Why do Composers select particular keys for their music? 

Also where you finger a note changes the sound quite drastically on guitar, A on 5th fret of the E string sounds completely different than the open A string

Pianist Helene Grimaud experiences the same visualization of harmonic frequencies.

Indeed acoustic instruments are not equal tempered. All woodwinds will have some notes that are higher or lower, besides the register differences. Sometimes by (bad) design, sometimes by (lack of) fine adjustment of key work. Although I'm a cellist, I've played many other instruments through the years, and currently giving oboe a try. Brass instruments still follow the harmonic series and the tuning of each valve/rotor has to compromise some notes. String instruments will resonate differently when a note you play matches the harmonics of a lower open string, so players will often learn and fall on those overtones while playing. And when playing double stop most skilled musicians will play just thirds and just sixths. And guitars are always out of tune! :D Only electronic instruments can truly be equal - not that this is a good thing anyway

@@ericoschmitt Thank you for the information!

Brass players have to pay attention to the harmonic series and purity of harmony. For example, if two trumpets are playing a major third apart and use equal-tempered tuning it sounds...let's just say "bad". We generally have to tune using the harmonic series and indeed a lot of pro brass players will study scores and determine chord position, then adjust tuning accordingly. Sometimes we have to play out of tune in order to play in tune. I'm sure other instrumentalists have to do this as well.

Thank you, Stephan. And, by the way, there is a newly invented "Precise Temperament" tuning that actually brings out the richness of the intervals more than Equal Temperament. Strangely, or perhaps surprisingly, it seems to be ignored by the synthesizer and and piano industry, party because the theoretician is suggesting to use Scientific Tuning reference of A432 over A440Hz. And odd cult against A432 tuning has begun; especially fueled by uToobers Adam Neely and Rick Beato. At the moment, as small number of music theorist and musicians (including myself) have resorted to creating the tuning ourself using Apple's Logic Pro, and we are writing out the notes for those who want to incorporate this beautiful tuning.

True. And it's actually more tangible than you might think. For example C always sounds heavy and robust. Where as Ab sounds thin and smooth. Not only (as a pianist) have I realized that our hearing is not only spectral, C/red all the to B/magenta, I even hear, distingush the first half of the notes (C to F) as the warm keys, while F# to be the notes feel cooler. But this itself is not synesthesia, it is simply a quality of our the key itself. C is middle C because red start the rainbow. Even further, red, like blood is associated with birth and the vigor of life. I talk about in detail on mine own Paige here, if interested. -_The Acoustic Rabbit Hole_

I see keys as appropriate for times of day, and associate them with their respective sky colors. D, A, E, etc are for the day and so light blue, C, G, etc are for night so dark blue, G#, C#, etc are for dusk/dawn and so they’re orange.

*laughs in baroque*

In baroque music, a tendency that I notice is for compositions in a given key to actually be played a half-tone lower. For example, a concerto or chorus in D major (as part of the title) might actually be played in D-flat/C-sharp major.

@@yodorob that's actually a difference in tuning. The common modern tuning is A440 but most "historically-accurate" interpretations of baroque pieces are played at A415 or straight up transposed down a half-tone in some cases.

I'm currently writing something for an instrument that has a range from C4 to C6, and I think C is one of the worst keys, because there's only one C in the range that you can approach from both above and below. I think D or E still works better than A or B though (like F or G instead of D♭ or C for the clarinet), because going just below the tonic to the lowest notes and then back up a note or two is much better than having to go six or seven notes up to hit the nearest tonic.

That last bit happens to everybody, and is widely talk in the circles of baroque music playing. It's a different colour and character for every tonality lol

I'm surprised no one commented that certain keys are chosen because the composer heard a musical idea in that "original key". Alma Deutscher a 21st century composer develops musical ideas in their original key, until later to transpose melodies if necessary for opera voices.

I feel the same, keys definitely have their own distinct feelings so it's really hard to get a great range of all those emotions when an instrument is limited in what it can play That's why I like adding in plenty of chromaticism and borrowed chords where I can, otherwise everything on a particular instrument starts to sound the same

@@karolcpm- That's definitely a part of it for me. I'll have a melody just pop into my head sometimes and hum it into a voice recorder, having no idea what the notes are or what key it's in, and usually just keep it in that original key unless there's a good reason to change it.

Kinda a bad example, considering the two keys use the same notes labeled differently… but I get the point :)

@@TarantulaR08 No, it's a good example, for just the reason you said: The notes are exactly the same, but Gb has only 5 accidentals, whereas F# has 6, so it's harder to read!

It’s sad! B is such a sweet key, albeit difficult for string instruments.

Chopin said B was the best key for the piano. Sits better under the hands and makes scales easier and smoother to play, and the easiest to play by feel without looking at the keys. He also said C was the worst key, for the opposite reasons.

