psychology of keys

[Nanohedron]

Btw, didn't I hear the phenomenon of one sense (say, hearing) triggering a parallel one (say, vision) to be a rare neurological anomaly?

It's called synesthesia. Well, across the pond and in Canada it's synaesthesia. Lord knows what the French call it. Accounts of people who see three-dimensional colored shapes in the air in the presence of sounds or flavors, for example, have been recorded. I remember the story of one such who thought the experience was common to all --until late adolescence set in-- and he found out that his condition was unique.

Some people might taste a tone, or hear a color.

[oleorezinator]

whay do you hear when you play new age music backwards?-----cisum ega wen.

[oleorezinator]

Btw, didn't I hear the phenomenon of one sense (say, hearing) triggering a parallel one (say, vision) to be a rare neurological anomaly?

It's called synesthesia. Well, across the pond and in Canada it's synaesthesia. Lord knows what the French call it. Accounts of people who see three-dimensional colored shapes in the air in the presence of sounds or flavors, for example, have been recorded. I remember the story of one such who thought the experience was common to all --until late adolescence set in-- and he found out that his condition was unique.

Some people might taste a tone, or hear a color.

how much lsd had the test subjects ingested immediately prior to the test? or was it mescaline?

[Pat Cannady]

Now I know why D is the favored key of whistles...

From http://www.wmich.edu/mus-theo/courses/keys.html

Affective key characteristics from Christian Schubart's Ideen zu einer Aesthetik der Tonkunst (1806), Translated by Rita Steblin in A History of Key Characteristics in the 18th and Early 19th Centuries. UMI Research Press (1983).

C major Completely Pure. Its character is: innocence, simplicity, naïvety, children's talk.
C minor Declaration of love and at the same time the lament of unhappy love. All languishing, longing, sighing of the love-sick soul lies in this key.

Db major A leering key, degenerating into grief and rapture. It cannot laugh, but it can smile; it cannot howl, but it can at least grimace its crying.--Consequently only unusual characters and feelings can be brought out in this key.
D major The key of triumph, of Hallejuahs, of war-cries, of victory-rejoicing. Thus, the inviting symphonies, the marches, holiday songs and heaven-rejoicing choruses are set in this key.
D minor Melancholy womanliness, the spleen and humours brood.
D# minor Feelings of the anxiety of the soul's deepest distress, of brooding despair, of blackest depresssion, of the most gloomy condition of the soul. Every fear, every hesitation of the shuddering heart, breathes out of horrible D# minor. If ghosts could speak, their speech would approximate this key.
Eb major The key of love, of devotion, of intimate conversation with God.
E major Noisy shouts of joy, laughing pleasure and not yet complete, full delight lies in E Major.

F major Complaisance & calm.
F minor Deep depression, funereal lament, groans of misery and longing for the grave.
F# major Triumph over difficulty, free sigh of relief utered when hurdles are surmounted; echo of a soul which has fiercely struggled and finally conquered lies in all uses of this key.
F# minor A gloomy key: it tugs at passion as a dog biting a dress. Resentment and discontent are its language.

G major Everything rustic, idyllic and lyrical, every calm and satisfied passion, every tender gratitude for true friendship and faithful love,--in a word every gentle and peaceful emotion of the heart is correctly expressed by this key.
G minor Discontent, uneasiness, worry about a failed scheme; bad-tempered gnashing of teeth; in a word: resentment and dislike.

Ab major Key of the grave. Death, grave, putrefaction, judgment, eternity lie in its radius.
Ab minor Grumbler, heart squeezed until it suffocates; wailing lament, difficult struggle; in a word, the color of this key is everything struggling with difficulty.
A major This key includes declarations of innocent love, satisfaction with one's state of affairs; hope of seeing one's beloved again when parting; youthful cheerfulness and trust in God.
A minor Pious womanliness and tenderness of character.

Bb major Cheerful love, clear conscience, hope aspiration for a better world.
Bb minor A quaint creature, often dressed in the garment of night. It is somewhat surly and very seldom takes on a pleasant countenance. Mocking God and the world; discontented with itself and with everything; preparation for suicide sounds in this key.
B major Strongly coloured, announcing wild passions, composed from the most glaring coulors. Anger, rage, jealousy, fury, despair and every burden of the heart lies in its sphere.
B minor This is as it were the key of patience, of calm awaiting ones's fate and of submission to divine dispensation.

Here I go again, tossing turds in the punchbowl. Hope you like it a little nutty.

First of all note the publication date of the original work, 1806. Do any of you know what the most common pitch standard was back then? I guarantee you it wasn't A=440Hz, more likely A=435 or even as low as A=420 or A=415.

Use those figures, the key of D as the original author heard it is probably somewhere around modern C natural or at least in that neighborhood. Food for thought.

[Nanohedron]

Btw, didn't I hear the phenomenon of one sense (say, hearing) triggering a parallel one (say, vision) to be a rare neurological anomaly?

