes are or what key it's in, and usually just keep it in that original key unless there's a good reason to change it.
The idea of "colors" associated with a key is a manifestation of synesthesia. Having met several people with different forms of synesthesia, it's fascinating and, for people that have it, an amazing way to view the world. It gives them a visual reference for which to remember music, poetry, and other non-visual media.
True. And it's actually more tangible than you might think. For example C always sounds heavy and robust. Where as Ab sounds thin and smooth. Not only (as a pianist) have I realized that our hearing is not only spectral, C/red all the to B/magenta, I even hear, distingush the first half of the notes (C to F) as the warm keys, while F# to be the notes feel cooler. But this itself is not synesthesia, it is simply a quality of our the key itself. C is middle C because red start the rainbow. Even further, red, like blood is associated with birth and the vigor of life. I talk about in detail on mine own Paige here, if interested.
-_The Acoustic Rabbit Hole_
A few thoughts:
- Guitar is barely relevant to the discussion, but some keys on guitar take on a different feel because the most common ways to finger the tonic chord represent different chord inversions. I think of this especially in the key of D, where the third is the highest note and lends a sweetness to the key. A and E use 5 or 6 strings with only one third hidden in the middle, which is easy to mute out and leave you with an open 5th, power-chord harmony. It's also easy to mute the whole chord and get a nice booming chop in those keys, giving you different rhythmic ideas. A and E also have an open string that gives you a bluesy b7, whereas the open strings in G and C are all part of the major scale. The kind of songs that you pair with these keys are very different because of these mechanical reasons.
- Vocal songs in different keys might tend toward different melodic shapes. If the singer has one comfortable octave where they will spend most of the song, then most of the song will be between 1 and 8 if the song is in one key, or between 5 and 12 in another key. This could give different keys an objectively different quality.
- D is actually blue.
Also where you finger a note changes the sound quite drastically on guitar, A on 5th fret of the E string sounds completely different than the open A string
To add to point 1 (and to a certain extent, 2) it's also the physical limitations of the instrument. Beethoven wrote the Apassionata sonata in F minor specifically because F was the lowest note on the keyboard at the time, and that low F gets used repeatedly throughout the sonata.
As a violinist, I wanna add that D is a great key because there are so many opportunities for ringing tones-playing a note that shares a name with an open string makes the open string ring sympathetically. The instrument just sounds more resonant in some keys!
As a cellist, I prefer Bb
Specifically G minor or C dorian
The best case of co-ringing is this, which is the by-strin A. This sensitive sounding is typical for the Art Nouveau. Mainly the White Flowers (květiny bílé) in Dvořák's Water Nymph (I think, C dur).
th-cam.com/video/-v3dSsDkJrU/w-d-xo.html
2nd minute 53rd second of:
th-cam.com/video/nxYptmFWliw/w-d-xo.html
d minor W
I'm pleased to hear the speaker agree that there is no "specific character" to different keys in the era of equal temperament. Yet even here in the comments we see people claiming that there is. Acoustically all the keys are constructed the same.
That is why historically considered productions are so lively and enlightening -- with unequal temperament comes varied interval frequencies, and therefore different key characters.
I am not the first to comment that, but I can add a few thoughts: The history of temperament is very important here. And the easiest way to experience it is if you tune your piano yourself - and interestingly, older temperaments are easier to tune. I have tuned my piano to Kirnberger II, where the comma is mostly spread over D-A-E and you have a lot of pure fifths and in C major also the pure third. Playing with pure fifths is really a different story. And as I researched, I found out that a lot of tuners today still tune not exactly equal, with a slight preference to some keys. And I suppose that a lot of the instruments out there really aren't exactly equal.
Indeed acoustic instruments are not equal tempered. All woodwinds will have some notes that are higher or lower, besides the register differences. Sometimes by (bad) design, sometimes by (lack of) fine adjustment of key work. Although I'm a cellist, I've played many other instruments through the years, and currently giving oboe a try. Brass instruments still follow the harmonic series and the tuning of each valve/rotor has to compromise some notes. String instruments will resonate differently when a note you play matches the harmonics of a lower open string, so players will often learn and fall on those overtones while playing. And when playing double stop most skilled musicians will play just thirds and just sixths. And guitars are always out of tune! :D
Only electronic instruments can truly be equal - not that this is a good thing anyway
@@ericoschmitt Thank you for the information!
Brass players have to pay attention to the harmonic series and purity of harmony. For example, if two trumpets are playing a major third apart and use equal-tempered tuning it sounds...let's just say "bad". We generally have to tune using the harmonic series and indeed a lot of pro brass players will study scores and determine chord position, then adjust tuning accordingly. Sometimes we have to play out of tune in order to play in tune.
