The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    different keys do have different characters, moods, colors associated with them.
    the whole "D minor is the saddest key" has more or less made it a joke among musicians, but i really do think it's true. pieces have slightly different feels to them when they're moved to different keys.
    It is not about being true... it is relations within certain musical (or rather cultural) language, we live in it, grow up in this audial enviroment..

    In calssical tradition b-minor had sorrowness of Chist's passion, the profoundest sorrow... mostly in baroque music (originally from renaissance)
    c-minor had often a touch monumental grief, combination of sorrow and power, greatness, especially in later calssical period (Beethoven's 5th, Schubert's 4th, Chopin's c-minor prelude, lots of examples)
    d-minor had more of an intimate touch of sorrow, mostly after Mozart estableshed the key like this with his Requiem... in baroque it did not have that meaning.

    These meanings originaly come from mid-ages modality when modes had certain caracters and audience could identify it... then they were modified with time.

    there are also hubdreds of reasons why we chose this that key, why it sounds different - instrumental reason is not least... blues in E, blues in D, blues in Bb will sound very different on guitar

    now I think the problem is that we are too much into equal temperance now, and the other point is that in pop/jazz music is often key-closed, key realstions do not matter much. So I think in general (yes in general... meaning thath on personal level there is always exceptions and details) as a part common language in comparison to classical period meaning of key is mostly lost.
    Last edited by Jonah; 02-24-2015 at 10:54 AM.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary