What key are we in?

[Bobby G]

I can understand why some tunes are more suited to alto, or tenor etc, but why would it matter what key you play the tune in? I'm asking this having read mfox's opinion that 'Ipanema' sounds better in the original Db rather than the current vogue for playing it in F.

Is it something to do with it sounding better in the range of the horn when played two tones lower in Db; does the timbre suit the melody and style of the tune any better than if it's played in F?

Cheers, Bob

 

[jersey_mike]

Very good question here. I've read that some keys sound better than others, but have never seen it explained as to why or how.

 

[saxplayer67]

Yes, some keys suit a tune better and usually the composer of a tune finds the right one. But when playing a solo instrument like sax, it may sound better being transposed. Also, in some of the sheet music books and playalongs like 'Guest Spot', they are transposed to be played more easily on sax. The more keys you can play a tune in though, the better - hence learning scales.

 

[bobk]

Just to return the 'why?' part of the question - is the preference for one key over another due to temperament (intonationan necessarilly being a bit of a compromise) or pitch (a tune might just suit being played low) or (at least on a sax) which intervals span an octave or something else?

 

[old_git]

A number of needs here
1) Suitable range for the voice
2) Suitable range for the instrument
3) Some classicist claim that each key has a different emotion, others claim that this does not occur in equal temperament scales but is hear-able in mathematically correct scales.
4) Me? Dunno. But blues scales do sound sad.
Bill.

 

[bobk]

I've heard the claim before that different keys of the same type (e.g. Gmaj vs Emaj) convey different emotions. As a psychologist I find this quite interesting. I doubt there can be any basis in experience for associating keys with emotions so this seems to be something akin to synaesthesia in which different sounds evoke arbitary, but consistent, colour sensations.

 

[Bobby G]

Synaesthesia goes beyond sounds evoking colours, it can involve transference between any sense, e.g. hearing smells, tasting colours etc. Ask any ex-acid head 😉

I don't know if certain keys evoke certain emotions (unless it is something to do with the Pythagoric versus equal temperament scales or intervals), maybe it's that certain keys have come to represent certain emotions.

From what Bill is saying, which I suspect is true, whether a tune sounds better in a certain key probably depends on the timbre of the instrument - while it's possible to play 'Ipanema' in several keys (in my case, several keys at once), it just 'sounds' better at a lower pitch, which better evokes that languid heat-haze feel.

Cheers, Bob

 

[bobk]

Sure, synaesthesia can involve crosstalk between any pair of senses - I was just using the pitch-colour example because it seemed relevant here. I have, however, seen some data on colour-key (not pitch) associations and I'd be interested in seeing if it could be tied together with emotion-key associations...

cheers,

Bob

ps just in case you think your taxes are being wasted on this it's just a a little side amumsment - I really try to figure out what goes wrong in the brains people with brain injuries that causes specific impairments to vision...

 

[saxplayer67]

I did some research into music and the brain, which touched on such esoterica (published as Music and the Brain' in an issue of the Goldsmith Film Music Society;'s journal 'Legend' a few years ago).

Music by itself is not 'sad' or 'happy', it is more how we interpret it, whether individually or otherwise.

Some people see each musical note as a 'colour', which aids them in 'perfect pitch', others hear the subtle differences in tonal colour between each note. I think the saxophone's tonal characteristics aid in the identification of 'which note is which' more readily; mind you, guitarists etc. may say the same thing.

But it is true that if one hears a tune played in a different key, even if they don't know the tune inside out, it may sound 'off' to them, which is also a personal thing because after all, a tune is just made up of a series of notes with intervals between and as long as you use the same intervals as the 'original', just start with a different note it will still be the same tune. Then we get back to if it's a 'note friendly key' to say, a saxophonist.

 

[jersey_mike]

So can we say that the main reason that a certain song or phrase sounds 'brighter', 'darker', 'duller', etc. on some major keys than on other major keys is that you may be at the upper range or lower range of the instruments playing?

I'm not competent enough to be playing whole songs in all 12 keys, but I have played 2-4 bar phrases in all keys and the difference seems to be that certain notes naturally sound better on tenor than other notes. Maybe the better players can make a D2 sound as good as F2 or A2, but I'm not one of them.

Also, would certain songs sound better with lower or higher notes than middle notes or vice versa? That would explain a lot as well.

How this all fits on piano eludes me though.

 

[old_git]

Having seen bobk admit to being a trick cyclists put me off posting, but hell what with the cataracts, incipient deafness, the stiffened joints, the only thing stiffened incidentally, I wouldn't even notice if he sectioned me. 🙁

bobk, maybe this is widening the thread, but do you have any theories why the pentatonic scale is known in all societies? Could it be that the perfect intervals create a reaction that the equal tempered scales do not simply because of the mathematics? The Golden Mean seems pleasing to Europeans and possibly the rest of the World population and that is a mathematical ratio. Are we hardwired to prefer certain ratios over others?
Bill.

