PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic favorite key to play in for piano and guitar

If'n the strangs rattle, raise the bridge.

I play guitar and have never met a key I did not like . . . well there was this one time when I was around "something teen" and I was sitting in with some old cats and the piano player called Tea For Two in 5 flats. Still not to crazy about 5 flats or that piano player.

Later,

I have the same experience as Mac. As soon as I started playing in R&B and soul bands with horns then it's F, Bb, Db, Eb. I found a great gospel piano YT video talking about how Db is the "gospel key" and everything the guy was teaching is in Db.

Check out this SRV video and especially the organ solo at the two minute mark:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQxxBGb2uSE

All Ab baby and Reese is tearin it up on B3.

I mention this tune because I'm doing it this weekend at a big car show.

Bob

maybe I'm missing something here but as I understand it specific keys are not associated with specific feelings, at least not in the way major (happy) and minor (sad) are. for example, if I write a sad sounding song in the key of Am and then transpose it to Em (or G#m or whatever minor) it does not sound any less (or more) sad. And if I play the blues in G and then transpose to Bb it is still the blues. I guess each person's personal preference and experience may affect this but the relationship of the notes to one another is identical after transposition.

jazzmammal -
they have a show just for big cars??
j/k

JohnJohnJohn
Yes and no
I'll let others expand on this ..
Em on guitar doesn't sound just like Cm .. quick example

Many composers throughout history would not agree with that.

Matter of fact, many of them compiled lists of key sigs along with the corresponding emotion each key conveyed to their way of hearing or thinking.

What's interesting is not the few places where these composers were in apparent disagreement, but how many more times they were in agreement as to the feeling a certain key conveys.

Perhaps the most studied or cited is the comparisons between Rimsky Korsakov and Alexander Scriabin, both of whom not only assigned each key an emotion, but also a color.

But we can even evidence this in Haydn's works, The Messiah perhaps being the definitive example, opening in Gb minor, then suddenly changing to the relative Major of Eb in the Intro. Eb is often described as the "God" or "Holy" key. Then, the Hallelujah Chorus at the other end of this epic work, is in D Major, which nearly all composers, classical or modern, tend to think of as the "Golden" sounding key.

Flash forward and we find that Errol Garner preferred the key of Eb for his "Misty" above all other keys, hmmm...

If you are interested, it should be easy enough for you to Bing up these lists around the 'net, these are pretty much box stock standard fare for the university composition major.

This said, we must also remember that nothing is etched in stone about such, for example, if the singer needs it to be transposed, then do it.

--Mac

well, if you are comparing an open Em to a Cm I'd agree there is some difference due to the ordering of the notes and perhaps quantity of each note in the set of 6 strings. but if I play the Em at the 7th fret as a barre or with a capo and then play the Cm at the 3rd fret I'd think they are identical (again except for pitch).

To some of us, Em does not sound like Cm whether its played on a guitar, a keyboard, horns, mandellos or stritch. And the note stack doesn't change that too much.

I think we are exhibiting the differences between Absolute and Relative Pitch in these kinds of observations.


--Mac

wow Mac, thanks for the detailed info! Aside from the preferences of those composers (and of course their audiences) do you believe the different keys invoke different emotions? I understand why a major key sounds happy and a minor key sounds sad but I don't understand how this also applies to the difference between two major keys (unless it is pretty much subjective).

I'd still disagree.
The harmonics and 'feel' is still different. But I do not know enough to confidently point to references, so I hesitate to discuss.

Play an Em on and Cm on a synth (voiced the same) and you may find them very similar in feel. Mathematically calculated/adjusted pitch.

Do the same thing on a freshly tuned acoustic piano or guitar and there is a noticeable difference to me.
Start factoring in horns and other instruments with their own sonic characteristics and things get complex.

It's a rabbit hole I ventured down in my musically academic days and found very intriguing. Others here obviously can explain much better than I.

Composers and singers pick certain keys that don't necessarily make sense all the time. One standard example is Ramblin Man by the Allmans. When you listen to the original recording you find it's in Ab but nobody I've ever played with does it in Ab. I read years ago that the guys tuned their guitars up a half step but I never read why. I can only assume that as subtle as it is somebody thought that taking it up a half step from G helped the vocals stand out or it was easier to sing or something.

When you're at the level they're at there's all kinds of highly educated pros hanging around the studios talking about this kind of thing.

Bob

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There is certainly a difference in feel, or mood for different keys on the guitar. Open strings sound different from fretted strings, and some keys use more open strings than others. The placement of the frets is a compromise, so that the notes are not all separated by equal intervals in different keys. So it seems natural that different keys wold have different feelings/moods/emotions.

I am surprised to find that the same difference across keys is true on keyboard as well. On my electronic boards, the distance between notes should be exactly uniform, and yet there is a big difference in the way D major affects me vs the way Bb affects me. Dont know how to explain it, but the effect is unmistakable.

I am going to look up those composer comments that Mac talked about...


...(congratulating self on grammatical use of 'same difference' in the 2d paragraph)

is it possible that certain frequencies just appeal to certain emotions? so an Em is "sadder" than other minor chords? or maybe it is mostly a learned/cultural response in western music (all music I guess).

