Music people: How could you differentiate different kind of 'key' in classical music through listening?

him i may be way off on this answer.. but if you know what E or C etc… sounds like by humming it you can scale it up or down to what your listening to to find the key.

I’ve played piano since I was 5 and I don’t actually agree with the statement different keys have different moods. Major and minor, yes, but C vs G# or A-flat vs F, I don’t hear a dramatic difference. I’m interested to hear other people’s views on this.

Certain keys have traditionally been said to be associated with various subtle emotional nuances, but in reality—since western music relies on the well-tempered scale—just about any musical composition can be transposed into as many as 11 other keys, and each of which would sound largely like the original except perhaps to the rare few with perfect pitch. The composer’s choice may have been a matter of convenience for scoring certain instruments or voices, etc. Exactly how the choice is made is a mystery to me. It matters far more, however, whether it’s a major versus minor key (happy vs sad, in absurdly simplistic terms).

Someone here recently asked about a guitar piece written in D# minor. That is the same key as E♭minor.

@gasman raises some good points. The early French horn could not be tuned (I am doing this from memory) so Mozart wrote three horn concerti in E flat major and one in D major.

When I was a kId and taking piano lessons, I assumed that a piece written in
C# major, with its seven #s, was designed specifically to torture me.

I took ear training in college and was taught by lots of listening to be able to recognize keys and even styles of different composers. It was a lot of work but I love that I can do this to this day. You might want to sign up for an ear training class yourself!

@cockswain I agree about the “moods” of major and minor pieces. When I first started playing piano umpteen years ago, my teacher gave me a test to see if I could identify major and minor keys. I got them all right just by feeling the “mood.” (I can’t even really define what I mean by “mood”, either.) He said that it meant I had perfect pitch.

it has to do with key signature. For example, no flats or sharps would be either C major or A minor. A minor key would most likey have a depressiong sound. Two sharps is D major or B minor ect. basically, you need to look at the music to figure out what key it is in. If it sounds happy it is probably a major key, and if it sounds eerie or depressing it is most likey a minor key.

@Dr. Dredd you are VERY lucky to have perfect pitch. most people cannot figure out the exact key signature unless they look at the piece of music (the key signature is at the beginning of each line).

@mandybookworm: I feel that a minor key evokes a mood of melancholy and not depression.

@gailcalled There’s a difference? How about sadness?

@mandybookworm Yes, perfect pitch is rare but—as a musician who lacks it—I don’t think it’s that useful a talent. I have a good sense of relative pitch & can identify pitch intervals & discriminate sharp or flat tuning, etc., but not perfect pitch. But any playing situation involving written music already gives you the notes and key. Otherwise you still have a musical instrument with which you can instantly identify any pitch played or sung.

But if I hear something on a radio with no other pitch reference then I have no clue what the actual notes are on a piano. Probably never will. Some people with a form of synesthesia claim they “see” pitches as colors.

@gailcalled that may be your interpretation. However, my music teachers always explained that Minor keys usually had a depressiong sound. @gasman it is easier to provoke sadness in a minor key.

Aside from the difference between major/minor, the only difference between key signatures is the structure of the song.

In general, music in minor keys sound “sadder” than music in major keys. But, there is no characteristic difference between something in A major and something in E major, or likewise, something in F# minor and something in C# minor.

@gasman; To me, melancholia evokes a slightly more flamboyant sadness. I see Chopin who is coughing delicately into a handkerchief rather than someone reaching for his Prozac.

@Dr_Dredd

Being able to identify between minor and major chords with ease doesn’t mean you have perfect pitch. If you are able to identify a note simply by hearing it, then you have perfect pitch.

@gailcalled I think what we today call depression was previously referred to as melancholia or a melancholy personality.

@gasman: Of course you’re correct. There are also the megrims, the pip, and hysteria; dispirited, droopy, and down-in-the-dumps.

@chocolatechip I can do that, too. Unfortunately, it didn’t really help with my piano playing. My teacher said that I played too woodenly, without feeling.