 

[old_git]

Having seen bobk admit to being a trick cyclists put me off posting, but hell what with the cataracts, incipient deafness, the stiffened joints, the only thing stiffened incidentally, I wouldn't even notice if he sectioned me. 🙁

bobk, maybe this is widening the thread, but do you have any theories why the pentatonic scale is known in all societies? Could it be that the perfect intervals create a reaction that the equal tempered scales do not simply because of the mathematics? The Golden Mean seems pleasing to Europeans and possibly the rest of the World population and that is a mathematical ratio. Are we hardwired to prefer certain ratios over others?
Bill.

 

[saxplayer67]

All this talk about discovering new or mutated genes, there's probably a musical one waiting to be 'discovered' by an overpaid scientist, that explains why the pentatonic scale is universal; likewise one to explain tone deafness and lack of rhythm and why one person has perfect pitch and another doesn't.

Thensomeone will patent these genes, like in Michael Crichton's latest novel, 'Next'... :laugh:

 

[Saxlicker]

So,

Making the question about emotions very general and more basic, slowing the thread down a bit.
I can't suss emotion in individual keys. Say when you shift a tune by a few tones for example. I agree though, that it may feel better suited in one or the other.

But what I do feel is tunes written in a minor key generally feel sadder than those written in Major keys but thats as close as I get.

With regard to a blues key....? Dunno ... as Blues is all about emotions its just strange how different artists can make a Bluesy number feel different emotionally than another.

 

[Bobby G]

Aha, the obesity gene, the one that has miraculously been discovered as having mutated (but from what?) at exactly the same time as large proportions of western society became over-indulgent slobs. 😉

What's the Golden Mean Bill? By the way, Bobk as a psychologist rather than a psychiatrist probably wouldn't be able to section you.

Cheers, Bob

 

[mfox]

i don't know why some tune sound would sound good in only a certain key.but its a fact that they do.
some tunes that i find only sound good in the origional key.
A train
midnight hour( yes wilson picket) dunno why it just dont sound soul in any other key but E
in a mellow tone
a night in Tunisia
a foggy day

then there are tunes that sound good in any key,
summertime i used to play summer time and transpose through most keys.
short stop being another..

 

[bobk]

I'm not a psychiatrist - I know about the anatomy and neurophysiology of the visual system, not mental illness, disorders of personality and so on. Psychiatrists are qualified medics - I'm not (and so can't section people, much as I might often like to).

If you are interested in figuring out how vision works then phenomena which involve crosstalk between vision other modalities can be quite useful objects of study. I don't really have any theories about the ubiquity of the pentatonic scale that would be any more informed than yours. I guess the core is likely to be in the physics of waves and resonance (so just going back to Pythagorus) because this is still the basis of sound frequency transduction in the inner ear. If genes have anything to do with it then they are the genes than control the growth of the inner ear spiral (actually the genes that control the production of some proteins that contol some chemical gradients that control... - pretty indirect thing genes).

The golden ratio is, I think, half of 1 + the square root of 5. It gets used in architecture a lot, usually unintentionally (it looks nice) and is also the ratio of the length to width in European standard paper sizes (A4,A5..). It has some nice mathematical properties - if the ratio of a:b is the golden ratio then so is the ratio of b🙁a+b) - this is why you can make all those A4,A5 etc sizes by cutting A3 in half again and again.

cheers,

underpaid scientist with some sympathy for C.P. Snow...

ps, I am now going to play my sax, in a little while I might go and work on some science

 

[Pete Thomas]

Could it be that very often the tune sounds best in the key you first learnt it in? e.g. I learnt Misty in Eb. Then when a singer needs to do it in F# my annoyance is what makes it sound worse.

 

[Bobby G]

Pete Thomas wrote:
Could it be that very often the tune sounds best in the key you first learnt it in? e.g. I learnt Misty in Eb. Then when a singer needs to do it in F# my annoyance is what makes it sound worse.

:laugh:

and welcome back Pete. How was Texas?


Also, One Step Beyond must be played on a tenor sax, in D Minor. Anything else just doesn't work.

Cheers, Bob

 

[Jules]

Surely a lot is down to, as said earlier, the timbre of certain horns in certain keys- Earl Bostic's version of nightrain, though faultlessly played- doesn't sound at all right because it lacks the power of the tenor's low Bb honk (in fact if you play it in- say A on a tenor it doesn't sound right either- it requires the bottom end power to work).
I tried playing a few Stanley Turrentine riffs in all 12 keys today- and the same thing, if they're not rooted in the very low notes- no banana....