I'm sure other instrumentalists have to do this as well.
Thank you, Stephan. And, by the way, there is a newly invented "Precise Temperament" tuning that actually brings out the richness of the intervals more than Equal Temperament. Strangely, or perhaps surprisingly, it seems to be ignored by the synthesizer and and piano industry, party because the theoretician is suggesting to use Scientific Tuning reference of A432 over A440Hz. And odd cult against A432 tuning has begun; especially fueled by uToobers Adam Neely and Rick Beato. At the moment, as small number of music theorist and musicians (including myself) have resorted to creating the tuning ourself using Apple's Logic Pro, and we are writing out the notes for those who want to incorporate this beautiful tuning.
I think they key one chooses might actually make a difference. Consider a piece in C major then transpose it to F, G, or F#. It's going to be like the original piece but with many things "flipped".
TLDR: Consider one piece in a given key, and another piece in a key that is a fourth , a fifth, or a tritone away. Like a key in C vs a key in F, G, or F#. I choose these intervals to maximize the "distance" - i.e. at any given point in the piece in F, G, or F#, what you're playing is either a fourth, fifth, or tritone away from what you would have been playing in the key in C major. In the C major piece, a theme might be introduced in a given pitch, and then when that theme returns in the recapitulation, it will be lower pitched by a fifth (going from the dominant to the tonic). But in the key in F, G, or F#, it's the other way around - the second time the theme appears, it is higher pitched, not lower pitched, relative to when the theme first appeared, and higher pitched by a fourth to be precise (again going from dominant to tonic). Essay below:
For example consider sonata form, a piece in say Bb. Suppose the 2nd theme of the piece, when it is first introduced in the exposition, is in the dominant key of F. Now when the recapitulation rolls around, you hear that second theme played again, but in the home key of Bb. Suppose the first time the second theme appears, it is higher pitched in the register. Then, when it appears again in the recapitulation in Bb, it's lower. Going lower pitched could make the theme sound mellower and give a sense of "returning home" after a long journey.
But what if the piece was instead written in F major? Now the first theme when it appears is in C major, and if the composer follows the same choices of pitch they made when the piece was in the key of Bb regarding what is considered too high pitched for a theme, if when the theme was in the "lower octave" when it appears in the recapitulation of the first piece in Bb, and by lower octave I mean the Bb below the F in which the theme appeared for the exposition of the piece in Bb, then by that logic for the new piece in the key of F major, in the exposition when the theme is in the key of C major, then they should choose that "lower octave". I.e. they are playing the theme in the exposition of the piece in F major based on the C that is one note above the Bb around which the theme is focused when it appears in the recapitulation of the piece in Bb major.
And for the piece in F major, when the recapitulation comes around, the theme in F major will be on that "higher F" relative to the C in which the theme first appeared in the exposition, when that theme in the key of C major, the dominant key. Now when the theme reappears, it is higher pitched than when we first heard it. This is not a mellow, soothing return home but perhaps a more jubilant or ecstatic one because of the fact that we return at a higher pitch than that in which we started, as opposed to returning at a lower pitch than that we started with.
(Note lower pitched need not be mellow, higher pitched need not be jubilant, you can interpret it however you want based on the piece, this is just to establish the notion that the way you hear it can be different based on what key)
This leads me to believe that for every piece ever written there may be at least two versions - the original, and one in the key a fourth, fifth, or tritone away in which pitch relationships are "flipped" as discussed above. And other versions may exist too.
The choice of key may also impact the way a composer chooses to develop a melody. Some melodies might sound better in a higher pitch while others might sound better in a lower pitch. If they started the piece in a given key, as they go on writing it they might reach a point they couldn't have foreseen before, but since they're in the key they're in they'll choose to develop the melody in the manner that that key suggests. Whereas if they had started the piece in a more "distant" key (fourth, fifth, or tritone away) it might have developed differently based on where on the keyboard they are when developing the melodies.
Ultimately, it might still not make that much of a difference, and that last paragraph is more speculative, but I think the point above about things being "flipped" in different keys is indisputable since that's just how it has to be (in some cases).
Interested to see what others think. It would be cool if we someday get an AI that can rewrite famous pieces in distant keys. And I don't mean just shifting the whole thing up or down by a given amount. I mean some parts will be upshifted, others downshifted in pitch, exactly the way composers do it when going from the exposition to the recapitulation, ie going from the dominant key back to the home key - you don't just shift everything by a given amount. At some points you're in the "higher" pitch relative to where you started, at others you're in the "lower" pitch. An AI that could choose which parts to shift up or down could rewrite pieces in very different keys. It would sound like the same piece but to a trained ear there would be something "off" about it. You might still prefer the original, you might actually prefer the rewritten piece - or as is perhaps most likely the case you'll find it impossible to choose a favorite. Then how do you choose which to learn to play? Lots of possibilities here.
