G Minor

[vinteuil]

Is it the physicality of playing in that key on the guitar?
or the actual sound?

and would the "G minor-ness" be diminished if you tuned to A=432 or A=452 etc etc

... in the days when I still played the keyboard I had a pertickler fondness for g minor - and even more for d minor - and I think in large part it was the feeling of the fingers around the keys that was so pleasant. M Gong² is on the money when querying whether there wd be such a relationship at different pitches - as an early music bod used to a range of pitches, the synaesthetic notion that certain keys have certain 'colours' etc becomes far too questionable...

And as for "perfect pitch"...

[Richard Tarleton]

Ever since the days of trying to play the guitar, I have been convinced that G minor is the "main sound for me".

What pieces, Lat-lit? A rare (and quite challenging) key on the guitar, no? Or was it the lack of Gmin on the guitar

[Lat-Literal]

What pieces, Lat-lit? A rare (and quite challenging) key on the guitar, no? Or was it the lack of Gmin on the guitar

Well, it is possible to play Albinoni's "Adagio" and also Bach's "Little Fugue" on the guitar but I was back at the Cuban "Malaguena" and the Russian "Dark Eyes" for a long while, neither of which strictly apply here. It was a point about some basic attempts at composition and going to the chord that best suited along with good impressions gained along the way from music I heard on the radio that turned out to be in G Minor. There is a lot of "new" music inside me that arises from time to time and the only way I could do anything with it would be to sing it directly onto tape. But it can be orchestral and very detailed with separate parts and I just don't think it would be possible even to do that successfully. Also, it is what has occurred during unusually long periods of silence and mostly there is music here when there isn't speech so it may well be an amalgam of things I've heard.

[Lat-Literal]

... in the days when I still played the keyboard I had a pertickler fondness for g minor - and even more for d minor - and I think in large part it was the feeling of the fingers around the keys that was so pleasant. M Gong² is on the money when querying whether there wd be such a relationship at different pitches - as an early music bod used to a range of pitches, the synaesthetic notion that certain keys have certain 'colours' etc becomes far too questionable...

And as for "perfect pitch"...

Many thanks for these informative comments which might well confirm it is merely a matter of impressionism. But I don't think there is any doubt - as an example - that musical blue is immediately recognizable. While it may be closer to an emotional blue than a visual blue I hear it as pitched between the two. That is not to say anything about G Minor necessarily, not least as if I had to put a colour to it, that colour would be green. And if I choose not to be ethereal, the reason may, alas, only be because "green" starts with a "g". What it isn't is the green of envy, nor is it a bucolic green but I do feel it has a distinctive and perhaps crisp emotional quality that is ostensibly musical and difficult to define.

[Keraulophone]

JSB and the late-lamented John Scott have this to say about G minor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y8mlNOftv0

[Lat-Literal]

JSB and the late-lamented John Scott have this to say about G minor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y8mlNOftv0

I take the point.

Maybe we should return to the lists!

[Richard Tarleton]

Well, it is possible to play Albinoni's "Adagio" and also Bach's "Little Fugue" on the guitar but I was back at the Cuban "Malaguena" and the Russian "Dark Eyes" for a long while, neither of which strictly apply here.

With top and bottom strings tuned to E (in basic tuning), all those E flats can be hard work - being basically lazy I steer clear of pieces with 2 or more flats. But there are few enough of them anyway - of Sor's 138 studies (for example) only 4 are in key signatures of 2 or 3 flats.

[Lat-Literal]

With top and bottom strings tuned to E (in basic tuning), all those E flats can be hard work - being basically lazy I steer clear of pieces with 2 or more flats. But there are few enough of them anyway - of Sor's 138 studies (for example) only 4 are in key signatures of 2 or 3 flats.

You are a lot more advanced than me, RT, and I have all of the manual dexterity of a monkey. Anything other than being in a bizarre audio-visual dreamworld can sometimes be a challenge. The box is "a strong feel for music" broadening out to "art appreciation". The title of this thread is an odd exercise in bravery. You over-estimate me. Thank you anyhow!

