Q for the College of Musical Knowledge

Factual Questions
1

First, the background: in the movie “Blues Brothers”, in the scene where the BB are playing in the CW bar, and propose playing the theme from “Rawhide”. What key? To which Dan Aykroyd says “A–a good ol’ country key”.

Also: the liner notes for my copy of Handel’s Messiah stated that one number (“He Trusted in God…”, I think) was written in the “horror key” of b flat minor (exact key may vary…the notes are no longer with us).

Now the questions–what makes a musical key a “country key” or a “horror key”? Do keys have personalities? I mean, I can hear the difference between major and minor, but that’s about it. Larger question: why do composers choose a particular key for the work they’re composing?

2

I’ve heard Eb major referred to as a heroic key. I think it mostly stems from Beethoven saying it was heroic when he used it for his Third (“Heroic”) symphony. Someone with perfect pitch can hear the differences between keys, but most people can’t.

On the other hand, Bb minor would have five flats in the scale, which I find horrifying. (Most of my experience is with instruments where it easier to play natural notes.) I would guess a “country key” would be one easy to strum on a guitar.

3

The keys that pieces were written have connotations mostly given to them by people like Scriabin and Rachmaninoff who were synathetics (I think that is the correct word) who saw colours and images when they heard musical sounds.

Bb is called the horror key because in an untempered tuning it was perhaps one of the most out of tune to a modern listener out there assuming they either modulated into it or didn’t retune the instrument for that specific note.

Other keys as Greg mentioned were given characteristics associated with really famous pieces such as the Eroica Symphony. If you go asking around there really is no consensus on what key equalling a particular association overall.

HUGS!
Sqrl

4

IANAM (I am not a musician) but instruments like the fiddle have keys that they are more suited for. My recollection is that fiddles like the key of A. (and it wasn’t Dan Ackroyd it was Donald “Duck” Dunn, the bassist, who said “A. Good country key” in his good ol’ Southern accent).

Each key does sound different (provided you’re not sharping or flatting the note to something else) and some are more moody than others. Especially on a big pipe organ.

I’ve also heard musicians make jokes about some keys being faster than others, which does have a ring of truth if it is easier to play one key on an instrument than another.

5

[biggest hijack this side of the Mississippi]
Answer: Kay Kaiser

Sorry, had to do it. Used to play Trivia Pursuit as a child with my family. Grandpa would fall asleep in the corner on his chair. Occassionally, we would wake him up, ask him the question, he wouldn’t know, and he’d go back to sleep.

Until the question was: “Who was the host of the Kollege for Musical Knowledge?” He knew it, and paid attention every time we played after that.

[/hijack]

6

Certain keys are easier to play in on different instruments. Horns are transposing instruments, so horn players like to play in flat keys, like Bb and Eb. Music that horns are prominent in (like jazz) is often in Bb and Eb.

Similarly, the chords that are diatonic to (made from the notes of the scale of) A, D, E, and G are easier to play on guitar, than, say, Bb. Mandolins and fiddles (tuned the same way) are easier to play in A, D and G. Country music features a lot of guitar, fiddle, and mandolin, so a lot of country music is written in A, D and G.

Kevin B.

7

As a guitar player (and I mean that in the loosest sense of the word), I always consider G and D the “country” keys because they are easy keys to play the I, IV, V7, vi and ii chords in open position, and to do little harmony riffs in sixths.

E is, without a doubt, the heavy metal and hard rock key, simply because it uses the lowest open string as a root, so it sounds ominous if you chug away on it. (A is a close second.) It’s amazing how many Led Zeppelin songs, for example, are in E and A or their relative minors.

8

E and A are also great blues keys for us guitar manglers. Considering that Zep started out doing blues covers, it’s not surprising that a lot of their own songs are also in E and A.

Kevin B.

9

On the other hand, with a capo, many more keys become pretty manageable on guitar, even for amateurs. Seems like most modern pop/rock outfits tend to pick the key based on the singer’s range…

10

There are some different factors being mentioned here, most of which are valid:

Without equal temperament, different keys have different “feels” to them, as the intervals differ slightly. With equal temperament, every half step is a ratio of the twelfth root of two in pitch, and intervals are out of tune in the same way in all scales.

Individuals who have the ability to distinguish pitch in isolation will be sensitive to the difference between playing the same piece, ie. the same set of intervals and harmonies in, say, the key of A instead of the key of C. That isn’t most of us, or at least not to the degree that it will sound drastically “wrong”, just a little “different”.

