Klarinet Archive - Posting 000570.txt from 2006/03

From: Roger Hewitt <rogerclarinet@-----.uk>
Subj: [kl] Keys (from Let's get real)
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 03:42:03 -0500

Don't start me on "wrong key"! A friend of mine has perfext pitch and
associates moods with keys, and as a Mozart nut (in the nicest possible
way!) he gets upset by Mozart pieces transposed into different keys
because it changes the mood of the piece. No amount of pointing the
whole A=415 debate so Mozart wrote in completely different keys from
what my friend thinks of helps the arguments.

Do we *really* know about whether pitch was so different then? Do he
associate keys with moods because of a absolute pitch or because he has
learnt that lots of pieces in that key are sad ...? A chicken and egg
or genes vs environment debate there! I don't know - I don't have
perfect pitch so it dioesn't affect me either way - but to him perfect
pitch is mostly a boon (he can hear a simple short piece and then sit
and play it with all the correct harmonies with little difficulty), but
sometimes a curse ("Ensemble 415" drive him crazy).

A whole new can of worms for the purists and the pragmatists to get
stuck into.
--- John Dablin <jdablin@-----.com> wrote:

> On Monday 27 Mar 2006 01:25, Adam Michlin wrote:
> [ snip ]
> > As an example, I'm told that John Paynter's transcription of
> Debussy's
> > Orchestral Nocturne "Fetes" uses Bb clarinet throughout, a cruel
> and
> > unusual punishment in my mind.
>
> I'm sure some of the arrangements for military band of classical
> works,
> which we used to play in my RAF days, were transposed up or down a
> semitone into keys that were easier for Bb and Eb instruments. I'm
> thinking of the sort of arrangements churned out for series like
> "Chappell's Army Journal", but it's too long ago for me to remember
> specific examples.
>
> No end to the blasphemy - not only the wrong instrument, but the
> wrong
> key as well!
>
> John Dablin
> Aylesbury UK
>
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