From: alves@calvin.usc.edu (William Alves)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: Music Theory Question
Date: 16 Oct 1992 15:54:46 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: calvin.usc.edu

In article <Oct16.190508.13847@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> hurben@lamar.ColoState.EDU (Mike Hurben) writes:
>Perhaps someone out there could help me with this...maybe send me some email
>or recommend a book that would answer my question...
>  I only know a little about key and tonality (I am not a musician, but a
>physicist.)  While I have no difficulty understanding the difference between
>major and minor keys, I don't really understand how the various major keys
>are related, and how they differ.  

This is a very old and sometimes controversial topic. There are two major
reasons that one key can have a different sound than another (apart from
being higher or lower of course). The first is the tuning system. If the
tuning system being used has unequal intervals between adjacent steps,
then it is possible, even likely, that different emotional associations
could be drawn between the keys. This was the source of many writings on
key associations especially in the 18th century. In fact, several theorists
spoke out against equal temperament for the very reason that it would erase
these differences. For better or worse, they lost, and equal temperament
is now the standard. There still exist subtle shadings of tuning on many
instruments, especially fretless strings when they don't play with an
equal-tempered instrument, but for the most part the effect of different
keys because of unequal tuning has vanished.

That leaves the second major reason keys can sound different: the acoustics
of instruments. Strings are an obvious example. The open strings sound
much different (and, of course, lack vibrato). Many other instruments be-
fore the 20th century had quite noticeable timbral differences in different
keys. Many woodwinds before complex modern key mechanisms were perfected
sounded quite different in different keys. However, all of this is much
less true today than it was 150 or 200 years ago. Modern instruments are
designed to play equally well (more or less) in all keys, and string players
avoid open strings (whereas in the baroque they played open strings whenever
possible).

Why, then do these key associations persist today? I suppose some people
hear the subtle differences to which I've referred, or they may have dead-
on perfect pitch. With many of the people who've professed such key
associations to me, however, I think it was all in their imagination. I
think people tend to associate sharps with brightness and flats with dark-
ness for extramusical reasons - I don't think it has anything to do with
the sound itself.

Also, no one seems to agree exactly what associations are appropriate for
a given key. This was as true in the 18th century as it is today. Another
problem is the variability of absolute pitch over time and geography. The
A that Beethoven heard was probably not 440 hz, and his A was probably
different from Montiverdi's. It is true that some composers seem to have
had definite associations with certain keys throughout their lives 
(Beethoven, Mozart, and others), but these are usually not consistent from
one composer to the next.

Finally, I would like to (once again, for those who have followed this
thread before) give the example of Bach's Magnificat. It is in D major,
a key often associated with festive or celebratory pieces such as this.
However, there is an earlier version of this piece in Eb (from Weimar,
I believe). The music and its connotations hadn't changed. The difference
was that the local trumpet maker in Weimar preferred to pitch his instru-
ments in Eb, while the one in Leipzig pitched his in D. In fact, in the
late baroque D was the most common key for trumpets, hence our enduring
association of that key with festivity.

You asked for books. There is a very good examination of the history
of key associations in the 18th century (and some before and after that
time): Rita Steblin, _A History of Key Characteristics in the 18th and
Early 19th Centuries_ (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press).

Bill Alves