Klarinet Archive - Posting 000415.txt from 2000/10

From: Bilwright@-----.net (William Wright)
Subj: Re: [kl] All keys are not the same
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2000 11:22:16 -0400

<><> reminded me of a discussion of East Indian ragas. As I
recall, these had "inherent" emotional qualities, too - some were
considered appropriate for military music, some for love songs, etc.,
and you absolutely couldn't write one type of music in the raga of
another type. I think that this actually proves Dan's point that the
emotional content is really just a societal construct, though, because
to my Western ears all ragas sound just plain alien.

I can empathize with this because I have a recording of sitar music
(enjoyable!) whose jacket liner goes into some detail about ragas, and I
pondered this topic while waiting in a dentist's office (which is the
ideal location to ponder sitar music -- microtonal ragged ragas *can*
suggest the dentist's drill, and vice versa).
Anyway, my comment is that 'plaintive' is a different level of
specificity than 'love' or 'military'.
Since music is a less specific (perhaps the least specific?) form
of communication, it makes sense to me that a scale can suggest one but
not the other, reliably.

....but I haven't received the Mendelssohn octet that Dan
recommended as joyous music in a minor key. Therefore I can't complete
my thought yet.

Cheers,
Bill

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