What mood or emotion do you generally associate with each of the major and minor musical keys?

Question

doesn't have to be all of them...

Answer 1

It has always been my contention that it is not the keys themselves, but the material the composer uses that colors the emotions. For instance, the Beethoven Sonata in f minor, opus 2 # 1 has a totally different feel than the Haydn f minor Variations, or Chopin's 4th Ballade or his Fantasie opus 49, all in f minor

The third movement of Brahms 2nd Piano Concerto contains some of the "saddest" music you will ever find in a major key.

So to me the key itself has no specific emotional color, and I can't see that composers in general composed differently in different keys. Especially when composing for ensembles, there are so many other considerations when choosing the key -- instumental ranges, idiomatic sounds of the instruments in their various "ideal" ranges, resonance of the instruments involved etc. When composing for piano, certain figurations are more "handmaessig" in some keys than in others. Try playing the last Movement of Beethoven's "Moonlight" in b minor sometime, or Chopin's c# minor Waltz in c minor.

Answer 2

Well, as we all know from "This is Spinal Tap," d minor is the saddest of all keys. :-)

The temperament argument is, of course, true. Key associations seem to have arisen historically when each half-step was not equal to each other half step. So playing in the key of C major WOULD have had a certain sound, and the key of Ab (which was much less in-tune by most tuning systems) would have had a totally different sound. But once the half-steps are all equal in size, we lose those distinctions.

The statement that someone claiming to hear differences between keys "is baloney," isn't entirely true, though. First, and most obviously, people with absolute pitch CAN hear differences between different keys. The keys may not have different "emotions," but those keys do not sound the same to that kind of musician.

Second, many keys DO have associations that have hung on from previous repertoire that used those different tunings. F major is very often described as having a "pastoral" or "natural" sound...not necessarily because of how we hear that key, but because we hear a piece that is in the same key as Beethoven's 6th. These associations may be different for different listeners, of course. Some of this also might have to do with instrumentation. If a string orchestra plays a piece in D major, that key will have a different sound than the orchestra playing in Bb major. This may be due to the register in which each instrument is playing, or the presence/absence of open string resonance, etc. But I don't know about the "emotion" of those keys.

Third, who really plays/sings in equal temperament anyway? Pianists and mallet percussionists do...are there others? String quartets don't. Wind ensembles don't. A cappela choirs don't...

Answer 3

Back in the days of well-tempered tunings, the different keys each did have distinctly different feelings. Instruments were tuned based on a system of thirds and fifths, and thus, the intervals between the notes was not even as it is today, so a scale in A major sounded distinctly different than a scale in C major.

However, with even tempering, where the scale is divided into 12 logarithmically spaced tones, each major scale sounds identical to every other major scale (i.e. the internal intervals are all the same) so the "personality" of each individual key has been lost.

There is, obviously, a huge difference between the mood of a major and a minor key. And also more subtle differences brought about by using different minor scales (lydian, myxolydian, etc), but to most ears, the difference between a tune in C major and one in E major is lost.

Answer 4

I definitely haven't developed feelings for all the keys, but I do like a few for various reasons, probably from what music has been written in them:

F Major-- a happy key, one I associate with joy, B-flat Major also feels similar

E Major-- my favorite key, which feels symmetrical when played on the piano and settled in nature

c-sharp minor-- a romantic, emotional key: the Moonlight Sonata is written in this key, and so is Chopin's famous nocturne

These are the ones that come to my mind. If this subject interests you, check out the Baroque philosophy of the doctrine of the affections, in which all the major and minor keys are associated with specific emotions: rage, sorrow, joy, etc.

Answer 5

You need to read "How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony - and Why You Should Care". Since we have changed over to Equal Temperament from any of the other numerous types of tunings and temperaments, this is a MOOT POINT. PREVIOUS tuning systems had different sounds (similar to resonances) for each key - and gave us distinct emotional feelings. We have therefore lost the associations of emotion and certain keys. For people to wander around now, looking pale and introspective, and SAY then can hear a difference, is baloney. Of course, if they have spent their ENTIRE LIFE isolated from ET, and only playing in a string quartet than tunes to *sixth/comma meantone*, then you may get some response. But otherwise, your question falls into the same bin as "When Atlantic sunk into the sea, did we lose the ability to levitate objects?" We'll never know . ..

Answer 6

Rachy, could you please cite the source of your info, especially "most piano concertos are written in a minor key"?

That just doesn't sound right to me -- Mozart's wrote, what, 27 concertos for piano -- and I can only find 2 in a minor key -- there may be more, but the ones in a major key far outnumber the minor.

Beethoven's 5 Piano concertos are in the keys of C major, Bb major, c minor, G major, and Eb major. Brahms split his 2 -- d minor and Bb major

Now of couse, Rach's 4 are all in minor keys, but he was Rach...

Now if you can come up with a comprehensive list??

Is major *always* happy?
Is minor *always* sad?

Isn't that a little simplistic?

Answer 7

I see why this is blank. That would be kind of hard to put into words. Interesting to see what you get in answers though. If it is heavy or deep I would assume it would remind me of something dark. The lighter ones would be more inviting. The middle would be warmth, a place I would want to stay. Does that make any sense at all? I don't know, but to me, I say yes it does.

Answer 8

Major=Happy :)

Minor=Sad :(

Minor is also more dark and beautiful, which is why most Piano Concertos are written in it. I really like minor more than Major.

Answer 9

I'm not at all sure I have 24 emotions.