[Dave2002]

M Gong² is on the money when querying whether there wd be such a relationship at different pitches - as an early music bod used to a range of pitches, the synaesthetic notion that certain keys have certain 'colours' etc becomes far too questionable... :

Doesn't the "colouration" from each key really come from the tuning system used? Most of us probably can't tell pitches to within +/- 5 Hz in an absolute sense - though we might notice quite easily with a reference tone. I'm talking about maybe +/- 1% - significantly less than a semitone. Yet composers of earlier times would certainly have been aware of the different effects of different keys if they used instruments - particularly keyboard instruments - where compromises in tuning had to be made. It is possible that the "characteristic" qualities of each key in composers' minds derived from an awareness (perhaps subconscious) of the imperfections of the tuning systems used. There might be other factors, such as that some instruments have a different tonal quality in different parts of their register, and I suppose the combined effect of the factors could also affect composers, and in turn listeners. Composers might have exploited tonal differences across different parts of instruments range for particular effects, and this could also vary with the keys in which pieces were written.

[vinteuil]

Doesn't the "colouration" from each key really come from the tuning system used? .

... I think that different tuning systems (ie not equal temperament) could well be a source of notions of 'colour' attached to certain keys.

There is also the fact that, say, a string piece in a key which makes more prominent use of open strings - or a natural horn piece with different qualities on stopped or unstopped notes in a particular key, will give a particular feel to a scale depending on the key in question.

On a modern well-regulated piano with equal temperament it is more of a problem to think where any 'colours' in a key might come from.

[MrGongGong]

Doesn't the "colouration" from each key really come from the tuning system used? Most of us probably can't tell pitches to within +/- 5 Hz in an absolute sense - though we might notice quite easily with a reference tone. I'm talking about maybe +/- 1% - significantly less than a semitone. Yet composers of earlier times would certainly have been aware of the different effects of different keys if they used instruments - particularly keyboard instruments - where compromises in tuning had to be made. It is possible that the "characteristic" qualities of each key in composers' minds derived from an awareness (perhaps subconscious) of the imperfections of the tuning systems used. There might be other factors, such as that some instruments have a different tonal quality in different parts of their register, and I suppose the combined effect of the factors could also affect composers, and in turn listeners. Composers might have exploited tonal differences across different parts of instruments range for particular effects, and this could also vary with the keys in which pieces were written.

I think the idea that keys have characters is a kind of musical appendix. There used to be a use for it but it's no longer the case.
There are obvious physical things about instruments that might affect preference (B major being the "easiest" scale to play on the piano etc etc) but the whole direction of western music has been to eliminate these things.
In Indian Classical music there IS a huge difference between Rags BUT they aren't "keys" in the way that Western Music understands it.
In Shakuhachi music each note often has a different character and way of speaking, we lost that subtlety many years ago.
Before equal temperament there would have been a huge difference (depending on what was adopted) but you only hear that these days in some "early music" performances or composers like La Monte Young's music.

[EdgeleyRob]

Vaughan Williams - Mass
Myaskovsky - 12th Symphony
Taneyev - Piano Quintet

[LeMartinPecheur]

Worrabaht K478, Piano Quartet in G minor, IMHO about as 'WAM-G-minor-ish' as they come?

And I wouldn't willingly discard Symph 25 K183 either. Not perhaps as personal as the later G minor works but still in my 'top 20 early WAM' list

[Lat-Literal]

Delighted with the way this thread is proceeding - whether contributors' comments seem empathetic or doubting/critical - and the thinking was narrower when I posted my first. But there is a broad question here, isn't there? It is about the acceptance of music conveying or eliding with emotion and how it does so. The next question has to be how it manages to have that power in such a specific way. While we can go on the basis of emotional association - how that is my own way! - there must be a technical and less blurry sort of answer.

[MrGongGong]

- there must be a technical and less blurry sort of answer.

Why ?