 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: christian_comeau
Date: 2005-11-27 17:20
Hi!
I know it's not really a clarinet question, but I want to figure it out... what are the "moods" associated with tonalities?
I often heard things like "this pastoral F tonality, or really sad C minor, etc..."
Is there a... chart of usual significations for all tonalities?
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2005-11-27 17:36
I am not sure I grasp what you mean here. For me, there's major and minor key, but the relative height (F or C or D...) is irrelevant, just a question of transposing.
A phrase like "pastoral F tonality" sounds - in my humble ears - more like a helpless attempt to make a concert critique more important than it really is. (The usage of filler words is often frowned upon here (.ch), other regions of course may have a different view). Be welcome to enlighten me.
I could give you a really sad and sorry Pastorale, though.
--
Ben
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2005-11-27 17:46
On a related note, I once asked why someone might choose to write a piece in Gb major instead of F# major (enharmonic scales), and the response was that sometimes composers feel that one might bring across the mood of the piece better than another. For instance, maybe a composer feels that if a piece was written in F#, it might be construed more cheerfully than if he wrote it in Gb.
I think (not sure, since I have VERY basic theory training) that this is a related note to the "moods" of different scales/modes.
As per a chart, I don't know if there'll be a factual "chart" of something like this, as it seems to me to be a very subjective subject (little redundant there, I know). However I bet someone here, or maybe at the nearest musical college might be able to point out some research papers and theses that might make some interesting reading.
ALexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: GBK
Date: 2005-11-27 18:19
There have been many treatises in music history related to the relationship between color, mood and key.
Here is Christian Schubart's from 1806:
http://www.wmich.edu/mus-theo/courses/keys.html
Whether one thinks these theories are bunk or actual emotional reactions to notes and keys, it does give a different perspective, certainly subject to debate.
BTW - Two composers, Scriabin and Tchaikovsky, made lists of the colors effected by the 12 key signatures. Scriabin claimed to be one the very few who had the gift of “colored hearing”.
Scriabin's list:
C# Purple
F# Bright Blue/Violet
B Blue
E Sky Blue
A Green
D Yellow
G Orange
C Red
F Deep Red
Bb Rose/Steel
Eb Flesh
Ab Violet
Db Purple (same as C#)
Gb Bright Blue/Violet (same as F#)
Interestingly, both had, during their lifetime, serious mental health issues ...GBK
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Author: Tyler
Date: 2005-11-27 21:10
GBK-- LOL!!!!!
I think of Ab as deep red, Cm as the angriest key, and G as 'the fanfare key'
-Tyler
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Author: 3dogmom
Date: 2005-11-28 00:13
Very interesting - are these colors said to apply to tonalities performed by an orchestra, a single instrument such as the piano, or the voice? I would think, that if there is such a thing as what is described, that would make a difference.
Sue Tansey
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Author: Markael
Date: 2005-11-28 01:55
I've always been a little bit skeptical about these sorts of things, but not totally skeptical. For some reason some of the sharp keys eem "brighter," especially D and E.
And the colors thing--I've always thought of A as green. That might not have anything to do with tone color. I started learning to play tunes on a toy xylophone as a child. It could be that I have a subconscious memory of the various colors of the keys on that instrument.
Temperament and tuning would have a big effect on all this. If keys indeed have different colors, then a raising or lowering of the standard tuning pitch could affect the clarity and contrast of various keys.
Years ago a friend of mine, who would be in his 90s if he were still alive, gave me some literature advocating a standard of tuning lower than A = 440. He later asked me how I liked the material, and I hedged a little, because I had laid it aside and didn't remember where I had put it.
Later I found the material and read it. It is probably a good thing that I had lost it, because my friend probably was not really looking for an honest and critical opinion from me. You'd have to know the guy to really get the picture.
Anyway, the material was from Lyndon LaRouche and had a philosophical basis that really has very little to do with music. The basic idea is that beauty, like truth, is not in the eye of the beholder at all, but is an objective thing that can be scientifically verified. I'm not all that familiar with the ideas of LaRouche, but the whole thing smelled like Nazi science to me, and it turned me off.
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Author: Tom A
Date: 2005-11-28 03:20
There was a thread a couple of years ago dealing with a composer's choice of key.
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=121714&t=121712
I assume that Christian means "keys", which a number of replies deal with, whereas "tonality" I think generally means whether a piece is in major or minor (or a mode).
I too have often heard F Major described as being "pastoral" in mood. Although I think I've heard the opening of Beethoven 6 often enough to be able to tell if it was in the right key, I'm wondering if there are any websites or programs where familiar works may be heard in different keys. It would be interesting to hear the Beethoven, or the Hebrides Overture, and see if it evokes different thoughts, or if a difference were even noticed.
.........................................................
Racket? Racket?! That's Brahms! Brahms' Third Racket. - Basil Fawlty
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2005-11-28 03:39
All I know is E G and A is deep purple.... (get it? or is it just my own silly humor...)
Actually, some people, inlucing me, has something called connected senses (don't know if that's the scientific term for it). That means when you use one of your senses you feel like you use another one. For me it is mostly taste and touch, but sometimes hearing and touch also. It doesn't feel exactly like you are using the other sense too, but it's in your brain.
But here is a funny story (I hope) about colours and music. It happened in the 70s I think. Rock producers here knew nothing (and maybe still do) about music. A famous singer had a recording with their producer present, and back then if you wanted to remove something you had to completely delete it, there was no undo. After the drummer finished recording one song the producer said the drums don't sound right, and it needs to be more green. No one knew what he meant but before they knew it the producer started deleting tracks. First the snare, then the bass, then hihat, then just deleted all drum tracks, and said to record it again. The drummer recorded the entire song again and then the producer said it is more green now like he wanted. According to all other members of the band, it sounded exactly the same....
