20. Do Keys have Characteristics, Emotions or Moods?

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This video explores the myth that different keys have different characteristics, emotions or moods - C Major is happy, A minor is solemn, etc. Before equal temperament tuning was adopted, different keys did actually sound different. Each key was out of tune in its own specific way. But with the adoption of equal temperament this is no longer the case. All keys are now equally out of tune and so sound relatively equivalent.

[@user-zz8fv8rb3h]

The tones sound different, even in equal temperament. Literally not a single piano key in the dominant position conveys a mood identical to the dominant minor G-sharp in the key of C-sharp minor. I can't imagine the Moonlight Sonata with the ta-ta-taa motif sounding somewhere on a different frequency and conveying the same mood.

[@lim7lim]

Fascinating! The different tuning systems would also change the meaning of whatever notation system they used, if read by someone unfamiliar with the original tuning. That explains a lot about why so much of music has been lost to history. Thank you for this fascinating video.

[@sisfantasto7004]

It really depends on the individual person. I for example hate C Major! I find it patronizing and arrogant. G minor on the other hand is for me home. Smooth, gentle and caring. I feel more at home in the minor keys, they help expand my improvisation fantasies.

[@mkgeostar]

I LOVE G MINOR

[@olmocuaron]

G minor is great, G dorian too (has a natural 6th). When i hear/play it I visualize a beautiful mix of gold, blue and purple

[@unsatura]

"equally out of tune ... " lol, i remember a story my teacher told us, moving to a big city from a small canadian town, she was shocked by how "out of tune" japanese music was, and it took her several years to learn to appreciate the fact that, how to make the shakuhachi go out of tune was probably the most important feature in that art form ... i once asked my chinese opera friend if the kun opera modulates according to the singers' range like i suspect peking opera does ... he said, no, whatever flute the maestro has, everyone confirms to it, and so, to me, the singers often struggle to fit into the range, even if one would expect those that cannot fit have already been eliminated at the beginning .... and art always finds a way : how a woman struggles with a range first adopted for men became a feature of contemporary kun opera artistry .... "out of tune" is so relative ...

[@zvonimirtosic6171]

I don't think it's a myth. Regardless of Equal Temperament Tuning, music keys must have a different mood, because a great part of the feeling is hidden in the frequency of the tonic, and how the next notes (frequencies) within the key are dispersed, which notes (frequencies) are there, and .. which frequencies are absent. Oftentimes sense of absence of certain sounds (frequencies), and the absence of the mutual interactions which absent notes could form (certain delightful harmonies and harmonics), can cause us to feel uneasy. We quickly understand certain music is depriving us of optimistic sensations, which the auditory pathway in our brain analyses as part of the overall sound analysis. It is a very complex bio-neural process that involves several different brain departments, including the centres of awareness, sensory perception, balance, and memory, which are receiving, analysing and then interpreting the context, influencing how we 'hear' and 'feel' about all of that.

[@synth1002]

The collapse of Western civilization, everything is the same for them, even the keys that are obviously different. I wouldn't be surprised if they soon introduce the excuse that there is no better key, they are all equal, otherwise you are committing racism against the key.

[@funamusic]

@@markE946 No they all sound the same this makes no sense. they only sound different if you here them next to eachother.

[@braevinmaund1210]

@@markE946as somebody who has perfect pitch, naw, they all sound the same in equal temperament, and i of all people would know if they sounded different

[@TofuTofu88]

This video is completely wrong (aside from some good explanations of the mathematics of tuning). Different keys absolutely have different "moods" because individual notes sound qualitatively different as if they were different colours. I like to think of a key as a certain combination of colours. To expand on the colour analogy, red light looks qualitatively different to blue light when they are just different wavelengths i.e frequencies. Similarly, different notes have different "colours". On a piano, I would say white keys generally sound brigher whereas black keys sound warmer. Play any piece on the piano (which will have equal temperament) in different keys and they will convey a slightly different mood. Lastly, for a simple illustration, listen to the same piece of music in modern tuning and in baroque tuning (a bit flatter). They absolutely have different qualities/moods despite even being in the same key. Walk That Bass seems to understand this towards the end of the video but somehow draws the wrong conclusion. (In case you doubt me, I have perfect pitch.)

