[Music]
you are listening to the prelude to the
second Bach cello suite the cellist is
the great Rasta Povich who would speak
of the Suites sorrow and intensity
another great cellist Pablo Casals would
write of the tragic feeling evident
throughout the second suite this piece
of music was written around the time
that box first wife maria barbara died
suddenly you can really hear the grief
and sorrow in the music
[Music]
after all the second cello suite was
written the key of D minor which as we
all know gay Myna which I always fun is
really the saddest of all keys but is it
do different keys really sound different
historically composers really have felt
that there has been a discernible
difference between keys and his musical
treatise ideas towards an aesthetic of
music christian friedrich daniel xu bart
came up with a detailed list of keys and
the unique feelings associated with each
key right away we run into some
interesting nuggets like this one a flat
minor feelings of anxiety of all of the
souls deepest distress from being lost
in daydreaming despair of blackest
melancholy of the souls in deist
condition
hesitation with the shuttering hard
shocking a-flat minor if ghosts could
speak they would doubtless speak from
this key it seems like a flat minor is
the sad one not D minor but why would a
song like Stevie Wonder's superstition
be in the key of e-flat minor when it
sounds so joyous and ebb uhland even if
there was an objective truth with what
Schubert wrote it simply wouldn't be the
case with the music that we make today
well of course people back then played
with real emotion on real instruments
kids these days just make computer
noises on their laptops well no the
reason is actually a little bit more
literal we see today we tune the pitch a
to 440 Hertz but several centuries ago
baroque musicians were tuned their a a
little bit lower to something closer to
four hundred and twenty years this is
roughly equivalent to modern day a flat
which means that Schubert was actually
describing different keys entirely to
what we hear today so what that means is
that in Schubert stay musicians playing
in the ghostly key of e-flat minor would
actually be playing in modern-day D
minor awesome this is proof that D minor
has been the saddest of keys all along
case closed
that actually doesn't really answer any
questions like why would Schubert feel
that D minor is any different than C
minor for example the real reason why
Schubert felt that different Keys had
different meanings comes down to tuning
and how we define the relationships
between different notes today we use
something called equal temperament which
basically means that the distances
between notes and different keys stays
the same a perfect fifth and the key of
C is going to have the same relationship
as a perfect fifth in the key of F sharp
this means that anybody can use any key
at any time and it will turn out all
right there won't be any weird tuning
discrepancies from about the sixteenth
century to the 19th century we used a
different system which was called mean
tonguing temperament the effect of this
was that the further outside the key of
C went the more the different intervals
between notes ever so subtly changed
this meant that different keys truly did
sound different from one another and
might impart different emotional and
musical meanings you can see what I mean
by this when we compare a one four five
chord progression in mean tone
temperament in the key of G to the same
chord progression in the key of F sharp
check it out here it is in the key of G
now here it is in the key of F sharp
[Music]
Shubert entirely omitted the key of f
sharp major from his treatise because
well in his day mean tone temperament
rendered F sharp major completely
unusable when we adopted the modern
system of equal temperaments all of
these weird discrepancies between keys
got smoothed over this has been both a
blessing and a curse I mean we can now
technically use all twelve notes of the
chromatic scale as key centers without
hesitation but it also means that the
unique characteristics of every
individual key are kind of lost there's
no meaningful distinction between D
minor and C minor so case closed
surprise surprise nigel Tufnell is not a
great authority on emotional aesthetics
and music and d minor is not in fact the
saddest of all keys there are no
discernible differences between keys in
our modern tuning system or maybe there
are it's just that the differences are a
little bit more subtle and maybe not as
universal as you might think
what do I mean by that Stevie Wonder has
a tendency to play and a lot of keys
that use black keys on the piano like in
the case of E flat minor in superstition
for example being blind he likely has a
very tactile and pattern based approach
to the keyboard and so black key
vocabulary seems to have influenced a
lot of the key centers in his songs
pianists love these keys because you can
do some cool things in them that you
can't physically do in other keys like
black key glissandos for example
kind of tend to rip the skin off your
finger Stevie Wonder's by no stretch the
only person who did this Duke
Ellington's Protege Billy Strayhorn was
famous for writing his most famous works
in the key of D flat for example a key
which uses all of the black keys on the
piano piano like many other instruments
has its own idiosyncrasies which may
predispose it to play in certain keys
for certain contexts another example
would be in the case of violin music
especially in the Irish and bluegrass
traditions where the keys of G da and E
are very popular because of the use of
open strings open string vocabulary on
violin has a very particular sort of
idiomatic feel to it and so you're not
likely to hear upbeat violin and fiddle
music and keys which you don't use the
open strings open string vocabulary of
course also applies to guitar music
playing and keys where open chords are
possible like for example the key of C
or G has a very different feeling to
playing in different keys where you
might not be able to use open chords
like say a-flat beyond that the
aggressive sounds of rock and metal can
be heard in key centers which center
around the idiomatic practice of riffing
on the low open string whether it is e
or B or F sharp or C sharp modern brass
and woodwind instruments like trumpet
and saxophone are often attuned to
b-flat or E flat so music which uses
those instruments like jazz tend to
favor those keys so different
instruments use different keys how does
this relate we're getting a little bit
closer to an answer here now many
scientific studies the links are in the
description suggests that amo is the
most important thing for a vocal music
'el emotion rhythm harmony melody
they're all great but they don't do the
same thing as the actual sound of the
music however we can see that Tambor and
key Center are closely related because
of the physical characteristics of
musical instruments
there are tamriel differences between
different keys based upon the physical
qualities of different musical
instruments musicians songwriters and
composers sensitive to these differences
will routinely exploit them for musical
effect so we return again to the
question is the minor the saddest of all
keys and which instrument is d minor the
saddest on unfortunately the more that
we learn the more that this question
becomes difficult to answer because
different keys will feel and sound
different but maybe not be objectively
sadder than one another that judgment
comes down a lot to personal preference
Mozart wrote his Requiem in the key of D
minor so clearly he felt it was useful
for expressing the melancholy of death
but Verdi wrote his Requiem in the key
of G minor and Ligeti wrote his Requiem
in well many keys at the same time which
is the saddest and the choice of key
Center have any bearing on that overall
effect it's a complex difference and it
might not necessarily add up to anything
concrete like you know D minor is sadder
than b-flat minor because of this reason
but there is a difference and trained
musicians will be able to tell you that
there's a different feeling for playing
different Keys based upon the unique
physical and tamriel characteristics of
their chosen instrument it might not be
possible to put these feelings into
words but being familiar with these
differences between keys will go a long
way to the mastery of music and the
mastery of your instrument so thank you
for watching my name is Adam Neely I
hope you enjoyed my video on D minor and
it's alleged sadness if you enjoy what I
do please comment like and subscribe I
have a new video coming out every Monday
whether it be a lesson or a QA video I
also occasionally have gig vlogs where
you can sort of see me walk around the
New York City scene and play gigs it's a
great kind of fun and one of the reasons
why I'm able to do all of these videos
is because of my awesome awesome
supporters on patreon these guys so if
you enjoy watching these videos please
consider joining my patreon because it
goes a long way for me being to be able
to do this sort of thing so thank you
very much and until next time face