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Hey, this may seem like a strange question but bear with me

If i write a tune in a key, and then transposed it to another key, apart from the obvious differences in frequencies, would it change the feel of the song?

i.e if it was written in C minor vs E minor. The notes would be higher in E obviously, but does a song in E possess any different qualities to C, such as a happier or sadder feeling etc.

Honestly I've always felt there's more meaning in the intervals (harmony, melody, rhythm) but I definitely think key plays a more subtle part in the big picture.

there are HUGE differences in the "feel" of each key.
i cant remember where i got this from originally but regardless here a list of characteristics:



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. 



C# Minor: 
Penitential lamentation, intimate conversation with God, the friend and help-meet of life; sighs of disappointed friendship and love lie in its radius. 



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. 



Eb Major: 
The key of love, of devotion, of intimate conversation with God. 



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. 



E Major: 
Noisy shouts of joy, laughing pleasure and not yet complete, full delight lies in E Major. 



E minor: 
Naïve, womanly innocent declaration of love, lament without grumbling; sighs accompanied by few tears; this key speaks of the imminent hope of resolving in the pure happiness of C 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. 



xrylex wrote:there are HUGE differences in the "feel" of each key.
i cant remember where i got this from originally but regardless here a list of characteristics:



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. 



C# Minor: 
Penitential lamentation, intimate conversation with God, the friend and help-meet of life; sighs of disappointed friendship and love lie in its radius. 



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. 



Eb Major: 
The key of love, of devotion, of intimate conversation with God. 



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. 



E Major: 
Noisy shouts of joy, laughing pleasure and not yet complete, full delight lies in E Major. 



E minor: 
Naïve, womanly innocent declaration of love, lament without grumbling; sighs accompanied by few tears; this key speaks of the imminent hope of resolving in the pure happiness of C 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. 



I actually found this incredibly interesting, would really appreciate it if you could try and find where you found it!

xrylex, that is an incredible post. Fair play

glad my recording school education hasnt gone to complete waste!
as appearantly i can remember things i researched for school and where i saved them on my external drive haha.

had to dig a little to find the link that i originally pulled the text from: (which is credited as "Christian Schubart's Affective Key Characteristics")
http://web.archive.org/web/200802131734 ... eychar.htm


that previous text, and the link i just posted are both referenced on this wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_(music)


if this kind of stuff really grabs you, i highly recommend reading a book called "This Is Your Brain On Music"
http://www.amazon.com/This-Your-Brain-M ... 0525949690
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_Yo ... n_On_Music

that book, and some intermediate understanding of music theory really helped me understand and identify some of those "magical" things that really grab us in music, regardless if its a chord progression, a particular key, a rhythm, a sound, a lyric, etc.... its helped me a ton to be able to identify those features in other music that i hear, analyze why they grab me, and then apply the same features to my own stuff.

It's interesting but I'm never convinced. Isn't this more to with composing with instruments with unequal intervals or different tunings, where the actual intervals of the frequencies are different rather than just transposed up or down. I don't imagine your average EDM track is going change much if you bump it up or down a few semitones.

That or you're talking about completely keys, and I've completely missed the point.

xrylex wrote:there are HUGE differences in the "feel" of each key.
i cant remember where i got this from originally but regardless here a list of characteristics:



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. 



C# Minor: 
Penitential lamentation, intimate conversation with God, the friend and help-meet of life; sighs of disappointed friendship and love lie in its radius. 



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. 



Eb Major: 
The key of love, of devotion, of intimate conversation with God. 



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. 



E Major: 
Noisy shouts of joy, laughing pleasure and not yet complete, full delight lies in E Major. 



E minor: 
Naïve, womanly innocent declaration of love, lament without grumbling; sighs accompanied by few tears; this key speaks of the imminent hope of resolving in the pure happiness of C 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. 



This is why rolling at home isn't a bad thing

Haha I literally just started reading 'This is your brain on music' today.

Aw, I had that link all ready to post in here Damn you guys.

interesting post xrylex!

love that post xrylex! gonna archive that one!

most of my tunes are in F minor, F# minor and G minor:


"Deep depression, funereal lament, groans of misery and longing for the grave."
"
A gloomy key: it tugs at passion as a dog biting a dress. Resentment and discontent are its language."
"Discontent, uneasiness, worry about a failed scheme; bad-tempered gnashing of teeth; in a word: resentment and dislike.
"

Think I need to gets me some Prozac, lol.

