Klarinet Archive - Posting 000304.txt from 2003/06

From: "Bill Semple" <wsemple@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Keys and their character-AAAAAHHHHHHH!
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 15:43:54 -0400

I don't look at this issue quite the same way as you state. I am not arguing
science. I am arguing relationships of notes. I look at how triads are
composed, which operate independently of key signatures for the most part. I
do believe that the minor keys tends to a more emotional somber and pensive
construct than major keys, especially if you compare symphonic works. But
for each key selection, a composer can do what he or she may wish to
modulate within that structure, which means basically anything can happen.

It's not that one key has a lot of sharps or a lot of flats that makes the
difference, it is how notes relate to one another in chord structures. An Eb
major is not going to sound any less or more bright than a E major, with the
exception of how notes fall on various instruments (such as open strings).
But go to a minor from a major, and I suggest something happens often enough
to most listeners that the concepts we espouse make sense.

I recall a famous demonstration by Leonard Bernstein during one of his
Omnibus programs back in the late 1950's where he flatted the third in
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. He then added a 7th, and pretty soon we had a
nice walking blues underway. He showed how three keys, C,G,and F could all
be framed around the same basic blues notes.

The Blues came from somewhere. It came from flatting a few notes, and
derived in part from some of the quarter tone influences from Africa. Is
there some archtype out there that states that a certain chord will evoke a
different emotional reaction than another? No. This is learned stuff. But
once learned, I think it it has as much science as one can achieve with
music. Remember Leibniz? If the tree fell in the forest, did it make a
sound? To you, it did. For the rest of us, sound is as much how we listen to
it through our heads and hearts than it is a matter of wave length and
overtones.

William T. Semple
Office: 202-364-2466
Home: 540-364-4823
Cell: 540-903-6645
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Leeson" <leeson0@-----.net>
Subject: Re: [kl] Keys and their character-AAAAAHHHHHHH!

> Bill Semple wrote:
> > Why is it that you are in such a minority on issues such as this? You
remind
> > me of that New Yorker ad where everyone is buried inb the Philadelphia
> > Inquirer while the lone observer frantically points to the sky, which is
> > beginning to fall.
> >
> > What is your basis regarding music? That it is a purely scientific,
> > mathematical exercise, requiring scientific proof to accept certain
notions
> > or descriptions about sound? You ask for facts. What kind of facts? Much
of
> > our world is developed on concensus and convention, including many of
our
> > laws, that do not spring apriori from someone's awareness of
metaphysics,
> > but from experiment and experience. By dispensing with some of the
> > conclusions reached here as pure balderdash, you dispense with the basic
> > process by which we think, and I suggest, we came up with music in the
first
> > place.
>
>
> Since you ask, Bill, music like many other art forms, have elements to
> it that are not explainable. But also arising in music (like painting
> to some degree, too), are scientific statements that attempt explain
> emotional phenomena. One of these is key selection. (Another is sound
> character, but let's not go into that.)
>
> You and many others presume that the choice of a key signature is based
> on a scientific fact; i.e., bright keys (whatever that means) are
> derived from key signatures with a lot of sharps, somber keys (whatever
> that means) are derived from key signatures with a lot of flats. And
> the more sharps the brighter, the more flats, the more somber. You
> don't find such statement until the early part of the 19th century.
> Nowhere, for example, does Mozart make any statement that would allow
> any reasonable person to believe that he thought that way. Maybe he
> did, but you can't document such a belief on his part.
>
> Shostakovich wrote a trio for piano, violin, and cello in E major which
> is, purportedly, a bright key. Yet the subject matter of the trio is
> grotestquely horrible. It's death, murder, torture, etc. Now I don't
> give this example as proof of the pudding, but just to point out that
> well-known compositions in certain keys have emotional content that are
> exactly the opposite of what the key signature is supposed to convey.
>
> Since it is asserted that key signatures have emotional content, it is
> perfectly appropriate to inquire from where such an assertion is
> derived. There must be some way to establish that statement as true, and
> if that cannot be done, the only conclusion that can be reached is that
> any emotional character in a particular piece derives from the mind of
> the listener; i.e., it's a false statement since it is person-dependent.
>
> Music is enough of an emotional issue and tugs on our heart strings in
> uncertain ways, that the assignment of those emotions to scientific
> phenomema without proof, does not serve the art of music at all.
>
> I've tried to answer your question reasonably. I hope that any response
> you chose to give will be equally reasonable.
>
> Dan Leeson
> >
> >
> > William T. Semple
> > Office: 202-364-2466
> > Home: 540-364-4823
> > Cell: 540-903-6645
>
> --
> ***************************
> **Dan Leeson **
> **leeson0@-----.net **
> ***************************
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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