[@zvonimirtosic6171]

Regardless of Equal Temperament Tuning, music keys must have a different mood, because a great part of the feeling is hidden in the frequency of the tonic, and how the next notes (frequencies) within the key are dispersed, which notes (frequencies) are there, AND .. which frequencies are absent. Oftentimes sense of absence of certain sounds (frequencies) can cause us feeling uneasy, because we quickly understand certain music is depriving us from certain sensations, which the auditory pathway in our brain analyses as part of the overall sound analysis. (Which is a very complex bio-neural process that involves SEVERAL different brain departments, including the centres of awareness, sensory perception, balance, which are receiving, analysing and then interpreting, influencing how we 'hear' and 'feel' about all of that).

[@jonathanchapman3199]

I understand your point but, to people without perfect pitch such as myself, notes don't have an identifiable colour. If you played C then C#, with some time in between for me to forget C as a reference, I wouldn't be able to tell that they are different at all. I do however believe the extremes of the range of the piano have different colours due to the timbre.

[@synth1002]

Absolutely.

[@muresic2948]

@@jonathanchapman3199 i don’t have perfect pitch but i still feel like there are significant differences in moods between different keys. with all of the opinions i’ve read on this it seems to be a very subjective thing with no objectively correct answer

[@markE946]

@@zvonimirtosic6171 precisely, I wholeheartedly agree

[@carlhilber2275]

I will say that different keys do have different brightnesses. If you play a dark and sad song up a few keys it will sound more angelic and bitter sweet. For instance playing a single note vs playing an octive produces a different mood despite being perfectly 1/2 constontant as the other note changes the bringtness of the note. Furthermore on a piano white and black keys have slightly different timbres which can produce slightly different feelings, likewise the arrangement of white and black keys can make certain hand movements more intuitive and encourage different choices in the writing process. If consonance and dissonance were the only factors that determined emotion and mood, we would just write everything in whole key scales and only use black keys for out of scale notes/ chords.

[@dhruvsoni9010]

I think its not a specific mood, its more like group of moods or various moods that a key contains because every single chord has its own different flavour and a chord progression can be like a journey, a group of moods like from optimistic to meloncholic and serious to again optimistic.

[@submeg5183]

Such a great playlist here! This has helped explain a few ideas that I didn't even know I wanted explained. Thank you!

[@sirbowman3158]

It’s not a myth at all. Listen to Lacrimosa from Mozart’s requiem in D minor, then listen to it in C# and tell me it’s a myth.

[@kenneth1767]

Yes, it's all about the degrees of dissonance. I wonder how much of the richness of expression we've lost through leveling the playing fields. But this also begs the question of residual memory: how foreign keys sound the further away from established home key, similar to degrees of the scale sound to the tonic.

[@sisfantasto7004]

Just try it out and experiment around. I am doing it all the time. Mixing baroque with ( far )eastern tones . Strech your ability to hear. It's all there inside your brain. You only need to use it. Tradition and upbringing limit our abilities to see/hear/smell/touch/sense all the wonders of the world.

[@eboone]

as someone with good pitch memory (NOT perfect pitch, yet similar in practice), different keys absolutely have different characteristics. I have memorized the sound of all 12 notes via 12 different songs* across multiple years, so these notes sort of carry the meaning of the songs I learned them from. For example, I learned G from Bach's Little Fugue in G Minor, so songs in G minor remind me of the powerful and regal quality of that fugue. F♯, however, I learned from Caramelldansen, which actually isn't even tuned in A=440hz since it's a nightcore remix. So, songs in F♯ sound very uplifting as I recall listening to Caramelladansen as a child, plus the song is literally tuned higher. *actually 11 songs, since I didn't need a song to learn C

[@willplaymusic1]

I loved this series! Thank you so much!

[@B0K1T0]

This video is mostly aimed at specific frequencies / tuning systems, but I'd say what mood a chord has in general also depends on the context and some other factors like someone's personal perception formed over the years. And it seems to matter as well in what order you play the chords in an arpeggio for example, this also comes back in theories regarding subharmonics (the series you'd get if you would go down in frequencies instead of upwards, the first chord from C appearing would then be an F minor but it can be seen as a C major chord going downwards). And it also depends on how they're voiced, etc. etc. :)

[@hugoclarke3284]

The well tempered tuning systems may have presented the ideal ratio of "in tune/out of tune" before we sterilised it with out modern mindset. Of course, it was not possible to cripple nature entirely, for even equal temperament is not perfect. An object is only identifiable as this or that because it is more of this than that, or more of that than this, and if it is only this, or only that, it can hardly be distinguished from the other. The well tempered tuning systems kept that character while preserving practical uniformity, mirroring that society in which each soul is a valued one and all souls are part of a greater whole.

[@QueenFlower003]

i think "key moods" make sense to someone with perfect pitch. isnt perfect pitch a kind of memory? it makes sense if they connect certain frequencies to something like emotions. is like a reference. if the key note reminds them of a certain emotion then they know in what key the music is. just like with colors.