It's called synesthesia. Well, across the pond and in Canada it's synaesthesia. Lord knows what the French call it. Accounts of people who see three-dimensional colored shapes in the air in the presence of sounds or flavors, for example, have been recorded. I remember the story of one such who thought the experience was common to all --until late adolescence set in-- and he found out that his condition was unique.

Some people might taste a tone, or hear a color.

how much lsd had the test subjects ingested immediately prior to the test? or was it mescaline?

Oh, you.

Although I must admit that in my college days I myself was privileged with some insight into the condition of synesthesia in, shall we say, an "assisted" manner.

[Wombat]

Here I go again, tossing turds in the punchbowl. Hope you like it a little nutty.

First of all note the publication date of the original work, 1806. Do any of you know what the most common pitch standard was back then? I guarantee you it wasn't A=440Hz, more likely A=435 or even as low as A=420 or A=415.

Use those figures, the key of D as the original author heard it is probably somewhere around modern C natural or at least in that neighborhood. Food for thought.

I think most of us know that, Pat. I think baroque purists favour 415 so I'd guess that in 1806 it would have been much closer to that than 440.

[Wombat]

The composer Amy Beach heard keys in color. She had perfect pitch and discovered that various colors corresponded with certain keys in her mind. The key and color relationships remained the same with Amy all her life. The following is the color code she assigned to keys:
Ab Blue
A Green
Eb Pink
Db Violet
C White
G Red
E Yellow
F# minor Black
G# minor Black

Oddly, this seems to be a different phenomenon to what you mentioned in your original post Bill. Some people seem actually to be wired to experience a certain colour when a pitch sounds or vice versa. Some people apparently find it unbearable to be in a place like Times Square or Picadilly Circus because the flashing bright lights trigger an unbearable cacophony of sounds.

I think it's called "synesthesia." There was a graduate student at my daughter's school last year testing children for it. Some people have the same experience with certain letters or words...they get a physical impression (either of color or of taste) associated with them.

Here's more info:

http://web.mit.edu/synesthesia/www/synesthesia.html

Redwolf

Yeah, that's exactly what I was talking about. Thanks Redwolf.

[BillChin]

This website sells Aquarian Survival Flutes which appear to be heavy duty PVC. The maker has an interesting section that matches zodiac signs to key signatures.http://users.netonecom.net/~sos/Flute1.htm

As SirNick mentions, at the bottom of the webpage, there is a chart with colors, frequencies and zodiac signs. It takes the ROYGBIV spectrum and spreads it from Aries to Pisces. I'm not sure how the frequencies match, unless those are frequencies of light, from 261 to 493. Seems a bit contrived, but as a Libra I fall on the F# and I find that note to be a pleasing one, starting many of compositions with four holes covered.

I did not realize about the Baroque tuning being more like 415-420 for A, vs. 440 for A modern. Interesting. Most of the music theory stuff makes my eyes glaze over, but I can understand that much.

If anyone has more up to date descriptions like the one cited in the original post, I would like to see them. Despite being dated material, it is still interesting to me. More recent descriptions with flamboyant language and strong opinions might be equally entertaining.

The link to Synesthesia is something I had not heard about until today. So that makes two things I learned, ha! Some one else said it is a something that can be cultivated, associating colors with music. Would make for an interesting fantasy, sci-fi short story, people that mixed sensations and were either highly valued or pariahs. Its probably been done but still seems like a neat concept for a story (or maybe a song!).
http://web.mit.edu/synesthesia/www/synesthesia.html
+ Bill

[BillChin]

With all my respect (if not passion) to his music, he ended totally bonkers. May have started as such, too...

Holy cow! Zubivka, this Scriabin was quite something. Imagine composing a piece of music that when performed destroys the world (though in a good way).
+ Bill

from
http://www.scriabinsociety.com/biography.html
Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin, the noted Russian composer, was born on Christmas Day and died at Eastertide -- according to Western-style calendrical reckoning, 7 January 1872 - 14 April, 1915. No one was more famous during his lifetime, and few were more quickly ignored after his death. ...

... Scriabin considered his last music to be fragments of an immense piece to be called Mysterium. This seven-day-long megawork would be performed at the foothills of the Himalayas in India, after which the world would dissolve in bliss.

[BillChin]

More on colors, light and music from
http://pages.sbcglobal.net/jameswierzbi ... thesia.htm
...Newton's premise was that color and sound were, at the very least, analogous. He observed that both light waves and musical tones involved vibrations that could be measured and thus arranged in a scale-like pattern. Since there were seven pitches in the diatonic scale, he came up with a spectrum of seven colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, corresponding to the pitches of a B-flat major scale beginning on the second note. Later scientists argued that Newton's division of the spectrum was arbitrary, that there was an infinite number of shades in between these colors. But for Newton that was an insignificant detail. Like Rimsky-Korsakov, he would have seen the color green and heard, in his mind's ear, the pitch F. ...