Hi Mac,
nice bit of info there, thank you.

Got me to thinking though, I wonder if, and maybe how much, those perceptions related to the temperaments in use? E.G. Meantone, well-tempered, equal temperament...

On another tack, as a 'bone player I'm well aware that different parts of the range of my instrument have timbre changes inherent in the way they respond to the different partials. So if you pick a key that keeps you basically in the middle octave then you would have one set of sounds, move up so you have some notes entering a higher register and things change, ditto lowering...

The closer to the fundamental the more overtones are present and the richer the sound. The higher up the range the less overtones and the "purer" the sound. I know other wind instruments have a similar behaviour.

Mac, you might be able to advise here: a piano might also have a similar effect happening? What about when the lower notes cause ringing on the undamped upper strings?
How about differences between using "stretch" tuning and equal(?) tuning?

Also on stringed instruments, as you shorten the string there are less overtones apparent which again results in timbre changes...

Don't you love this simple obsession we all have - and how complicated it gets when you try to analyse elements?

About 6 years ago I completely rebuilt my grand piano. I did everything but the restringing and the action. During that time I did a lot of research about pianos and tuning and all that. Tuning a piano to absolute pitch sounds like crap. Stretch tuning is what pretty much everybody does. It simply makes it sound richer and that's where the art is in tuning a piano.

String resonance is a very big deal and is a big part of designing a piano. When you read the specs of these expensive piano sound libraries they talk a lot about the resonance and how you can control it with software. People will ask about that on this forum sometimes when they refer to either the freebie Roland VSC or the Forte DXi synth. You don't get that level of control for that kind of money. It costs real bucks and then it's not controlled by General Midi either you have to do it yourself.

Then there's string length. There are whole books on nothing but the history of string length of pianos and how the various companies handled it. Over the years certain standard sizes emerged while other sizes died as failed experiments. Baby grands are 5'2", parlor grands are 5'8". Those sizes didn't happen by accident and there's a huge difference in the sound. 7 footers are pretty common but has anybody ever heard of an 8 foot grand? Me either, not to say they don't exist but if they do they're pretty rare. It jumps to 9. It's all about the physics of sound and our perception of it. It's not simply can it be done it's does it sound good.

Bob

I use the G chord family, and then use a capo when transpose is needed. My favorite sounding chords are the Minor chords.

Favorte key?

WHIS-key!

Favorite key for guitar? All of them. Truly, the guitar is a transposing instrument, want to change from G to G#, move everything up a fret and finger it the same.

On the piano I tend to prefer keys with a few flats, they just seem more comfortable on the hands.

On the sax I prefer keys with a few sharps, and they are more comfortable on the hands.

But really, it's no big thing. What key is best for our performance of the song? That's my favorite key for that particular song.

Insights and incites by Notes

I don't think it is subjective and the fact that many composers, great musicians and the likes tend to agree on most of the keys bears witness to that.

Like I said above, if interested, you should Bing or Google more info, it is well known, old as the hills, as it were, and taught in universities.

BTW - Following Rimsky's or Handel's lists for what the key signatures convey has always worked well for me in practice.

But like I also said, it is not necessarily one of those things that is "etched in stone" when it comes to jazz, pop, rock, etc. tunes. Most of those kind of genres don't as a rule use all 12 keys anyway, eh?


--Mac

Rimsky K, Scriabin, Mozart and the rest were well after the advent of the well tempered scale. We consider from the middle of Bach's career forward to be the turning point away from the older just intonations and such. And so it was. Consider that many of the compositions after that point featured key modulations that would have been impossible to due and still sound in tune using the older systems. The old pipe organs, being pneumatically powered synthesizers, were rather easily retuned to the Tempered Scale once its efficacy and sound were recognized. Caught. On. Fast.



Yes indeed. Matter of fact, as a Trumpet player, we often take advantage of not only the different Timbres involved with the so-called "false fingerings" - but because of the fixed tubing lengths that the valves opening into loops yields, it also is used to good effect with intonation. For example, a 4th space E on the Bb trumpet might sound a lot more "classical" using the false fingering of 1-2-0 rather than the standard 0-0-0 fingering for that note. It will sound just a tad sharper, measurable on a pitch determining machine, but also the timbre is typically a bit "thinner". Of course, that's just one example, there are a few. Trombonists often take advantage of being able to play the same written note in different positions to do the same.



The Stretch tuning is based on the Equal Temperament tuning, there is a tiny amount of beats added when doing the stretch as you tune the octaves outward away from the middle C octave. Depends on the string lengths and sounding board sizes how far to stretch, but the amount is negligible and has not much to do with what we are talking about in terms of the key signatures here. Stretch Tuning, when done properly, merely adds a bit of a chorusing sound to the thing, because of those slight beats. A spinet piano sounds - and plays - rather like an Ice Cream Truck's broadcasts if it is tuned dead on and not stretched.



Well, yea I do love it.

Wait until I start explaining how the Fibonacci numbers are inside the octave and how they relate to the frequencies, the steps and a few more things. Wow. 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13, etc.

And to think that old Fibonacci was just trying to count the generations his rabbits would raise...


--Mac