"A minor: 
Pious womanliness and tenderness of character. 

" - Awww damn, most of what I write is in A minor.

kaiori breathe wrote:"A minor: 
Pious womanliness and tenderness of character. 

" - Awww damn, most of what I write is in A minor.

That`s like saying you`re a bitch

a lot of them seem to be quite negative! yet tunes written in those keys don't sound gloomy or depressing to me.

VirtualMark wrote:a lot of them seem to be quite negative! yet tunes written in those keys don't sound gloomy or depressing to me.

yeh I think it`s all up to personal taste really.
some folks will be melancholic in a certain key while others will be joyous.

Hate to be a debby downer, but attributing certain emotions or feelings to keys (in terms of the tonic, or "base note") is nonsense. It's the structure of the key, e.g. Major, minor, etc, and how you move within those intervals that give it those emotional characteristics.

AllNightDayDream wrote:Hate to be a debby downer, but attributing certain emotions or feelings to keys (in terms of the tonic, or "base note") is nonsense. It's the structure of the key, e.g. Major, minor, etc, and how you move within those intervals that give it those emotional characteristics.

ahh hate to break it to you debby....

but ive never heard of a single note called Fmajor or Cminor. This discussion is not relating to single root notes/the tonic but its specifically discussing the qualities of a KEY/musical scale of a track. since we are discussing the KEY a track is in, it should go without saying that the intervals and progressions between notes/chords of said track/said key are what relates to qualities/emotions. Not sure why you would think that this was discussing single notes.

xrylex wrote:

AllNightDayDream wrote:Hate to be a debby downer, but attributing certain emotions or feelings to keys (in terms of the tonic, or "base note") is nonsense. It's the structure of the key, e.g. Major, minor, etc, and how you move within those intervals that give it those emotional characteristics.

ahh hate to break it to you debby....

but ive never heard of a single note called Fmajor or Cminor. This discussion is not relating to single root notes/the tonic but its specifically discussing the qualities of a KEY/musical scale of a track. since we are discussing the KEY a track is in, it should go without saying that the intervals and progressions between notes/chords of said track/said key are what relates to qualities/emotions. Not sure why you would think that this was discussing single notes.

Because of that massive post by you that implied exactly that? He wasn't saying F minor is a note. He was asking why playing the same patterns in B Major and C Major (for example) would sound entirely different. You really believe transposing any old tune up by a semi-tone will take it from this

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. 



to this?

C Major: 
Completely Pure. Its character is: innocence, simplicity, naïvety, children's talk. 



therapist wrote: Because of that massive post by you that implied exactly that?

you are right he didnt say it was a note... but Fminor can only refer to A KEY/SCALE or a Chord. neither are a single note. i certainly did not imply at any point that these qualities were relating to a root note.... so where is the confusion???



i didnt realize there need to be an explanation of the term KEY/SCALE, so just to be clear... we are certainly discussing a KEY/SCALE and YES, the emotive associations of the nteractions/intervals/progressions taking place within each scale.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F_minor
KEY = A SCALE.
KEY does NOT refer to a single note.
so F minor refers to the scale consisting of F, G, A♭, B♭, C, D♭, and E♭.

(from that wiki page)
"F minor is a key often associated with passion. Two famous pieces in the key of F minor are Beethoven's Appassionata Sonata, and Haydn's Symphony No. 49 in F minor, La Passione.

Glenn Gould once said if he could be any key, he would be F minor, because "it's rather dour, halfway between complex and stable, between upright and lascivious, between gray and highly tinted...There is a certain obliqueness."


read anything on classical music composition and you will be drowning in all the fun intricate details about each key, why people choose to write in one key over another, and alllll the fun stuff associated with each key.


now if you dont "believe" in the subject matter...thats a diff can of beans... but cool man no worries, a music theory major might be happy to debate you but personally i could care less. use it or dont. just throwing the info out there and was happy to see a thread on DSF that is a little different than the norm.