Julian Laboy replied to me- for some reason I cannot see the reply here. Wish I could see it. Alas, youtube as useless as ever.
Maybe it's in the next 5 videos, but a very important factor is the (comfortable) RANGE of the particular instruments or voices a composer has in mind for (part of) a piece of music. Then there's also the ease of reading the score, which diminishes the more flats and sharps you have. (Except for Liszt, of course, who delights in doing such things as switching from Gb major to F# major in the middle of a piece, seemingly just to infuriate the pianist.)
Kinda a bad example, considering the two keys use the same notes labeled differently… but I get the point :)
@@jojomaria498 No, it's a good example, for just the reason you said: The notes are exactly the same, but Gb has only 5 accidentals, whereas F# has 6, so it's harder to read!
"Composers always seem to avoid B"
I've heard someone also came up with this independently. So personally, the first "grand" piece by myself would be a piano sonata in B.
Btw Chopin has many noctunes in B but he's not in the list
It’s sad! B is such a sweet key, albeit difficult for string instruments.
Chopin said B was the best key for the piano. Sits better under the hands and makes scales easier and smoother to play, and the easiest to play by feel without looking at the keys. He also said C was the worst key, for the opposite reasons.
B minor on the other hand is used incredibly often
@@rainyday6430 Some keys are like that. Like C♯ minor is pretty common, but it's parallel major would almost always be spelled as D♭.
@@rainyday6430 The finale to Stravinsky's Firebird was written in B Major, so beautiful.
Jokes on you, I was incopetently self-thought and the first scale I learned was C-sharp minor
Strange pronunciation of Beethoven... "Bayhoven".
There is also an older and very important explanation from the baroque, when the scale wasn't perfectly tempered as today. Before 1720 there was certain keys that simply wasn't usable because the intervals sounded too harsh. And therefore different keys had their own sound and flavor. Matheson describes them in his book "Das neueröffnete Orchester".
There characteristics lived on for certainly 100 years in what keys would be good to fit different kinds of music.
He didn't just leave out the T; he pronounced it as a glottal stop. It's quite common in the UK.
This is slightly wrong, or at least misleading. There is nothing inherently "perfect" about equal temperament. It's just one of the many ways of tuning an instrument. It was known since the renaissance, but only started to be used in the 20th century because it was adopted by the classical avant-garde as perfect for atonality.
Also there is another misconception that seems to be shown in this comment. The meantone temperaments (which are the temperaments that sacrifice some keys to make others better than equal temperament) were not universally used in the baroque and didn't just suddenly go extinct in 1720. In the late batoque most composers would adopt the new well temperaments (temperaments that allow playing in all keys and add "key color" with some keys better than equal temperament and some worse, but all sounding slightly differently). Those well temperaments would be used by most until the 20th century, with many composers making their own tunings that would suit their music best. For example Beethoven thought that Eb major sounded heroic, and that's why most of his grand works are in that key or its relative minor. It's also not like meantone wasn't used in the classical era, Mozart famously used 1/6-comma meantone, which is slightly worse than the baroque 1/4-comma meantone but only really sacrifices one key (although Mozart did also use well temperaments).
You also seem to conflate meantone and well temperament into one tuning. No, meantones did not have key color. Usually around 6 keys were amazingly beatiful, 2 were pretty bad but playable and 4 were unusable, but all of the beatiful ones sounded the same. They are also shown as outdated and their only trait being that they sacrifice some keys. This is not the case, music in 1/4-comma meantone is more beatiful, it's just more limiting for the composer.
@@JScaranoMusic
Glo'aw stop, tha's ri', ma'e.
I think it also has something to do with the fact that almost every composer was a pianist, because every key does sound unique on the piano.
That's very dim of composers.
@@AsadAli-jc5tg Every key sounds different on most instruments due to resonance, etc
However keyboard instruments didn't use equal temperament back then so the scales were mathematically actual different.l
Here are a couple more reasons:
(1) Personal Physiology: I think some musicians' ears resonate differently to the frequencies of the tones so they favor a key more (this could fall under personal prejudice)
(2) Sometimes picking a different key reveals a different topography of the keyboard which will lead to new melodic/harmonic "finds"
Very interesting! Thanks again for the uploads ❤
You got me in two seconds with the opening of the St John Passion. Bach did something wonderful that even gets this unbelievers heart a flutter and the tears well up in my with that wonderful music. The turmoil in that opening chorus with the wailing oboes, almost crying grabs me everytime. something that Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Bruckner, Puccini, Berlioz and the other romantics and modernists can NEVER do.