I wonder what I’d be like if I picked it up again. I’m much more centered as a person than I was in high school. :-)

@Dr_Dredd

I would definitely recommend you pick it up again. Having perfect pitch is a gift many people (including me) wish they could have.

Perfect pitch is rare, but even without it people can learn to differentiate. The human body is like a cello and different keys create different sensations because of the so-called eigenfrequencies of resonance bodies.

C’mon, @mattbrowne, you’re not actually saying the human body has resonant frequencies like a tuning fork? A far-flung metaphor, right…?

@mattbrowne

I’m pretty sure 99% of people have the ability to differentiate between notes….

And I too, find your theory a bit farfetched.

Perfect pitch blows my mind, like those with photographic memory. Nearly supernatural, being able to hear a note and say, “Oh that’s f# two octaves below middle C.”

@gasman – I was comparing our chest and lung with the body of a cello. The A major key and C major key send a different set of sound waves including all the overtones into our chest and lung. It feels slightly different because of different eigenfrequencies. Sensitive tactile nerves do send slightly different messages into our brain. Why is this farfetched? And if you say 99% have this skill, how do they accomplish this without perfect pitch?

@mattbrowne

If you couldn’t differentiate between notes, then all music would sound monotone. Hearing two different frequencies and recognizing that they are different is an inherent human ability. Perfect pitch is the ability to differentiate between notes without any reference.

As to your theory, it technically makes sense, though sounds highly implausible. It’s like saying microscopic air currents effect your mood because of the minute tactile sensations on your skin.

@mattbrowne There are, in fact, resonant frequencies in the lungs & vocal tract—opera singers know this quite well. But surely the “normal modes” that give rise to eigenvalues are so numerous & complex & dynamic that the comparison is strained at & I doubt a connection to a person’s capacity for perfect pitch. Btw, the 99% remark was someone else’s.

At least we agree that we’re talking acoustics, right—not some touchy-feely new-age mumbo-jumbo? “I was at an Alice Cooper thing where six people were rushed to the hospital with bad vibes.”—from Woody Allen’s Annie Hall

@mattbrowne What the hell are eigenfrequencies? And I don’t get your point here, maybe because I don’t know what they are. Obviously 99% of the population can hear a difference between a C and an A. It’s like telling the difference between a fart and cookies.

@chocolatechip – No, no, you completely misunderstood what I was saying. Of course most people can differentiate between notes. People without perfect pitch can recognize vertical and linear intervals. I was talking about the following scenario:

Today you listen to Bach’s Prelude in C major from Well Tempered Clavier. The pianist actually uses the original key.

Tomorrow you listen to Bach’s Prelude in C major from Well Tempered Clavier. The pianist uses a different key. Everything is the same, except transposition was applied which is the process of moving a collection of notes (pitches) up or down in pitch by a constant interval.

You are being asked:

1) Same as yesterday?
2) If not, which key?

So the question is what did the sound waves do to your ears? To your torso? Did it have a different feel. Because the sound waves reaching your body were different.

@cockswain – Another word for eigenfrequency or eigen frequency is

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resonance_frequency

In physics, resonance is the tendency of a system (usually a linear system) to oscillate with larger amplitude at some frequencies than at others. These are known as the system’s resonant frequencies (or resonance frequencies). At these frequencies, even small periodic driving forces can produce large amplitude oscillations.

One familiar example is a playground swing, which acts as a pendulum. Pushing a person in a swing in time with the natural interval of the swing (its resonance frequency) will make the swing go higher and higher (maximum amplitude), while attempts to push the swing at a faster or slower tempo will result in smaller arcs.

What’s interesting is that music written in a certain key often takes on some characteristics of the key, like was said in the question, music in A major is fast and energetic (A major is an energetic, happy key, though E major is even more so) while music in E minor is slower ( E minor is fairly bright for a minor key, and D minor is even gloomier, but it’s not happy either). If you have perfect pitch, you can hear this. If not, I guess it just depends on the individual.

@28lorelei I totally agree. My personal way in which I identify a chord as major or minor is if it sounds mournful or not. I can’t explain how I decide if something is “mournful”; it either is or isn’t for me.