Whites vs Blacks

Please help me to understand the purpose of piano music being in anything besides C major or A minor, if the piano is used as a solo instrument... (baring special cases like Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier)... Thanks. :toothygrin:

Haha, people are soooooooo going to get the wrong idea from this thread title. That's probably the intention too :P

Different keys convey different moods, allow for different ranges, permit accompaniment by different instruments, allow composers to compose in keys that 'feel' different (and hence yield different compositions) and also used to (at least until the Romantic period) have traditional assosciations (although this was more important in orchestral works). D major, for example, was a key assosciated with festivities and feasting, whilst C major denoted pomp, ceremony, celebration and grandeur.

These are just a handful of ideas.

The simple answer is....not everyone wants to hear something in C Major/A Minor all the time. A Minor is personally my least favorite key of them all (Major and Minor) and I have yet to write anything for it. Different keys produce different sounds. I personally like Db Major on the piano.

P.S. Clever title. I love it. :P

Please help me to understand the purpose of piano music being in anything besides C major or A minor, if the piano is used as a solo instrument... (baring special cases like Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier)... Thanks. :toothygrin:

Well, you have a good point saying that anything besides A minor and C major are just transpositions of the same two scales. That is in fact the case. In the major-minor tonal system there are only two scales, and the set of harmonies are fixed.

The idea is that you modulate (transpose) during a piece to give the impression of variation, or give the piece a form (as form is defined by tonality in the classical forms.)

There is no real reason at all to compose in anything other than C major or A minor except to apply a classical form which depends on modulation, or to give the impression you're mixing things up. There are also traditions and concepts that vary wildly depending where you read as to what keys "mean" what, or what "character" they have. It's entirely cultural with no actual ground in the music its referring to.

That is to say, there's no real reason to believe D minor is any different than A minor except that it's transposed. There's no difference in anything else except the transposition. Any qualities attributed to any keys beyond the fact they're either major or minor and are transposed is purely taste and opinion.

I hope this clears it up somewhat.

I wish to expand on SSC's comment about the different feels of keys. As he said, the different feelings conveyed by different keys are created purely in the minds of composers and listeners. The explanation is simple: those of us without perfect pitch can't tell what key a piece is in just by listening to it. If you played Bach's C major prelude in F# major, 99% of us would never know. Furthermore, historically, the standard tunings have been different: for instance, the tunings in Germany in Beethoven's time were much lower than our current standard tuning. Thus, their C major was not our C major; it wasn't even close.

Now, the conclusion to draw is not that all keys sound the same: it is simply that the different sounds that keys possess are a psychological phenomenon, not one with any acoustic basis.

Also, I would suggest that using different keys is helpful partially because it makes things more interesting for performers. Gives them some variety. I know that when I play piano, Eb major feels very different under the fingers than does C major or F major. It's nice to mix things up.

Well, apart from the sound there often also are technical reasons. Some things are more comfortable to play in one key than another. C major and A minor for example give you much less orientation on the keyboard, as you can feel less contour because of the absence of black keys. Runs or arpeggi are often more comfortable when there's a black key at the "right place" too.

And then, when it comes to sound, quite aside from "key characteristics" and all this stuff (which I find a little dubious with equal temperament), you might want to find the right register for your piece. Say you have a melody starting on a G in C major, but it sounds too low and not brilliant enough if you use G4, but too high and thin if you use G5, writing your piece in G major and starting with a D5 might be just right.

The actual difference between very closely located keys such as Dd and C is less clearly definable and may to a great degree simply be psychological (and influenced by traditions). I'm not sure if people without absolute pitch really could tell the same piece played in C major and Dd major apart, if it was tested statistically with a piano perfectly tuned in equal temperament. (I'm certain however that many of us, even without absolute pitch, could tell C major and F# major apart, simply because of the different registers. I don't have absolute pitch, but I can usually name a note with a precision of plus or minus one whole tone.)

Dd major and C major still "feel" vastly different for me when I compose or improvise, but that's probably just psychological.

First of all, even if Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven agreed to write all of their piano music in C major, I doubt Schoenberg would.