On many instruments, it is easier, at least in terms of basic technique, to play in certain keys. I don’t play keyboard, but I can manage to play some block chords with my left hand and pick out the melody with my right - if I’m allowed to do it in a key like C (no black keys!) or G. I haven’t trained myself to “know” the scales for other keys without stopping to think about it.

If you are going to play using folk chords on a guitar, G and D are the “easy” keys. A and C come next. For the rest, the principal chords will involve a bar (technically, the F chord for key of C is a bar, but it is often played without the sixth string in conjunction with other folk chords). Hence the popularity of Capo’s. And the electronic key-shifters currently available on keyboards.

A fiddle is tuned in fifths - E A D G - I’m not a fiddle player, but that does make the open strings cover the root, fourth and fifth in key of A, and the G, while not in the key of A is the dominant seventh in that key. I can see A being a “natural” key for fiddle tunes.

For stringed instruments, a lot of people have various “tricks” in their repetoire that involve some use of open
strings along with higher-fret stops, and won’t translate.

For a string band, A, E, G, D and C will be keys that people tend to like to jam around in.

Now, somebody tell me why singers seem to like B-flat and E-flat.

11

That’s right! You’re wrong! It’s Kay Kyser and the Kollege of Musical Knowledge.

12

Don’t confuse chord names with intervals. The interval A-G’ is a minor seventh, while A7 (the A dominant seventh chord) is A-C#-E-G.

Actually, I’d argue that G and D are more suitable keys for the fiddle, since G,D,A and E are all diatonic to those keys, and you can use the open D or G as drones for the melody on the next string up, if you’re double-stopping.

Then again, the only music theory I’ve done is through self-study over the past six months or so and I could be talking out my F-hole. But it seems reasonable, on the surface…

13

I’ve always found (as a violinist, not a fiddle player–and yes, there is a difference. Call me a fiddler and I’ll have your head) that C, G, and D (and a, e, and b minor, respectively) are the easiest keys in which to play, because less fingers go in “non-standard” positions in those keys. Probably one of the hardest keys to play in is F-sharp major/D-sharp minor, which has six sharps (or the same thing, G-flat major/E-flat minor, with six flats. The circle of fifths meets at the bottom).

LL

14

Hell if I know. High E-flat is about as high as you want your choral basses to sing, and high B-flat is about as high as you want your choral sopranos to sing. B-flat just below middle C is about as low as many choral sopranos can sing (I’m not speaking of professional soloists.)

By the way, if you’re in a choral group and you want to lead an audience in The Star Spangled Banner, the nice, most medium-range key, that you want to use is A-flat. Not E-flat as I cheerfully told my director and then wondered why he was looking at me as if I were completely insane (I did mean A-flat, I was just hearing the fifth in my head.)

Um, if you don’t believe me, try singing the piece in E-flat. Heh.

Finally, in my a cappella experience, if we performed a song in F or G, we would sometimes go flat, but we never did if we performed in F#.

15

I’m a saxophone player in a rock band doing mostly covers of old soul stuff. The lead singer often changes the key of the tunes to better fit her range. I act like it doesn’t matter to me, (hey, any key, any tempo, whatever) but it hurts when she ends up in the key of, say, G-flat, so I have to blow an improv solo in A-flat on my tenor sax. Ouch.

For me, a good key is one where the cool sax licks are easier to produce. The best soloing keys for me on tenor sax are C and F# (that one surprised me). The worst are A-flat and E-flat.

Also -
Did you ever hear these?

C - The people’s key
F - The key of love

I have no idea where this comes from, but a lot of the musicians I play with know them. Are there any others?

  • JAlan
16

I play guitar, I use E Phrygian a lot, it’s easy to play and has a slightly dark sound to it.

It’s not a standard scale, it’s basically got all the same notes as C Major but you start at E instead of C.

17

A violinist is a fiddler who thinks he’s too good for the rest of the crowd. :wink:

18

Could C be “the people’s key” because it doesn’t have any of those annoying sharps or flats in it?

19

As a fiddle AND violin player I can tell you that different keys do sound different on this instrument. The strings that are not being played resonate to a greater or lesser degree depending upon the common overtones of the string that is being played and this adds a brightness to the sound. Notes (of the scale) played in the sharp keys have more overtones in common with the open strings (G, D, A & E). Notes played in the flat keys have fewer overtones in common, especially as more flats are added to the key signature and thus tunes played in flat keys have a darker sound.

20

D Minor is the saddest of all keys, really…

Thank you Nigel!