# Major or Minor?



## dzc4627 (Apr 23, 2015)

Now obviously I know that not all pieces are in a major or minor key or even in a key at all. But for those that are, which tends to attract you more? Yeah, I know it might depend on mood and time of day and moon phase, but usually people have a concrete tendency to lean towards either a piece in a major or minor key, right? Maybe not. All I know is that I tend to enjoy pieces that are in the minor key more than their counterpart. You?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I think people that prefer minor keys tend to be romantics at heart. Even Beethoven seems to have preferred Mozart's minor key piano concertos, as did most of the 19th century (and his 40th symphony in G minor above the others).

I see that preference fading of late...


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## Avey (Mar 5, 2013)

Key is a matter of perspective.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

One of these days I'll take a music theory course. I know it's something to do with the white and black keys :lol: What does white sound like? What does black sound like? I've read the descriptions a number of times, but I keep forgetting. I wish I knew which note I was hearing when I hear it. I think I'd 'get' a lot more, but I think I get enough for my enjoyment, as it is.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

It really doesn't matter to me at all.


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## Guest (Dec 7, 2015)

Minor !


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

99% of the music I listen to is Minor, I realize it's A Major limitation of mine. 

Surely, Mods, I deserve at least two infractions for that one, right?


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## dzc4627 (Apr 23, 2015)

------------Maybe three!

And your preference certainly explains the username :^)


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

No poll?


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## LHB (Nov 1, 2015)

Neither.


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## dzc4627 (Apr 23, 2015)

How do I put those in? I wanted to originally.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

When I sift through my favorite pieces (the ones that are in keys at any rate), it's pretty evenly divided.


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## dzc4627 (Apr 23, 2015)

Interesting! I wonder if it is like this for most.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

It's worth noting that a majority of romantic sonatas (according to William S. Newman's survey) beginning in the minor mode, and thus cataloged as works in minor keys, end in the major mode. I suspect the same is true of symphonies and concertos and that this is also true of a majority of 20th century works for which the modal distinction is meaningful. No doubt part of the reason for this pervasive dual modality is that in music composed under the system of expressive aesthetics, the affects evoked by the minor mode are less satisfactory than those evoked by the major, so that progressing from the dominance of minor in the beginning to major in the end imparts a sense of overall progress or teleology to the whole. I probably favor works beginning in the minor mode in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries because of the dynamism of modal contrast they possess rather than the qualities of the minor mode per se.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

I never pay any attention to major vs. minor.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

I have no preference.


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## Sherkel (Jul 27, 2014)

When I discovered what a key was, I realized that most of the music I liked was in minor keys.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Im a minor guy too  It seems minor works are more peaceful and melodic but i heard some minor works that are pretty colossal and some major works that flow like quiet mountain stream...How is that so...I surely cant be the only one...With that experience.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

An interesting question I'm finding I can't answer easily. For me this is like asking if I like cold or hot food. I need them both.

The same with intervals. I like them small or large, and everything in between. Do I like melodies long, winding and complex? Or simple and repetitive? Yes to both. Do I like the terraced dynamics of the baroque, or slow building crescendos of the classic period and beyond? Yes!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I like the moody interplay and contrast between modes, like the play of light and shade, and don't care which predominates, if either. I like to end in major, but preferably after the tension and uncertainty of minor. Minor is more conducive to modulation and chromaticism, so it seems to have more of a story in it, a mystery and a predicament that major can resolve.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Major makes me feel better. And I like that.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Got to have both, all that dynamics. I completely echo Woodduck's and EdwardBast's sentiments. Beginning in minor and ending in major is probably the most satisfying scheme of all.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I could not tell you whether a piece was in a major or minor key, and I wonder what the big difference is.


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## Gouldanian (Nov 19, 2015)

Mozart's only worthy works are in the minor keys. Enough said.

(Here come the assaults...)


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Gouldanian said:


> Mozart's only worthy works are in the minor keys. Enough said.
> 
> (Here come the assaults...)


In what sense? What's unworthy about his major key works?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

violadude said:


> In what sense? What's unworthy about his major key works?


There's no dissonance in them?


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> There's no dissonance in them?


It's a strange thing to say. I don't see how a piece being minor or major would make any qualitative difference whatsoever.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

I think my listening for Baroque and later music is about evenly split.

But for earlier music my favorites mostly seem to be in the "minor" modes, for some reason.


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## Guest (Dec 10, 2015)

Mozart wrote only two piano concertos in the minor keys. No. 20 is one of my favorites, but No. 24 is way down the list. So I don't think it has to do with Major or Minor, but he quality of the music that attracts me regardless of key.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Everybody's different. I happen to adore Mozart's Piano Concerto #24, some of the interest being the sense that Mozart seems to be prefiguring unwritten music to come from others' hands in the next century--Liszt, for one--but I have Glenn Gould's recording, and that may be significant, as well as the fact that Gould (to my knowledge) never recorded any of the others, his preference being confined to the #24.


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## CypressWillow (Apr 2, 2013)

Opening in minor seems to grab my attention. Ending in major gives a great sense of completion, whilst ending in minor puts me in a loop of having to hear it again immediately. 
It's somehow 'sweeter' for me in minor.


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