The most famous light-producing musical instrument, of course, was the elaborate ''tastiera per luce'' that Scriabin commissioned for the 1911 premiere in Moscow of his Op. 60 ''Prometheus - Poem of Fire.'' Unfortunately, it went haywire on the night of the performance. But if it had worked, what a display it would have been. It would have projected on a gigantic screen precisely the colors the composer wanted his audience to ''see'' in every one of his notes, the colors that he, supposedly, did see. Much more than an exercise in collective synesthesia, it would have been, like, you know - wow! - psychedelic.
...

[BillChin]

Why do composers choose certain keys for their pieces?

from
http://www.cso.org/main.taf?p=1,1,4,11
Why do composers choose certain keys for their pieces? This question has a variety of answers. To a certain extent, composers choose keys the way abstract painters choose colors. Why blue for a particular pattern, or red, or yellow? It just seems right. Sometimes music simply “comes to” a composer in a particular key, and he or she can't imagine it in any other. A strange concept? Perhaps, but many composers have absolute pitch (or “perfect” pitch), and for them all pitches, and therefore all keys, have distinct, individual identities. Indeed, some composers associate certain moods, characters, or colors — actual colors or emotional ones — with certain keys. These associations are not necessarily consistent, however, and they vary greatly from composer to composer. Even the major-minor difference is not absolute: minor keys are generally heard as “darker” than major keys, and more appropriate for expressions of sadness or seriousness, but music in major keys is by no means always “happy” or light. Aesthetic choices are often combined with technical considerations in a composer's key selection: some instruments sound better in certain keys, and fingering patterns on some instruments may be awkward or comfortable depending on the key of the composition. The key affects the range in which an instrument must play, and instruments sound different in different parts of their range, even if not necessarily better or worse. For singers, the key of a piece may determine whether they will be singing in comfort or straining at the edges of their vocal range.

[oleorezinator]

It's called synesthesia. Well, across the pond and in Canada it's synaesthesia. Lord knows what the French call it. Accounts of people who see three-dimensional colored shapes in the air in the presence of sounds or flavors, for example, have been recorded. I remember the story of one such who thought the experience was common to all --until late adolescence set in-- and he found out that his condition was unique.

Some people might taste a tone, or hear a color.

how much lsd had the test subjects ingested immediately prior to the test? or was it mescaline?

Oh, you.

Although I must admit that in my college days I myself was privileged with some insight into the condition of synesthesia in, shall we say, an "assisted" manner.

hey nano, is this stuff anything like that nihilist classic "i see a red door and i want it painted black"?

[dubhlinn]

It's called synesthesia. Well, across the pond and in Canada it's synaesthesia. Lord knows what the French call it. Accounts of people who see three-dimensional colored shapes in the air in the presence of sounds or flavors, for example, have been recorded. I remember the story of one such who thought the experience was common to all --until late adolescence set in-- and he found out that his condition was unique.

Some people might taste a tone, or hear a color.

how much lsd had the test subjects ingested immediately prior to the test? or was it mescaline?

Oh, you.

Although I must admit that in my college days I myself was privileged with some insight into the condition of synesthesia in, shall we say, an "assisted" manner.

The moral of the story is never listen to the Blues whilst tripping.

Slan,
D.

[Nanohedron]

Mine is indeed a cautionary tale.

But enough of that. I think the closest I get to synesthesia is in feeling sharpness, fuzziness, dullness, or other tactile interpretations in relation to flavors and tones. I don't think it's the same thing, though.

[tuaz]

Why do composers choose certain keys for their pieces?

from
http://www.cso.org/main.taf?p=1,1,4,11
Why do composers choose certain keys for their pieces? .... [snip]...Aesthetic choices are often combined with technical considerations in a composer's key selection: some instruments sound better in certain keys, and fingering patterns on some instruments may be awkward or comfortable depending on the key of the composition. The key affects the range in which an instrument must play, and instruments sound different in different parts of their range, even if not necessarily better or worse. For singers, the key of a piece may determine whether they will be singing in comfort or straining at the edges of their vocal range.

I"m not sure each key has its own identity, but speaking from experience from playing in my church's band, some songs lose their "lift" or punch when you transpose to a lower key, even though the lower key is more comfortable, and the higher key kills the singers because the song pushes at the limits of their vocal range.

Maybe higher frequencies just give certain combinations of notes (ie, the melody or parts thereof) more "uplifting-ness". But let's say a song sounds dead or emotionally flat in D major, and alive in E, I think going up to F won't substantially change the feel of the song, it'll just kill the singers even more.

My theory is that it's related to the lyrics, and to the feeling that the melody/words are supposed to convey in a specific part of a song. If the words for that part are exuberant (e.g. "sing for joy to the Lord!"), then it's better for a higher frequency/key to be used so that the people can push themselves to hit those notes, even if it's a strain on their voices at that part, because that would lead to them singing louder and more forcefully.

Does that make sense?