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From: alves@aludra.usc.edu (William Alves)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: Addictive Keys??!??
Message-ID: <7267@chaph.usc.edu>
Date: 6 Jan 90 20:34:25 GMT
References: <136000003@peg> <1758@rex.cs.tulane.edu>
Sender: news@chaph.usc.edu
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
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In article <1758@rex.cs.tulane.edu> boswell@rex.UUCP (Albert Boswell) writes:
>In article <136000003@peg> calamari@peg.UUCP writes:
>>
>>       What would be  the psychological effect, if any, of
>>one key from another. OK that sounds pretty dumb, I know, but think
>>about it. I'm sure that studies have shown that any human ear can
>>recognise specific frequencies (sort of a universal perfect pitch if
>>you like :-) and also it's been shown that certain frequencies like
>>high sine waves can sedate parts of the mind , even at low volume.
>>
>
>    I know that certain composers are attracted to different keys
>    Beethoven loved Cm and E-flat as many of his famous works show.
>    Mozart's favorite pathos key was Gm I have read.

It is well known that many composers and theorists associated affectational
or emotive qualities with certain key centers, especially in the 18th
century. The trouble is, none of them could agree as to what those qualities
were. It certainly seems obvious that some composers associated certain
keys with similar pieces throughout their life. What is less obvious and 
often forgotten, though, is that these associations may not have always
been based on some mystical affinity of, say, D major with festiveness or
celebration (one of the most common associations found quoted in record
jacket notes).

For example, Bach's _Magnificat_ was written, like most of his celebratory
works at Leipzig, in D major. However, an earlier version of the piece at
Weimar (I believe) was in Eb. Why? Because those were the respective tunings
of trumpets made by local trumpet makers in the two cities. As trumpets are
most commonly used in festive pieces, D major, the most common key for the
baroque trumpet, became associated with that type of work. Furthermore, as
absolute pitch was not at all standardized, the actual frequency of a D 
might vary as much as a minor third each way depending on what city or church
you were in.

What was responsible for the different associations found in contemporary
writers was not so much absolute pitch as the differences in tunings of the
different keys. The interval of the major third, for example, would become
increasingly sharp in the tonic chord of the lesser-used keys in many of the
so-called "good" temperaments in use in the 18th century. This would defi-
nitly change the quality of a transposed piece. Neither these tuning sys-
tems nor listeners' associations with them were standardized, however, which
accounts for the differences between the various writers (and composers).

Today, equal temperament is standard, meaning that those intervallic dif-
ferences which accounted for the extra-musical associations in the 18th
century are gone. Nevertheless, people persist in applying these qualities
today (sharp keys are "bright", flat keys are "dark", D major is festive,
F major is pastoral, Eb major is stately). Aside from what I think is the
primary answer, that these associations are not inherent in the keys but
have been conditioned in that person's mind, there could be other possible
answers as to why a piece transposed to another key would have a different
quality:

The most important difference I think, is timbre. Because of the acoustics of 
instruments, a Bb clarinet, for example, would have different timbres for
notes transposed from a piece in Bb, say, to B. Likewise, if a piece were
transposed up a fifth, the instrument might be mostly in a new register
with a significantly different sound. If one were to experiment, as was
suggested earlier, by speeding up the sound electronically, the timbre
would also change, as anyone who has any experience with samplers knows.
Formants, or areas of resonance, are very important to timbre, especially
the voice, and if they are moved the timbre will change (whence the "chip-
munk" effect).

Bill Alves
USC School of Music / Center for Scholarly Technology