B minor on the other hand is used incredibly often

@@rainyday6430 Some keys are like that. Like C♯ minor is pretty common, but it's parallel major would almost always be spelled as D♭.

@@rainyday6430 The finale to Stravinsky's Firebird was written in B Major, so beautiful.

self-taught*

B is easier for the hand. But with C you can very easy explain the hole hole half hole hole hole half principle of the major key and from there out learn very easy all the keys. The for example F, Bes, Es, As, Des,Ges Start all the time on the new moll and get every key one moll more till you got them all. And then G, D, A, E, B, Fis Every new cross on your fourth vinger till you got all the black keys. Put fourth to trird and the thump is on you next key with one cross more.

@@RubenHogenhout Well, yes, if pedagogy is our only consideration. But after the 24 keys and modes are understood, C becomes the most excruciatingly boring of all keys, I think. I fell in love with 10 keys to the exclusion of all others: C#, Eb, F#, Bb and B (Maj + min for each tone).

I long dismissed the importance of choosing a key, thinking they're all just transpositions of equivalence, but just recently began to notice my own preferences; so I really appreciate the topic addressed here. It does seem that register is at least as important as key signature. I am not a fan of strained tenors and sopranos reaching for the stars when street lamps are perhaps their more realistic goal. There's nothing like the power of a full orchestra with every instrument given an engaging line and entire sections humming in the vigor of their midrange. Schumann's Piano Concerto is a type specimen, as are Brahms' Song of Destiny and Sibelius' Symphony #5. I call it the power of chestnut brown, especially in my favorite key, Eb major. And wouldn't you know--that's the key Beethoven chose for "Eroica.," the watershed moment of his ascendancy, the "Apres le deluge" of tonality, the landmark pivot between Classical and Romantic eras, the apex of symphonic form, the day Beethoven left Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Cervantes and Rembrandt in the dust (they were never close competition; however, Beethoven is still picking bugs out of his teeth after a trip to Leipzig left him hopelessly behind some well-fed, Engel aus der Hölle, who was composing so loud even Ludwig could hear the eight-voice, inverted, retrograde polyphony with a theme that grew progressively dazzling through 24 keys, all while teaching his kids how to fool Euler with a superior proof if they should ever meet him. This guy swung through inner-voice sublimity like an Olympic gymnast plays hopscotch.( And on the strength of that cadence, I rest my Picardy Third.

I always felt like the landmarks for C major are the black notes you're not using.

As a keen amateur guitarist, I have always favoured the vowel keys. Thanks for a wonderful video… I really appreciate your lucid and good humoured style.

That's very dim of composers.

@@AsadAli-jc5tg Every key sounds different on most instruments due to resonance, etc However keyboard instruments didn't use equal temperament back then so the scales were mathematically actual different.l

He didn't just leave out the T; he pronounced it as a glottal stop. It's quite common in the UK.

This is slightly wrong, or at least misleading. There is nothing inherently "perfect" about equal temperament. It's just one of the many ways of tuning an instrument. It was known since the renaissance, but only started to be used in the 20th century because it was adopted by the classical avant-garde as perfect for atonality. Also there is another misconception that seems to be shown in this comment. The meantone temperaments (which are the temperaments that sacrifice some keys to make others better than equal temperament) were not universally used in the baroque and didn't just suddenly go extinct in 1720. In the late batoque most composers would adopt the new well temperaments (temperaments that allow playing in all keys and add "key color" with some keys better than equal temperament and some worse, but all sounding slightly differently). Those well temperaments would be used by most until the 20th century, with many composers making their own tunings that would suit their music best. For example Beethoven thought that Eb major sounded heroic, and that's why most of his grand works are in that key or its relative minor. It's also not like meantone wasn't used in the classical era, Mozart famously used 1/6-comma meantone, which is slightly worse than the baroque 1/4-comma meantone but only really sacrifices one key (although Mozart did also use well temperaments). You also seem to conflate meantone and well temperament into one tuning. No, meantones did not have key color. Usually around 6 keys were amazingly beatiful, 2 were pretty bad but playable and 4 were unusable, but all of the beatiful ones sounded the same. They are also shown as outdated and their only trait being that they sacrifice some keys. This is not the case, music in 1/4-comma meantone is more beatiful, it's just more limiting for the composer.

@@JScaranoMusic Glo'aw stop, tha's ri', ma'e.

In that regard, the butchery I've heard in two different band transcriptions of the slow movement of Dvorak's New World Symphony. The middle section should be in the parallel minor of the main sections. But not in the band transcriptions I've heard. I heard a band transcription of Mussorgsky's Pictures. It followed all the original keys right through until we got to the Great Gate of Kiev. That is in E Flat Major, which one would naturally assume would be perfect for band. No - the movement was transposed to D Flat Major for no conceivable reason. My feelings: I don't mind an entire work being transposed, provided that the same transposition is carried through. If you can't do it right, then simply don't do it.