Post Edited (2005-11-28 04:00)
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Author: archer1960
Date: 2005-11-28 17:10
clarnibass wrote:
> All I know is E G and A is deep purple.... (get it? or is it
> just my own silly humor...)
Not completely; I assume you're referring to the rock band Deep Purple, but I don't understand the letter/key references.
> Actually, some people, inlucing me, has something called
> connected senses (don't know if that's the scientific term for
> it). That means when you use one of your senses you feel like
> you use another one. For me it is mostly taste and touch, but
> sometimes hearing and touch also. It doesn't feel exactly like
> you are using the other sense too, but it's in your brain.
If I'm remembering correctly, it's called synesthesia (?sp). Scientific American had a fascinating article about it about a year ago or so.
...
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2005-11-28 18:18
archer1960 wrote:
> clarnibass wrote:
>
> > All I know is E G and A is deep purple.... (get it? or is it
> > just my own silly humor...)
>
> Not completely; I assume you're referring to the rock band Deep
> Purple, but I don't understand the letter/key references.
>
Smoke on the water ....
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2005-11-28 19:17
> > > All I know is E G and A is deep purple
> Smoke on the water ....
<quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk_rock>
the early UK punk fanzine Sniffin' Glue in 1977 famously included drawings of three chord shapes, captioned, "this is a chord, this is another, this is a third. Now form a band"
< />
These chords were A, E and G...
--
Ben
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2005-11-29 08:35
Sounds like synaesthesia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaesthesia
But I agree there's something in it...
1. I'm sure some keys work better on clarinet than others - depends where the important notes are situated relative to the ranges of the instrument, I suppose. Stuff written in 'C' can sound dull and boring, for example (in my experience)
2. Music theory: one theory says a fifth is a frequency ratio of 3:2 (1.50:1). Another says that all semitones are equal, which makes a fifth a ratio of 1.4983:1. Problem? In the first system, you can end up with Gb and F# being different notes...
2a. The clarinet naturally overblows a twelfth - that's an exact factor of 3. To play the same in all keys, you want it to overblow 2.9966:1. There's a problem...
3. There's a (relatively famous) bit in Walton's 'Belshazzar's Feast' where the composer modulates from something like 6# to 6b, i.e. F# to Gb. Work that out! Aren't they the same key? I swear I can hear the change in mood...
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Author: Markael
Date: 2005-11-29 12:26
Bassie wrote:
"I'm sure some keys work better on clarinet than others...Stuff written in 'C' can sound dull and boring, for example..."
That's true, but it is beside the point. This thread is only about the clarinet insofar as it is about music in general, and the clarinet is a musical instrument.
If you are playing a clarinet, you will most likely be be playing "stuff written in C"in Bb. But it might be in C (rarely), or Eb, or A, depending on which clarinet you are playing. I've even read somewhere on this board that there is such an animal as a D clarinet!
The piano is a better instrument on which to compare different keys. At least the piano keys are arranged left to right, low to high. But even on the piano our aural perception of keys and tonalities is influenced by the way the shapes of the chords and scales feel to the hands, due to the placement of black and white piano keys.
(In regards to the piano this line of thinking is a bit confusing because I'm using the term "key" in two different senses.)
It might be useful to experiment with a digital piano, playing in C and pressing a button to transpose, and seeing if you ear could detect different "colors." Even this experiment could be flawed, because your perception would be influenced by the direction of key change.
That is, if you played in C and transposed to Db, the effect might be that Db would sound a little brighter because of the higher pitch. Arrangers and music publishers know this, and it seems that most church choir and instrumental music these days has the "obligatory key change." I find it very annoying.
To conduct the experiment more accurately would require that someone else play the piano. If I sat down to a keyboard and middle C were tuned to F#, it would be easy to tell that something was different. That's an augmented fourth/diminished fifth up or down from standard pitch.
It seems to me that it would be difficult, maybe impossible, to separate the intrinsic "color" of keys from the sense we get from the melody being pitched high or low.
And then, to repeat myself from a previous post, there is the question of fine tuning. If, indeed, this difference in "color" exists, what specific tuning and temperament would bring it into clearest focus?
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2005-11-29 14:51
Markael,
As someone who doesn't have synaesthesia, I was deliberately trying to ground my post in what I know about clarinets, physics etc.
Your point about trying it with an electronic piano is very good: it should isolate most of the synaesthetic component from any physical
characteristics of the instrument.
As for transposing by a semitone:
(1) Does anyone think that Bb and A clarinets sound significantly different in this way?
(2) I once sang Messiah in Baroque pitch, which is a semitone different from modern pitch. I found no problems - but I don't have 'perfect pitch': those members of the choir who did have perfect pitch nearly staged a walk-out. They either had to re-write the score or learn to transpose a semitone at sight (something which our pianist for rehearsals could do, incidentally - big respect there). I'm inclined to agree with you: I don't see how you could 'see' the colour of a key without having some form of perfect pitch.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2005-11-29 15:34
As someone who does have some kind of synesthesia, but doesn't have perfect pitch, I can say I don't hear any difference between differen pitch. For example, if I hear C major and after a while (enough time to forget the C major) B major, it would sound the same to me. My synesthesia is more about tone colour (both of different instruments and different players on the same instrument) and materials. Maybe that is why I never think of warm, dark or bright when describing tone. I might get a different feel when hearing low or high notes, but more because of the colour of the sound than the pitch.
Bassie about the A and Bb clarinets, I personally don't hear a difference. Some pieces I just assumed were for Bb clarinet I found later were for A clarinet. But, I don't play or never have played an A clarinet.
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