Mozart: you can now stream and download my latest symphony on all the usual platforms. Please share, like and subscribe! SalieriLover389102: c major is a dogshit key lmao - ThreadSky

levparikian.bsky.social • 27 days ago

Mozart: you can now stream and download my latest symphony on all the usual platforms. Please share, like and subscribe!

SalieriLover389102: c major is a dogshit key lmao

Comments

rrabbitt.bsky.social•27 days ago

I can never tell what key something is in just by listening to it; I have to be told what it is. Does this mean that key is a purely literary idea, nothing to do with music apart from the technical aspects of playing an instrument?

levparikian.bsky.social•27 days ago

No, it means you’re one of the people who can’t tell what key something is in just by listening to it. Many people can, and for them it fundamentally changes the character of the music.

rrabbitt.bsky.social•27 days ago

I suspected as much. But I seem to hear tempo, harmony etc perfectly well, so I'll carry on listening.

whelkaholism.bsky.social•27 days ago

I'm played amateurly for 30 odd years now, but I don't have perfect pitch by any means. I have pretty decent relative pitch and even sometimes if a single string is flat I can think "that doesn't sound quite right" but nothing beyond that. It's a really fascinating subject

whelkaholism.bsky.social•27 days ago

Also different keys can sound completely different depending on the instrument because they'll use different parts of the instrument to make the sounds.

whelkaholism.bsky.social•27 days ago

One thing I've noticed with me is that I find it incredibly difficult to tell what octave a note is in. I can tell whether the note is in tune as a C,A, etc. or not but not what absolute pitch it is. Very weird.

robheighton.bsky.social•27 days ago

Absolute or "perfect" pitch is very rare (apparently estimated at about 0.01% of the population and about 4% of music students) and so unless I've misunderstood the relationship between absolute pitch and key recognition, it's very normal (~99.99%) to not discern specific keys without reference

robheighton.bsky.social•27 days ago

This is assuming the comparison is about differently pitched keys of the same type/modality, e.g. C Major vs. D Major vs. E Major

Pretty much everyone can distinguish major vs. minor (vs. Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian...) with appropriate training, because that comes from a capacity for relative pitch

robheighton.bsky.social•27 days ago

(I should add the disclaimer that they can sound different on specific instruments because of how a given key interacts with e.g. open vs. closed strings, but I think that's nuanced enough that most people still wouldn't be able make the distinction)

robheighton.bsky.social•27 days ago

In modern tuning, you generally aim for "twelve-tone equal temperament", where any given interval between notes has a standardised frequency ratio, meaning that you can transpose freely between keys of a certain type (e.g. C major, D major, E major...) without changing the relationships between >

robheighton.bsky.social•27 days ago

> the notes, harmonies, etc. and therefore leaving the 'sound' or feel of the key unaltered

For most people, this means that any two different major keys are indiscernible when played apart from each other—unless you've got absolute pitch, which is pretty rare (apparently about 1 in 10,000?)

robheighton.bsky.social•27 days ago

Historically, this wasn't always the case; some intervals between specific notes were prioritised and tuned more perfectly to their mathematic and harmonic ideals, meaning that the same intervals in other keys were less perfect, and different keys could be said to have their own character

robheighton.bsky.social•27 days ago

(in some cases being deemed unusable)

In standardising twelve-tone equal temperament, we've effectively sacrificed those bits of perfection to make every key sound pretty good—and equivalent to every other key

robheighton.bsky.social•27 days ago

It's normal to have the capacity to recognise pitch intervals (relative pitch) and therefore distinguish major/minor—and Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, etc.—with the right training

nicwilson.bsky.social•27 days ago

Be great to see some Salieri love. Poor Salieri.

whelkaholism.bsky.social•27 days ago

musicbloke35435: I've been playing for over 6 years now so I can pretty much do it all and I don't know why everyone thinks this Mozart guy is so good? Anyone care to explain?

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