The Key? Who cares. The music says it all.
I think key is most important when utilizing non-equal temperaments. Bach's famous Well-Tempered Clavier is the classic demonstration of this, as he shows the type of piece that is best suited for each of the keys. I think music lost a lot when we eliminated key color.
Good topic and video! Thanks.
I think another very important consideration here instrumental range, _historical_ range, and instruments’ timbral registers.
For example, suppose you have a melody you want to feature on English horn: English horn goes down to concert E. If your melody keyed in G, say, goes below that E, you either have to modify that melody, recast it on a different instrument, or raise it to the key of A, say.
Similarly, flutes can play well below the second-space C, and in fact sound very rich in that range, but they’re also very _quiet_ in that range. So you can move the melody up an octave, but in that range, it won’t have that rich timbre you’re envisioning. So, you may get better results moving it up a perfect fifth instead, which changes the key, obviously.
_Historical_ range is another important consideration: Classical-Era bassoons had a much-more-limited range (with good tone and intonation) than modern instruments. So, we might wonder why Haydn, say, recast a bassoon melody (apparently) to avoid notes above a certain pitch, that we expect to be well within the normal bassoon range, but it’s out-of-range for bassoons of the era.
You chose the best videos available for Mozart’s Requiem and Don Giovanni ❤
Nice video!! Always been wandering this. Thanks ❤️
That's a great clarifying video! However, it should be understood that this applies to music from the Romantic era. As for before that, composers preferred certain keys not only for the reasons mentioned in the video, but also because of the different temperaments. Before the invention of the Well Temperament (not to be confused with the Equal Temperament), each tonality sounded different due to the fact that some intervals were narrower or wider.
Instruments and pitch definitely play a huge role. When pieces are transcribed to concert band, the key is often changed to fix the concert band better than strings.
In that regard, the butchery I've heard in two different band transcriptions of the slow movement of Dvorak's New World Symphony.
The middle section should be in the parallel minor of the main sections. But not in the band transcriptions I've heard.
I heard a band transcription of Mussorgsky's Pictures.
It followed all the original keys right through until we got to the Great Gate of Kiev. That is in E Flat Major, which one would naturally assume would be perfect for band. No - the movement was transposed to D Flat Major for no conceivable reason.
My feelings: I don't mind an entire work being transposed, provided that the same transposition is carried through.
If you can't do it right, then simply don't do it.
Interesting. I'm a Chopin junkie and I tallied the number of pieces he wrote in each key. For the majors the most he wrote was in A-flat, 4 flats. For the minors, C# minor, 4 sharps. Great subject, please explore further. Thanks for posting.
As a composer and violinist I can confirm some of the informations, but there are some half true phrases as well (my first scale was definitly not C, and due to my instrument I even thought a lot in D, which I felt for a very long time as my home key). Any way, good job. Be careful with judging personal feeling on pitches. It's a huge topic. Especially because we live in a vibration based universe and pretty much everything underlies the laws of vibration. One of the most important is a very basic one: resonance. So as we vibrate and there is no way NOT to resonate, pitch is not at all irrelevant.
Great video, nice to see someone that actual knows some basics talk about this subject. Be noted though that Beethoven's first piano concerto isn't actually his first piano concerto, he composed the second one first.
This is something I have wondered about for a long time. Thank you so much!
Excellent presentation......cogent, brief, well illustrated and above all....interesting Thankyou.
I have been wanting to know this about keys for decades. Thank you!
This was excellent! Really interesting topic.
Great video to confirm my ideas and answer my questions!
Brilliant Video generating thoughtful and educational comments!!! Thank you.
I've always wondered, but not enough to look it up, why particular keys are used... thanks for saving me the effort!!!
I just started being in music theory after my retirement. What a fascinating analysis. Merci.
Informative video! 😊
Great work -fascinating thank you.
I am 82 yo piano beginner. Great essay. I love BbM and EbM…..but am uneducated! Still struggle as to why famous pieces do not always work transcribed!
