Your Favorite Key!

My second thread!

This might be kind of wierd but I've been interested lately-

What is your favorite Major/Minor key?

For me...

Major: E Major

Minor: A minor

Just curious!:toothygrin:

edit: there is a much earlier thread with the same topic- I just found out. Whoops!

Seems to me, we've had this thread many-a-time but oh well. One could always use an extra post in their post count. :shifty:

Favorite major: Db Major (Eb Major is a close second though)

Favorite minor: C# Minor (just about the only minor key I like actually)

However, this is all sort irrelevant now that I, more or less, always write without a key signature and am incapable of staying in one key for more than a few measures. :whistling:

Probably E Major and G# Minor. I don't know why. All keys are basically equal.

D min

its the saddest key

D min

its the saddest key

:thumbsup:

I like D minor and B major. Both always sound so fresh to me...

E-flat Major and F minor.

B major is gorgeous and rich to me....though so is Db.

I can't really pick a favourite. They're all good in their own way.

D minor tends to be the minor key I use the most though.

I like E major for its light, bright quality. I tend to write in C fairly often as well.

D and Eb are also good for brightness etc., whereas Bb and A have a softer, mellower character.

I guess what I'm saying is that I like something about most keys, and don't have any clear favourite.

Hrm... well, my response in the original thread (http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/whats-your-favorite-key-13519.html):

For clarinets, written F major.

For C Flute/Bass Flute, G major/E minor.

For Piccolo, Bb/Eb major.

For Alto Flute, written D minor.

For Oboe, F/G major.

For English Horn, written D minor.

For Saxophones, written F major/E minor.

For Bassoon, C/D/F/G major.

For singing, E major.

Wow I'm surprised that you also like F major for saxophones... it's a simply brilliant tone (the F on saxophones)

I cannot cannot cannot seem to write in major keys with flats unless the piece began in a minor key, and I cannot seem to write in minor keys with sharps unless the piece began in a major key.

Regardles, G minor is my favorite minor, G major my favorite major, and F phrygian as my favorite phrygian, and my favorite lydian is definitely C.

(don't forget the OTHER modes :P )

I tend to be drawn to B minor lately.

I coulda sworn that there was a thread on this already..ah well..My favorite key is definitely E flat major followed by C minor, G major, and D major, ...and maybe Gb..because it's sexy, flat and mellowy.

The toilet key when I'm in a real hurry! :D:D:D

(I don't use keys, sorry)

F Sharp Minor and G Flat Major :D

I imagine the F#, G#, B, and C# keys on firsty_ferret's keyboard have seen a lot of wear. ;)

Thread should be labeled "What's your favorite pitch collection?" Considering that all major key pitch collections are the same, there's no need to differentiate between G major and Bb major, that's just stupid. And the only reason they will ever sound different from each other is context.

Umm.... no they're not. Have you ever listened to a piece and then transposed it. It sounds completely different.

Yeah, but it would still sound different.

Thread should be labeled "What's your favorite pitch collection?" Considering that all major key pitch collections are the same, there's no need to differentiate between G major and Bb major, that's just stupid. And the only reason they will ever sound different from each other is context.

I apologize for my stupidity.;)

Ridiculous - of course different keys sound different. Not only are the actual pitches either higher or lower (in your example the Bbmajor would either be a minor third higher or major six lower), but instruments' timbres and playability also change depending on the range.

Good point, and I certainly agree that for reasons such as those there definitely are differences between keys. (There are even more things that have an influence on this, such as the historic "meaning" some keys have had, which has led to composers setting certain kinds of music to certain kinds of keys.)

I agree with reportcardlvr though that the actual characterisation of keys tends to be a highly "esoteric" placebo effect. Most of the people who say E minor and D minor sound completely different, with E minor sounding more like characteristic X and D minor more like characteristic Y probably wouldn't be able to actually tell them apart reliably, if confronted with some melodies played in random keys, without any reference notes. The differences are often made to be much more dramatic than they actually are, IMO.

Sure, when playing something on an instrument myself, say when I'm improvising, the choice of key is very important to me and seems to make a huge difference to the sound. But I'm fairly sure that's mostly a placebo effect, especially on the piano, where ranges, formants, etc. are less of an issue and you're pretty much always playing in 12 tone equal temperament.

Is that you in your profile pic?

Yes, why?

Range is definitely an issue on the piano. Not that you will run out of range at either end, but, for example, the tonic chord in (say) the second octave of the piano will only work well in certain keys. Too low, and it's too muddy; too high and there's a loss in richness. This is partly why I find B major very rich.

i personaly don't like fourth octave on piano, my favourite keys are the lowest and the highest, and i'm mad that usual pianos don't go much lower and even some higher. i think going an octave lower would open some really crazy possibilities for piano playing/sounding.

i personaly don't like fourth octave on piano, my favourite keys are the lowest and the highest, and i'm mad that usual piano's don't go much lover and even some higher. i think going an octave lower would open some really crazy possibilities for piano playing/sounding.

Well, seeing that the lowest piano A is at about 27.5 Hz, that means the piano already goes pretty much to the lowest tone audible for humans. Those Boesendorfer's that go to F even go below the human hearing range, so what you hear there is just the overtones, and your brain connects them to an artificial sense of the fundamental (which you don't actually hear). A full octave lower would be mostly just wobbling.

Well, seeing that the lowest piano A is at about 27.5 Hz, that means the piano already goes pretty much to the lowest tone audible for humans. Those Boesendorfer's that go to F even go below the human hearing range, so what you hear there is just the overtones, and your brain connects them to an artificial sense of the fundamental (which you don't actually hear). A full octave lower would be mostly just wobbling.

i don't know, my riga's lowest tone really doesn't sound like the end of it, unless the few next keys down would be a major drop, i wouldn't mind this 'wobbling' be present there. i think they would work for perfect ambient drone music. weaving.

yes, there's still too much tone in it.

i would love more bass.

Maybe, yeah. But I guess there are also technical difficulties to be considered there, since for one I don't know down to which pitch the resonating capacities of a normal piano corpus go effectively, plus you might need thicker (well, heavier) strings and tighten them quite firmly, which the whole construction needs to be able to support.

Thick strings also have the problem of creating less harmonic overtones. (You only get perfectly harmonic overtones with an infinitely thin string, the thicker it gets, the more inharmonic the spectrum gets, which is also why metal percussion instruments such as bells usually have inharmonic spectra.)

Of course inharmonic spectra are not a bad thing, but they just fall out of line with the other piano tones and the cultural "ideal" of a piano tone, which of course isn't nothing bad per se either, if that's what you want. (And I can certainly understand it if one wants that. Personally I'm not too fond of the sound of the really low piano tones, but that's a personal thing, and also depends on context.)

I hope everyone knows that this thread isn't JUST for pianos. Because, sure, it might be a little difficult to tell when wearing a blindfold if a player was playing in C major or F# major (unless you had perfect pitch).

BUT

If they were playing a clarinet, violin, saxophone, or trumpet (instruments that I am extremely familiar with) I can easily pick out the key that they are playing in. Each note has its own resonance within the instrument and some notes have better, fuller tone than others.

Like I said before, that's the reason why I love the key of F major in saxophones (and I think that is the reason why Flint likes it too).

I love the key of G minor. (I must of used it in like a hundred works) Its bittersweet and melancholy.

I also feel a strong resolution to anything in Eb Major.