Klarinet Archive - Posting 000300.txt from 2003/06

From: Dan Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Keys and their character
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 15:21:30 -0400

Crobar123@-----.com wrote:
> I can understand the debate between different major keys. But the difference
> between major and minor keys seems very clear.
>
> Paul
>

Paul, I would suggest that any perception of emotions between major and
minor modes is a social phenomenon brought about by the fact that you
have been told so many times that major keys are one emotion and minor
keys a different emotion. But in defiance of that assertion, I point
out that there are tragic compositions in major keys and happy
compositions in minor keys.

Take the slow movement of Beethoven 3. That is a tragic piece of music
and it happens to be written in a minor key. (I have said nothing to
exclude the possibility that a tragic emotion and a minor key are
incompatible elements, so I'm not contradicting myself.)

Why does that composition strike that character? What is inherently
tragic about that movement? Well, for one thing, it is a dirge, or a
funder march, which, whatever key it might have been written in, conveys
tragedy.

Contrast this with the first movement of Beethoven 5. It's certainly a
dignified, intense composition, but personally I can't find anything
tragic in it, even though it is written in a minor key. Maybe you do,
and if so, that's fine, but that is going to happen to the two of us no
matter what piece we hear. It will hit my emotions one way (and for no
discernable reason) and, perhaps, yours in another.

To assert that that phenomenon is caused by the selection of a
particular mode without some sort of evidence just isn't rational.

Do you believe that classes in music composition include the assertion,
"Students. If you want to write happy music, do it in a major key!" I've
looked in a number of composition textbooks and can't find that
suggestion.

--
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**Dan Leeson **
**leeson0@-----.net **
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