This subject is huge. And there are lots of reasons composers chose certain keys, mostly of them having to do with vaguries of the different instruments involved as well as personal preferences. Any wind player who plays in both bands and orchestras knows that orchestras like # keys while bands like b keys. Chopin loved c# minor. Looking forward to you next videos
Saint-Saens' Third Symphony (The Organ Symphony) was conceived in B minor, but he wrote, "this devil of a symphony has risen a half-tone; it did not want to remain in B minor: it is now in C minor." I strongly suspect that by raising the key of the piece a half step, the tonic would correspond to the lowest pitch on the organ, nearly an octave lower than the lowest B on the organ. At 16 Hz, you won't hear the fundamental of that low C, but you will certainly FEEL it.
Thank you for the information 🤗
"So, which key do you choose for the composition?"
John Williams: "Yes!"
I have a fifth suggestion: With most instruments, the distances in frequency between the twelve tones are not equally distributed, what would be a factor of square root of 12. With a violin, you can play infinite pitches within one octave, but with e.g. a flute, you are restricted to what the harmonics of the tube allow, and which is a more pleasant sound than the strict srqrt(12) tuning. Even pianos are pitched in the "natural" way. There are pianists who play on different pianos with different tuning, regarding to he scale of the piece. Bach used the piccolo flutes for the expression of something demonic, their F is very sharp, almost a F#. In the cycle of fifths the dissonances to C major increases with the distance to C. So, a piano tuned in "natural" C major, but playing in E major is very far from the "harmonic" sound, and as I heard Smetana for example used this to express transcendence and mysticism. In some orchestras the vioiines are tuned to say 12 cents sharp, which gives them brilliance and tenor, and an orchestra is a sum of very different instruments with therefore slight dissonances, and to experiment with different keys is interesting. I have to excuse my poor English, but hopefully my thoughts are understandable :-).
wow interesting !
It’s the Pythagorean comma that’s make the difference between keys. Since this fallacy in harmonics, after the introduction of the well tempered tuning, only C major was clear. All the other keys have a slightly different temperament depending on how far away their scale is from C major. Since this effects the intervals within the scale only, the absolute pitch doesn’t matter, at least for the normal listener without absolute pitch. Nevertheless, (s)he will hear the differences in the intervals and interpret them even unconsciously like different moods, though not as drastic as between major and minor. This by the way is also the reason why in music before Bach‘s era, the key was nearly of no importance. The musicians always take the scale with the best harmonics independent of the starting pitch. For the organ this was not possible and thus the absolute pitch and key came into play. Interestingly, with the introduction of the equal temperament, the key became less important, as you may see in the key distribution pattern of the late 19th century composers. In the 20th century the key-based harmonic system collapsed in the Twelve-tone technique by Schönberg.
A very interesting essay! In my experience as a pianist, I would say there is absolutely a sonic difference between a piece played in Db vs. D natural, for example. Now, that difference may in fact just be due to the "general bias", as you are saying -- the bias was literally built into the very mechanics that our instrument makers created to produce the sound of our instruments.
Have you heard of the Janko piano? All keys have the same fingering.
That third one really relates to me cause I do feel different characters in different keys. And that’s even in equal temperament.
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Agreed. Saying that it's unimportant that a piece is written in E or F is like saying it's unimportant that an abstract painting is painted in greens rather than blues. One deals with frequencies in the audio spectrum, one deals with frequencies in the visual spectrum, and I don't see why one should have inherent affective associations and the other shouldn't.
@@DeflatingAtheism Exactly. Why should colors have associations, but keys not have anything associated with them? What’s wrong with me associating F major with flowing water or C minor with the entire emotional spectrum or D major with regal majesty? I don’t see anything wrong with that.
@@DeflatingAtheism It's not the actual key but the position on the instruments that really matter. Often when a piece is arranged for a different instrument it will be transposed. For example Mozart's oboe concerto in C was adapted to the flute concerto in D. This is why in modern songs the key is usually not a point that is discussed much since it would be chosen to fit the singer's register break.
@@maxxiong Oh, I’m well aware of this. There’s a reason Bach violin pieces that heavily use triple and quadruple stops are heavily weighted towards the keys of G or D major or minor. But art has always been about balancing countervailing considerations, and in spite of this, a correlation between keys and affects is still discernible.
I think of the Adagio of Beethoven’s 9th, where he continually modulates from Bb to the key of D minor, to use the open strings of the intro to the first movement. I suspect the necessity of modulating between these two keys became part of the musical grammar of the piece (it would be much more conventional to have F or A major as the antipodal key to a piece in D minor,) and Beethoven’s mastery lies in taking something _necessary_ and making it seem like the optimal artistic choice.
One important point is that in pythogrean / just intonation, the scale changes as you shift the root note. Eg DMinor and C minor will sound slightly different
Thanks for playing the pastorale at a meaningful tempo.
Have been searching for this since last eternity
Great video!
