D minor

[MrGongGong]

But only using Dobly.

I reckon Dubbley is the way to go

(you are Janine and I claim my £50 )

[ahinton]

I reckon Dubbley is the way to go

Dubbley? Sounds rather too much like Dubya, methinks.

Oh, yes; Bush, piano concerto

(you are Janine and I claim my £50 )

Janine who? Jansen? (forgive my apparent ignorance). Fifty quid? I hope that the said Janine's not had her bank account cleared out courtesy of TalkTalk's incompetence and dilatoriness!

[MrGongGong]

Dubbley? Sounds rather too much like Dubya, methinks.

Oh, yes; Bush, piano concerto


Janine who? Jansen? (forgive my apparent ignorance). Fifty quid? I hope that the said Janine's not had her bank account cleared out courtesy of TalkTalk's incompetence and dilatoriness!

I think there's a movie you missed in the 1980's

[ahinton]

I think there's a movie you missed in the 1980's

Several of them, I have little doubt, but I remain none the wiser; in the meantime, to complete the Schönbergian hat-trick here, Pelleas und Melisande.

[MrGongGong]

Several of them, I have little doubt, but I remain none the wiser; in the meantime, to complete the Schönbergian hat-trick here, Pelleas und Melisande.

I think you better have a look at this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgViOqGJEvM

[ahinton]

I think you better have a look at this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgViOqGJEvM

I did. I see the context that might have prompted you to pose the question about D minor and sadness, but I can't say that it did a whole lot for me, really...

[MrGongGong]

I did. I see the context that might have prompted you to pose the question about D minor and sadness, but I can't say that it did a whole lot for me, really...

To be clear

I don't think any keys are intrinsically "sad" at all


"Tap" is a work of great observational brilliance IMV

[ahinton]

To be clear

I don't think any keys are intrinsically "sad" at all

Nor do I; only the music itself might convey such an impression, if and when it might do so, irrespective of the key (if any) in which it is written.

"Tap" is a work of great observational brilliance IMV

I thought that it was just one form of dance of which we've so far been spared the Katie interpretation...

[MrGongGong]

When anyone starts going on about keys relating to emotions i'm always reminded of the great Nigel Tufnel's words hence the homage.

[ahinton]

When anyone starts going on about keys relating to emotions i'm always reminded of the great Nigel Tufnel's words hence the homage.

Key relationships, modulations and the rest can do that but not merely keys per se, methinks.

[Lat-Literal]

The "saddest of keys?"

Not sure but can we agree it's a dark maroon?

[ahinton]

Not sure but can we agree it's a dark maroon?

Not a clue, sir; I've never been darkly marooned by its presence. Better ask Messiaen.

[Lat-Literal]

Not a clue, sir; I've never been darkly marooned by itrs presence. Better ask Messiaen.

[peterthekeys]

Key relationships, modulations and the rest can do that but not merely keys per se, methinks.

I guess that to some extent, it depends whether or not the listener has absolute/perfect pitch (it often seems to be the case that people with this facility also have extramusical associations with particular keys.)

Synaesthesia seems to go hand in hand with absolute pitch - but usually if it's a colour/sound association, it differs from person to person. (A few years ago, I came across a web page by a guy who claimed to have taught himself absolute pitch by deliberately associating each semitone with a colour: he explained the procedure, but I didn't have the nerve to try it - I was scared of messing up my head!)

In Nielsen's music, he often starts in one key and ends in another, and there's a process by which the original key is rejected and the final key is selected. I've often wondered if it's possible to get the full impact of it without either absolute pitch, or a copy of the score (and the ability to follow it.)

[ahinton]

I guess that to some extent, it depends whether or not the listener has absolute/perfect pitch (it often seems to be the case that people with this facility also have extramusical associations with particular keys.)

Synaesthesia seems to go hand in hand with absolute pitch - but usually if it's a colour/sound association, it differs from person to person. (A few years ago, I came across a web page by a guy who claimed to have taught himself absolute pitch by deliberately associating each semitone with a colour: he explained the procedure, but I didn't have the nerve to try it - I was scared of messing up my head!)

In Nielsen's music, he often starts in one key and ends in another, and there's a process by which the original key is rejected and the final key is selected. I've often wondered if it's possible to get the full impact of it without either absolute pitch, or a copy of the score (and the ability to follow it.)

I have absolute pitch but not synasthæsia but I suspect that, even if I did have the latter, I'd have trouble associating particular tonalities with particular emotional states, not least because, especially in tonal music containing passages that modulate rapidly, such individual states would have no material opportunity of making themsleves felt yet the narrative of the music itself might be traversing all manner of emotional states.

I have a suspicion that the most commonly thought key "characteristic" might be that of E flat minor; Ronald Stevenson spoke of its capacity for "Stygian gloom" and, when one thinks of its use in the Prelude and Fugue from Book I of WTC, or Schönberg's Second Chamber Symphony or Myaskovsky's or Prokofiev's Sixth Symphonies or Shostakovich's final quartet, it could indeed be argued that he had a point and it's one that I can see - up to a point - and there's a similar instance of its negativity in the final movement of Alkan's Symphonie and another of its pessimism towards the close of Schönberg's Pelleas und Melisande until the composer contrives a chromatic sideslip that takes it down to the main key of the entire work, D minor (yes, back to the topic at last!) - but is this kind of thing all that E flat minor's good for? I hope not!

Nielsen is only one example of a composer who would begin a symphony in one key and end it in another; of Mahler's ten, only three (6, 8 & 10) begin and end in the same key.