Additionally, certain lines are actually easier when put in keys other than C major. A line may be perfectly playable in Bb major, but would be nearly impossible in C.

And yes, different keys have different moods. For example, D minor is the saddest of all keys. :D

First of all, even if Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven agreed to write all of their piano music in C major, I doubt Schoenberg would.

If you define C major as the key without key signatures then the majority of Sch

If you define C major as the key without key signatures then the majority of Sch

It sounds to me like you're asking why we even bother with the black keys on a piano? If that's the question or part of the question, it's because they allow for more possibilities. If you're playing in C major you can still throw sharps in there to spice things up so even if you never felt the need to write in any other key you could still find use for the black keys.

This image shows 30-degree incremental changes in color hues, with all other information (luminance) preserved. So why not just use one color hue? Is the difference only psychological?

The same reason why you'd write in differnt keys on any other instrument. ;)

Another thing, even though it's already been brought up: Different keys "feel" different under the hands. While keys with lots of black keys are harder to read, especially for a mediocre player like myself, I feel a lot better improvising or playing a piece I already know in a black-note key.

This image shows 30-degree incremental changes in color hues, with all other information (luminance) preserved. So why not just use one color hue? Is the difference only psychological?

Well, you can only vaguely compare visual memory with acustic memory. Most people have "absolute colour vision" in the sense that we can recognize a blue as a blue without any reference colour (within limits and of course the borders to other colours aren't strict). Most of us can't however recognize a C without any reference tone.

every frequency is different.

case closed.

I'm pretty sure that unless you're stoned, hearing two hours of music in C major can get extremely fatiguing on the ears.

Frequency. One of the fundamental tenants of sound is that every object produces a unique frequency. If piano music was written only C only gives you 8 Hz to work with. It isn't just subjective that different keys have different sounds. It's physical.

Even though the interval between frequencies may be the same, depending on where you start and end, you produce different sounds overall.

Case closed? Haha.

LOL, transposition. LOL, harmony.

Frequencies? Oh rly? As Gardener pointed out, with equal temperament it's very difficult to claim there's really any objective difference between keys in terms of soundwaves EXCEPT for the transposition. I already said this.

Harmony ensures, in the classical sense of "keys" and "tonality" that each key has the same type of intervals/sound relationships, so really, it's all pretty much the same.

Hearing something in "c major" implies functional harmony, tonal centers, ETC. But something in "C major" can be all sorts of things, and even if you have 8 hz (?????) to work with, that's a ton of possibilities. Then again, if you count from middle C to the octave above it, and use EVERY frequency in between beyond the 8 notes of the "scale" you can do a huge number of things. But that ain't C major anymore, is it?

You can alter the tuning of instruments and transpose into non-traditional/usual scale frequencies (assuming we're talking about A 440 tuning). In fact if you tune equal temperament in different frequencies altogether you can effectively "transpose" the entire system steps above or below where it is. The difference? Not much beyond the transposition.

The only case where keys have different actual sound relationships is in old tuning systems. If you something is tuned natural (perfect 5ths, etc) and you play outside of the intended key you'll end up with really different sound relationships (6ths being dissonant, etc.) That's why old instruments would be tuned "in a key" and playing outside of it (or its immediate neighbors) was somewhat jarring if not impossible altogether.

Hence, why 6ths and 3rds are considered "Imperfect consonances", there was a time where the tuning system made them sound quasi-dissonant. Furthermore, they were considered dissonances altogether before that.

So, is playing in D major different than playing in C major? Sure, it's a little higher in pitch. ...And that's about it. If you take into account what type of tuning, it may have more differences, but in our modern tuning system, no.

Well, we're talking about piano, and if you digitally transpose a piano sonata from F# major to C major, it will sound different than if the pianist just plays everything a tritone away. In that sense, different keys (ranges, really, but they're implied) do have different sounds.

And let's not forget about the folks with perfect pitch. Different keys sure as scraggy sound different to them.

Well, we're talking about piano, and if you digitally transpose a piano sonata from F# major to C major, it will sound different than if the pianist just plays everything a tritone away. In that sense, different keys (ranges, really, but they're implied) do have different sounds.