Interesting topic. I write in whatever key comes into my head for any melody, and modulate to wherever the music takes me. Sometimes transposition works, but more often than not it just doesn't feel right.
I don't really buy the idea that D is brighter because it has two sharps in it. Those notes are the same intervals from the tonic as the corresponding notes in any other key. They're no brighter per se.
Well, that is mathematically logical. But induction, intuition and counter-intuition have sunk many a ship on wine-dark equations.
I have a very insensitive ear, never caring for great acoustics or the fine points of orchestration, and yet I definitely, with a sense of certainty, hear G, D and A Major as clear, bright territory, almost aggressively confident. In contrast, Bb, Eb and Ab are stolid or melancholy to my ear, often elegantly nostalgic or autumnal. I think there are effects that cannot be utterly justified or dismissed by surface logic alone. The biology of sense and perception, processed in the dark, wet labyrinths of the temporal and occipital lobes by way the the ventral and dorsal streams have secrets not yet shared with us. Better to keep our encephalic windows open and our search engines running, and avoid the reflexive drift to work-from-home, early-to-close archival library until then.
@@prototropo When you describe how these keys sound are you referring to how their major scales sound?
It's because D is just higher than C
@@maxxiong D is lower than C too.. .depending on the octave
Fascinating subject.
Enjoyed the video thanks. I think C being “the first” scale applies primarily to the piano which for some reason is color coded to it. AFAIK Violin beginners start with D and G major as those are easier to play in terms of finger positions.
Thank you an excellent review. I always have in mind a remark by a Sax teacher "why do you often find you are playing C# over the guitarist's favourite key of A or E. Also why is so much jazz written in the flat keys - Bb aerophones perhaps 🙂
Very interesting video, thank you for explaining this to us. :)
Great Vid very interesting thanks!
Very important as well is to notice that tuning variated a lot during the centuries and the today's "well tempered" doesn't even match the Bach's well tempered. So actually there is a bit more to this subject than just having C as harmonical home base and labeling all keys equally. Even on a well tempered piano E Flat minor sounds different, feels different, than e.g. e minor.
Yep, flutes used to be built with d major as its basic scale, so it tended to sound best in that key if you want a bright loud sound. Alternatively if you want a more introspective gentler sound you could use f major, c major or B-flat major but those are less common for flute music.
I now want to hear Beethoven’s 5th as it was back in the day.
An important thing that wasn't quite discussed here: many instruments, especially woodwinds, are much harder to play in pitch the further away from their "tonal center" you get. This is why most wind orchestra pieces tend to be written in keys around B flat and E flat. Standard wind orchestra instrumentation has a lot of instruments in B flat and E flat (clarinets, trumpets, saxophones), so the more you get towards scales in sharps, the more problematic intonation becomes, especially for non-professional ensembles. Having a wind orchestra play in pitch in E Major is quite a challenge.
Interesting that the Violin Strings G D A E are the reverse of the bottom four on the Guitar E A D G.
I learned from a MelBay Book and the first scale was C but the first little piece it used to get your fingers going was in G or at least the few notes it had contained a F#.
A few have mentioned it, the change from the "well tempered" division of the Octave to "equal tempered" changed everything, composers work from prior to that is not played right on modern instruments. It also made fretted instruments possible or at least more functional and versatile. And the ability to change keys has added a lot of options and Dynamics to composing Music.
G seems to be the favorite Key of Rock Guitarists, with A and E a distant second. I love the Cm scale, not sure if it's because there are really no open strings (only two, the D And G, the E, A, B, and e are not in the scale) so it sounds "exotic" compared to all the songs I learned prior which were mostly in Keys with Sharps.
Great video. Why doesn’t this have 1mm views?
B-flat major and A-flat major are my favorites.
Most great composers had/have perfect (absolute) pitch - so they “hear” the entire composition in their minds a certain way in a certain key, and any other key just sounds “wrong”.
In piano it is sometimes advantageous to the piece. Thinking of Chopin Prelude #16 B♭Minor or the 18th F Minor or Rachmaninoff's Prelude No 9 E♭ Minor). Certain aspects of these are "easier" in certain keys - runs, jumps, crossings, chromatic pieces, speed, etc
As for "favorites", entirely subjective. B♭Minor, G ♯ Minor, C ♯ Major and D♭Major are favorites probably because they are frequently used by Rach, Chopin and other Romantic composers.