Well, that is mathematically logical. But induction, intuition and counter-intuition have sunk many a ship on wine-dark equations. I have a very insensitive ear, never caring for great acoustics or the fine points of orchestration, and yet I definitely, with a sense of certainty, hear G, D and A Major as clear, bright territory, almost aggressively confident. In contrast, Bb, Eb and Ab are stolid or melancholy to my ear, often elegantly nostalgic or autumnal. I think there are effects that cannot be utterly justified or dismissed by surface logic alone. The biology of sense and perception, processed in the dark, wet labyrinths of the temporal and occipital lobes by way the the ventral and dorsal streams have secrets not yet shared with us. Better to keep our encephalic windows open and our search engines running, and avoid the reflexive drift to work-from-home, early-to-close archival library until then.

@@prototropo When you describe how these keys sound are you referring to how their major scales sound?

It's because D is just higher than C

@@maxxiong D is lower than C too.. .depending on the octave

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Agreed. Saying that it's unimportant that a piece is written in E or F is like saying it's unimportant that an abstract painting is painted in greens rather than blues. One deals with frequencies in the audio spectrum, one deals with frequencies in the visual spectrum, and I don't see why one should have inherent affective associations and the other shouldn't.

@@DeflatingAtheism Exactly. Why should colors have associations, but keys not have anything associated with them? What’s wrong with me associating F major with flowing water or C minor with the entire emotional spectrum or D major with regal majesty? I don’t see anything wrong with that.

@@DeflatingAtheism It's not the actual key but the position on the instruments that really matter. Often when a piece is arranged for a different instrument it will be transposed. For example Mozart's oboe concerto in C was adapted to the flute concerto in D. This is why in modern songs the key is usually not a point that is discussed much since it would be chosen to fit the singer's register break.

@@maxxiong Oh, I’m well aware of this. There’s a reason Bach violin pieces that heavily use triple and quadruple stops are heavily weighted towards the keys of G or D major or minor. But art has always been about balancing countervailing considerations, and in spite of this, a correlation between keys and affects is still discernible. I think of the Adagio of Beethoven’s 9th, where he continually modulates from Bb to the key of D minor, to use the open strings of the intro to the first movement. I suspect the necessity of modulating between these two keys became part of the musical grammar of the piece (it would be much more conventional to have F or A major as the antipodal key to a piece in D minor,) and Beethoven’s mastery lies in taking something _necessary_ and making it seem like the optimal artistic choice.

The “personal physiology” criterion has a further feature. It is difficult to “hear” in your “mind’s ear” a note which you can’t produce with your own voice, either singing or humming (or possibly whistling). Composers who write for the voice choose a key which suits the pitch of the intended singer: bass, baritone, tenor, counter-tenor, soprano, alto, contralto, etc. But composers who write for instrumental performance tend to choose - at least subconsciously - a key which they can sing or hum along with. And, as most composers have perfect pitch but are not trained as singers (Haydn, once a Vienna choir-boy, is an exception), it is likely that most had a limited vocal range. Thus, when selecting a key, Tchaikovsky’s orchestral pitch is often half an octave lower than Mozart or Beethoven, suggesting that his own singing voice was closer to the bass range.

Have you heard of the Janko piano? All keys have the same fingering.

Historically, trumpet and horn players got around key changes by using crooks to change the fundamental pitch of their instruments, allowing access to different harmonic series that match the current key of the music. This is the origin of trumpet and horn being transposing instruments, i.e., the written music is transposed to match the instrument rather than the music being written to match actual concert pitch.

Yes! I think Chopin was one of the people that understood that the most - a lot of his music just "fits" under your hand better than that of other piano composers

It's even sadder with the volume turned to 11...

@@enjoyclassicalmusic6006 ...and listening in Dobly.

Completely agree. Just play in B minor vs Eb minor. Completely different mood.

Isn't simply a flat just one way of defining a note like d sharp is also e flat

It’s called Saint John’s passion By J.S Bach it’s the first movement.

It's the opening chorus to Bach's St John Passion

It's the opening chorale to Bach's St John Passion.

@@enjoyclassicalmusic6006 Many thanks

It's the Dies Ires from Mozart's Requiem

Bach was a big fan of littering his name all over his work, the BACH motif for example, so it would be all that surprising.

There is an european notation French or German, not sure) where B stands for B flat and for straight B they use H, instead. B A C… H

Yes, and ease of playing, some keys are easier on certain instrutments. With equal temperament that what it is.

That's true. D flat major is also quite popular. It just sits nicely to the hand.

5 flats is quite hard for most other instruments tho.

I much prefer the sound of C#, major or minor, over C natural. It has nothing to do, per se, with fingering (although I do prefer playing in C# too!)

Looking at white keys only playing on a piano roll like synthesis looked too boring to me, so I always just transposed things into other keys for the heck if it, and sometimes they'd sound better. If not, id just put it back in its original key, I usually start writing most of my stuff in a minor or c major.