And let's not forget about the folks with perfect pitch. Different keys sure as scraggy sound different to them.

While that may be true, there may be a difference, how much of a difference is there?

Is that margin of difference enough to warrant claiming that it produces an audible and clearly recognizable effect, or is it exaggerating that it has any real consequence? That's my problem with all this "key character" bullshit, if there IS a difference, it's so minute it's negligible at best.

As far as I'm concerned, if we take people with perfect pitch as reference, we'd be excluding the vast majority of people (not to mention major composers.) So, that's out of the question.

This isn't quite correct.

The comment that all scales sounded identical in Bach's day is certainly untrue. The 48 were written for the 'well-tempered' scale, and whilst there's been a deal of debate as to what exactly this might mean, it certainly was not equal temperament. Thus the difference between notes in each scale would have been subtly yet noticeably different from key to key. Whilst well-tempered tuning allows all scales to be played without music sounding terribly out-of-tune, it makes thirds intermittently different from key to key. This phenomenon goes some way in explaining the preponderance of connections regarding keys in the baroque and classical corpus (such as purported similarities in the choices of keys in Bach, Mozart and Haydn).

As a result, before even temperament was developed, all keys *did* sound slightly different.

As a result, before even temperament was developed, all keys *did* sound slightly different.

But we'll never really be sure, will we? The tuning systems from Bach's time are all but gone along with any real way to know how they were done. There's no way to historically prove Bach's music sounded in one way or another, and the same can be said of a lot of things the further back you go.

So, barring that argument, it's still the same thing I said. Different tuning systems mean different note relationships not just simple transposition. But to what extent, and what effect, can only be speculated. It also certainly doesn't apply to the OP's question, as it deals with the present condition of tuning, not historical reconstructions.

Yes. Admittedly we'll never be sure quite what Bach's tuning was (he probably encountered a fair few traipsing around Germany), but it can be said with some certainty that it was not equal. Precise equal temperament was not invented until the early 19th-century. Furthermore, whilst we obviously have no period recordings, there are surviving sets of tuned bells, tuning forks and organ pipes from the baroque period which provide a lot of information on tunings, as well as several treatises on tuning stringed instruments.

This passage from wikipedia sums up the state of affairs rather neatly, and supports your notion that we can't really be sure about the 'moods' of various keys:

J. S. Bach wrote The Well-Tempered Clavier to demonstrate the musical possibilities of well temperament, where in some keys the consonances are even more degraded than in equal temperament. It is reasonable to believe that when composers and theoreticians of earlier times wrote of the moods and "colors" of the keys, they each described the subtly different dissonances made available within a particular tuning method. However, it is difficult to determine with any exactness the actual tunings used in different places at different times by any composer. (Correspondingly, there is a great deal of variety in the particular opinions of composers about the moods and colors of particular keys.)

Equal temperament - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

While that may be true, there may be a difference, how much of a difference is there?

Is that margin of difference enough to warrant claiming that it produces an audible and clearly recognizable effect, or is it exaggerating that it has any real consequence? That's my problem with all this "key character" bullshit, if there IS a difference, it's so minute it's negligible at best.

As far as I'm concerned, if we take people with perfect pitch as reference, we'd be excluding the vast majority of people (not to mention major composers.) So, that's out of the question.

Actually, the proportion of major composers with perfect pitch is much greater than that of the general population.

I also do think that the difference between keys is noticeable. I don't have perfect pitch, but way more than 8.3% of the time can I identify the key of a piece.

Spherenine, the perfect pitch ratio isn't that surprising, but it's worth considering that the differences between keys which used to exist (and now do not with equal temperament) may have made perfect pitch an easier skill to come by. That, for example, the key of B minor seems to have been particularly important to Bach's religious compositions might be accountable to these differences in keys that that he had perfect pitch (which we don't know). In hindsight, it's very difficult to tell whether composers before the 19th-century did have what would be described as absolute pitch, unless we have explicit documentary evidence.

Musicologists still argue over the inconsequential detail of whether Mozart had perfect pitch.