Yes! I think Chopin was one of the people that understood that the most - a lot of his music just "fits" under your hand better than that of other piano composers
Each instrument has a range of notes it can play, so if you put the same tune in a different key, maybe that instrument could no longer play it and you'd have to change your tune. Same for the choir. Each of Treble, Alto, Tenor and Bass have a fixed range of notes that they can comfortably sing, and changing the key could mean completely reharmonising everything. Also some early instruments (bugle, some trumpets) can only play open notes, i.e. harmonics. So if you're using those instruments, you have to fit to the single key they can play in. Also if you choose some crazy key with loads of sharps or flats, or really inconvenient or awkward to play on certain instruments, the players will really hate you. So the key is a massive compromise between loads of factors.
Historically, trumpet and horn players got around key changes by using crooks to change the fundamental pitch of their instruments, allowing access to different harmonic series that match the current key of the music. This is the origin of trumpet and horn being transposing instruments, i.e., the written music is transposed to match the instrument rather than the music being written to match actual concert pitch.
The reason for composers rarely using b lies with the old tuning system. Baroque pianos were simply not tuned to play in that key. It had the worst fifth and was therefore avoided. The jarring dissonances caused by this also lead to b minor being heavily associated with death and is was hence reserved for that purpose and used sparingly. This tradition of connotation/prejudice then influenced later generations of composers even though they had the means to realize it seemlessly.
Is baroque piano the same as baroque bicycle?
@@martinh1277 what???
5:43 I don't sit well with these synthesia colors probably because those vary uniquely from person to person.
Human voice sounds better with flats, instead of sharps. You can find that in many operas and modern musicals, as well. Many composers understood that… think of a tennor that has to play a high F Sharp… would be much easier to play a G flat… can be a simple state of the mind, but works!
I read somewhere that Chopin, when teaching piano, always preferred to start with B major as he felt the hand naturally and easily played the key, whereas C major was reserved for more advanced level as it is more difficult to play evenly and also lacks the pattern of the black keys that can help guide a musician's hands without looking down. Personally, I'm inclined to agree. B is such an easy key on the hands. Chopin was quite fond of other keys that used the black keys prominently, especially A-flat, B, C# minor, and D-flat. Shostakovich's string quartets were all over the circle of fifths, but he got most of the "distant" keys in. I love his string quartets!
Affects for keys started in the baroque era, before the 19th century and before equal temperament was a thing. Also, for instance, Messiaen, had synesthesia and truly did experience different notes and keys as different colors and that influenced what and how he composed.
I think keys might often be used to hommage to other works as well. Such as our seeing Eb major being a heroic key thanks to Beethoven's Eroica symphony. For me personally the choice has always been rather arbitrary. Just picking a key you feel like and finding ways to make it work is a part of the creative process.
E-flat is coming to awareness, and therefore imparts discovery. I see (hear) E-flat as a golden yellow.
Thank you for the video. I totally disagree with keys not having particular feelings. As I play my instruments, there is absolutely very specific moods to certain keys. Obviously the timbre of the particular instrument has a lot to do with that but none the less, keys have strong shades of moods.
Completely agree. Just play in B minor vs Eb minor. Completely different mood.
- it’s a compromise to have equal temperament in all 12 keys - different keys have subtle differences internally between intervals. You just can’t get perfect mathematical divisions across them all. Some are “darker” or “brighter” or just different. That’s why there are so many different temperaments. It’s not some random thing composers do…
I have noticed that it is possible to transpose a piece of music to a point where it is unplayable or un singable for some parts of the orchestra or choir. So in that respect key is important.
Chords are built from the notes of a scale, which follows a fixed pattern of intervals e.g. for major scale: whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. So the key really shouldn't matter, only the scale type.
i've always loved beethoven's 7th smphony
The background music at the beginning of this video: “Herr Unser Herrscher” Bach’s St. John Passion BWV 245. Absolutely amazing and incredible opening. Thanks
Thanks for the info, I was wondering what that was.
D major is my favorite key to sing in. Middle C is right in the middle of my rather clunky passaggio. I can choose to sing it in chest voice, head voice, or falsetto, and none is ideal. In D I can sing B in chest voice and C# in head voice, and skip over C.
Before the introduction of equal temperament, different keys did sound different. Hence the Doctrine of Affects.
I’m a violinist, and D major was my first scale, since it is the violin’s best key.
You forgot a Major reason: the temperament, which is establishet from C Major. So through the sytematic use of continuo with a keaboard until end of 18th has hugely infkuenced the perception of keys.