[@user-qn2og5lg7p]

What you describing is not "perfect pitch", it's called synesthesia. It's a condition when you entangle some of your sensory input with some uncharacteristic cognitive function. It's not a normal state of human mind, and obviously not linked to how well you distinguish pitch.

[@thesunbehindthesun1574]

C# minor/E major is my fav followed by Eb minor/F# major

[@SuperHyperExtra]

In well-temperament, it was possible to play in all twelve keys (Werckmeister, Kinrberger, etc.). Some would say itʼs best of both world: playability in 12 keys with individuality of each key, superior in a sense to equal temperament...

[@jaymckoskey25]

Great series, thank you.

[@valuedhumanoid6574]

I am sure someone else has made this comment, but I studied the work of Nigel Tufnell and he says that D minor is the saddest of all keys, like in his masterpiece "Lick My Lovepump" as part of a 'Trilogy' in D minor. It's a combination of Mozart and Bach. A "Mach" piece if you will. Worthy of your study, to be sure.

[@ize1000009]

So would it be possible to perfectly tune a Digital, electronic piano? Changing the pitch on the fly, based on the notes you are playing and the interval in-between them. Tuning melodic playing obviously would be easy. The challenge would come from playing ten notes at the same time, I think.

[@wiegraf9009]

I think it might be possible but you would need to use a selector switch to switch your just intonations. The piano would not be able to reliably predict which you wanted to use before you started playing it. Maybe it would be worth it to some musicians, maybe not, but it wouldn't be that hard to set up on a PC.

[@LeeGee]

@@wiegraf9009 "The piano would not be able to reliably predict which you wanted to use before you started playing it" but it would be able to make a decision in under a millisecond, the kind of lag which is almost certainly imperceptible.

[@synth1002]

Then why bother, use just C scale for everything... When i convert some song from some major for example into C major it sounds like sh_t. So same mode but it is different. You in the west are equalizing everything, it's just a matter of time when you consider people complaining about scales a scale racist.

[@LeeGee]

I think the problem is that whilst different frequencies obviously have different effects, quantifying and labelling those is a difficult task, revealingly subjective. When I was finishing my MSc in AI, I wanted to quantify these things with a mass observation study monitoring neural and hormonal reaction, as I could find no scientific research in the area. No-one would supervise the work -- for which I am no very grateful, as it would certainly be abused.

[@synth1002]

@@LeeGee Abused or not, thinking that logic based AI would ever get emotions or some sort of free will is equivalent of thinking that biliard table also has emotions, billiard ball computer exists. AI is just fancy word for complex automation, nothing more. Logic is abstract and life is in the real - chemical/physical world.

[@c2h3cl82]

as D sharp minor you should put the sobbing emoji on it

[@charlie69230]

This video on tuning systems is excellent and very instructive! Though it is not by analyzing the frequencies that you would deduce how feelings work in general imo. I personally have different feelings associated to different keys. For example i find B Major very bright and also associated to water. It surely depends on the songs that I heard that would evoke such feelings that were actually in B major. Interesting in reading different opinions from mine :)

[@digitaltrash_]

There is no logic behind this all, just feelings.

[@speedboy762]

Come on ! ..even a kid knows .. C major has a happy sound ..while C minor has a sad sound . .. Yes it's true that some instrument have limitations... that's why Scales were adjusted . But .. ....so yes proves your point too ..those instruments will have a sad sound ..! At least sound - scales are not limited by instrument assumptions . .. if the guitar can only play minor chords .. that's the fault of the guitar ..not of scales or adjustment. Anyway dunno i really get your point .bcz math was complex but scales do have mood and emotions ..else what's propose of them in music theory.

[@maloneycraig]

Insert complaint here that music notation and keyboard instruments should have moved away from the seven note scale to something more appropriate for 12TET a long time ago. How many accidents are there in transcriptions where the accidentals are messed up? Why do I need to spend so much time during my piano practice taking songs around the cycle to see how things feel in different keys? Waste of time - I mean it’s NOT a waste of time since my piano keyboard is conventional with seven white five black and I really DO need to be able to play things in different keys. Please, somebody mass market a good quality isomorphic keyboard.

[@finnikey4949]

so, no.

[@HikaruKenRyu-LightsabreJutsu]

I just couldn't sit through you butchering the name "Pythagorus" .. it is PIE-THAG-OR-US .. thus PIE-THAG-OR-IAN not Pithah-gore-ian

[@artvandelay3650]

this is toxic