In America The 1812 overture became a hit in the 1960s, and one of the most well known pieces of classical music...why?...It was used in a popular tv commercial. The words to the jingle were "This is the cereal that shot from guns"
I personally found the keys C minor and F minor tonally pleasing to my ears. However, the keys C Major and A minor are the easiest to learn on both the piano and the guitar as these keys are the stepping stones to scale(so to speak) other keys
We have it on good authority (Tufnel) that "D minor is the saddest of all keys." On a serious note (pun intended) my suspicion is that Chopin and others wrote so many piano pieces in sharp or flat keys (B major excepted) because most pianists find the black keys physically easier and more comfortable to play than just white keys. I may be wrong, but as a somewhat proficient, but by no means expert amateur pianist, I've always found this the case. (And D minor, which uses only the white keys, is easy and fun to mess around with, but actually not too comfortable to play.)
The last time I looked at D minor there was a B flat in there.
@@soaringvulture Phryigian and Aeolian, true, but not Dorian, which is what I meant and is easiest to visualize and sounds good, but is uncomfortable to play.
But on further thought, each key perhaps is unique. As a young keyboardist and confirmed Doors fan, "Light My Fire" was clearly played with A flat minor to F natural minor. This complicated the fingering, but, nevertheless, was what sounded right. Although this was apparent and obvious to a teen-aged amateur like me, it apparently required a credentialed professional to "discover" decades later that the original recording as released in '67 somehow ended up a half step flat. Still today, and even though the song has be re-released with the intended "proper" intonation (i.e., A minor to F sharp minor) I still prefer the original intonation as released in '67, and can instantly hear the difference. Maybe keys are unique after all.
I learned that Dm was the saddest key of all from Spinal Tap.
It's even sadder with the volume turned to 11...
@@enjoyclassicalmusic6006 ...and listening in Dobly.
You mentioned Equal temperament. When did it come into fashion? And what was in fashion before? Could it be that that change needs to be understood before understanding why particular keys are preferred by various composers (and why A is different today than it was long ago)?
0:35 I was blindsided when I recognized the album cover of my college piano professor! Dr. Tak I hope you see this sometime
What is that piece that starts off the video? Sent a chill down my spine when I heard it!
I believe that between a given pitch (in the written notes) and the permanent memory called "the absolute ear" there is a sediment of many compositions we have heard. Therefore, if we have an inspiration of a motive, we should - if we can manage two things at once? - to write it down, or better: to sing it into a dictaphone, and then to investigate which pitch was the first. Since I consider the pitch of an inspiration to be part of the inspiration. That due to the wide sediment in our soul, by choosing just THIS pitch (irrationally, yet exactly) we include ourselves among all the history.
Say, if you have a Db inspiration, there can be something of Janáček. In the same time if you are usually depressed of h-minor, nothing would help Bach's flute suite with Badinerie, or even to The cello concert...
I do believe that pastoral is F: it is a white-civilizational act of faith. On the other hand I do not understand Janáček's syncretic synaesthesia of G dur - green tree, C dur - white linen. These I consider fully subjective.
There can be also a synaesthesia which is a ""mixed colours behind a rich-chromatical music". It is not specified concerning the pitches, yet provoked by the musical chromatism: the colour atmosphere of the musical chromatism.
One highly probable reason G and D are so prevalent is honestly just pure ease of playing or laziness on the part of the composer. Many of these composers started on violin or cello and G and D major are the first keys you learn and are the easiest to play.
I own an old Arthur Seybold violin school from about 1900. He starts with C-Major. At that time the technique and the grasping was not looked upon as the most important thing, it was theoretical knowledge. About 25 years later it changed. This goes for Germany.
Great video! What's the music playing at the beginning with organ and choir?
One other practical consideration here just has to be the ease of writing down the tune. A few accidentals here and there are one thing, a bunch of double-sharps or double-flats make things a lot more confusing.
I usually just use C major and A minor since those are the notes that are highlighted on my music making software.
In thumbnail - Beethoven, whose choose was just simply: 50% times, C Minor!
(Just was joking...)
I anyway like a lot modal composition, which also expands the choice not only to a key/tonal centre, but also to lots of scales: twelve modes (Glarean's traditional "Dodekachordon") multiplied by twelve possible keys also sounds very nice, it's a perfect square.
Generally, the more skilled the players you're writing for, the more freedom you have with regards to key.
I think another factor for 3 is that many - though far from all - composers had absolute/perfect pitch, and built associations with particular noted that most of us do not and in fact cannot. Scriabin also had colour-tone synaesthesia, and arrogantly assumed this was objective.
Not just classical, contemporary pop/rock also use Cmaj a lot of the time with Cmaj, Dmaj, Gmaj, Amaj, Emaj being most common. Obviously this is Cmaj from the piano white keys, then all the open strings on a guitar are related to the other scales. Like you mentioned at the end Bmaj is not very popular at 19th place.