# Do non musicians have a favorite key?



## Manok (Aug 29, 2011)

I was curious to see if any of you who don't play but just listen, have a favorite key?


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## principe (Sep 3, 2012)

Interesting question, but I believe that if you rephrase it to: "which works are the best (you know) in each possible key", you would create a much bigger and more interesting thread. Imagine how many works (and significant ones) one may know (and how many we may discover) in G flat minor or in E flat minor or in D flat major, etc.
As for the very great composers, they used the different keys as instruments of their work rather than as "beloved keys" (although Mozart and Haydn were very comfortable, even happy, with E flat major).

Principe


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

Taking Principe's idea of identifying favourite keys by works, taking the OP's subjective preference idea, and ignoring my questionable abilities as a performer, I would say E flat major and d minor. This latter has produced Mozart's Requiem and Beethoven's 9th, which alone surely gives it a good pedigree. Also Don Giovanni. E flat has Beethoven's Eroica and Haydn's 99th and 43rd symphonies, which are among my favourites too.

D major is a good third, giving Haydn's London along with many others (I think the Imperial), Nozze of Figaro, a questionable Mahler's 9th and lots of other things being a very common key - Bach's 3rd Orchestral suite comes to mind. B minor has some good works, as has c minor... but I would just be listing favourites now


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## Head_case (Feb 5, 2010)

Manok said:


> I was curious to see if any of you who don't play but just listen, have a favorite key?


Tough call.

I think my favourite key is my house key, but on good days, it's definitely the motorcycle key.


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## Renaissance (Jul 10, 2012)

B minor. I love that key.


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## principe (Sep 3, 2012)

I agree with your very good post, Ramako, but we should not forget the critical g minor (the "death" key, or the very dark, poignant one): Mozart's String Quintet K.516, Piano Quartet No.1, the Two Symphonies k.183 and the 40th. In Haydn, there are some pivotal String Quartets (op.20 and op.74), Piano Trios, even in Symphonies and the most critical movement in the "Seven Last Words of our Saviour", etc.
C minor has some unique works too : Beethoven's Fifth and the incredible Last Piano Sonata, op.111 and some more by other composers (e.g. Brahms' First, the first Two by Bruckner!).

Principe


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Used to have. My girlfriend took it back, along with her affections.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

D flat major isn't the best playing key, but it's my favorite listening key.


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

I am a musician and I have no favorite key, playing or listening.


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## MaestroViolinist (May 22, 2012)

Haha, since everyone else is cheating... To listen to: D major and D minor. To play: G major.


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## peeyaj (Nov 17, 2010)

C major- My three favorite works are written on this key.

They are:

Symphony no. 9 in C Major "Great"

String Quintet in C major

Fantaise in C Major "Wanderer"


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

As a non-musician and burglar, keys mean nothing to me.


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## Ondine (Aug 24, 2012)

I have found myself enjoying a lot D major & G Major/minor.

Also must of Mozart's D major & G major/minor oeuvres are the ones I like the most.

A question here:

Doesn't the key depends more on the compositor than the key itself?


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## RRod (Sep 17, 2012)

To an untrained ear with no instrument-level experience, I don't see how anything recorded in 12-TET (esp. piano music) would lend itself to a "favorite" key. The peculiarities of technique and pitch for a given instrument will give it "character" in any key, even in equal temperament, so you could certainly pick up on that after listening to music enough with key in mind. But admittedly, even after 20+ years of listening to classical music, I still have no darn idea what key any piece of music is in upon hearing it, and I therefore don't perform any mental statistics in my mind about which keys I like "best". It's embarrassing a bit when I can't recall the key of LvB 9, for instance, but I just can't bring myself to believe it would be any less of a masterpiece if it were in E-flat...


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## Turangalîla (Jan 29, 2012)

My father has a strange penchant for G-flat.

Not sure why...


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

If I were not a musician, my favorite key would be........... E double-sharp minor


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## Manok (Aug 29, 2011)

This thread could also be about car keys and house keys.  Part of what I was after was, if there was any trend of your favorite pieces being in X key.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Its hard for me to take one over the other, but they certainly do have distinctive properties to me. But I'm kind of a musician...


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

RRod said:


> To an untrained ear with no instrument-level experience, I don't see how anything recorded in 12-TET (esp. piano music) would lend itself to a "favorite" key. The peculiarities of technique and pitch for a given instrument will give it "character" in any key, even in equal temperament, so you could certainly pick up on that after listening to music enough with key in mind. But admittedly, even after 20+ years of listening to classical music, I still have no darn idea what key any piece of music is in upon hearing it, and I therefore don't perform any mental statistics in my mind about which keys I like "best". It's embarrassing a bit when I can't recall the key of LvB 9, for instance, but I just can't bring myself to believe it would be any less of a masterpiece if it were in E-flat...


However, certainly some composers seem to have had a penchant for certain keys. Also, many of the works of a given composer in the same key sound very similar (Haydn and c minor in the symphonies is probably the most extreme example that comes to mind), and even more than one composer in a period but principe will tell you more about this.

Certain keys do seem to have particular characteristics. Whether this is inherent in the tuning system, or composers having in mind previous works written in that key, or composers being influenced by where a key is on the circle of fifths is a matter for debate. But something does seem to exist in the tuning system, I think, ET or not, because the actual pitch of a note has an influence on its effect, not just its relative position to others.


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## Head_case (Feb 5, 2010)

Manok said:


> This thread could also be about car keys and house keys.  Part of what I was after was, if there was any trend of your favorite pieces being in X key.


Haha ...I shouldn't really chip in, since I do play a few instruments (although I wouldn't really call myself a performing musician - I just find it relaxing to play music, as much as I do, to listen).

Gorecki's 'For you Ann lil' is a beautiful piece: it is written without key, in that non-modal form. It means I have to wade through accidentals in front of every other note, which is harder to play and get into it, until the music is memorised.

Is no key (perjoratively stated as 'atonal') my favourite? Hmmm...it could be to listen to


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## RRod (Sep 17, 2012)

Ramako said:


> However, certainly some composers seem to have had a penchant for certain keys. Also, many of the works of a given composer in the same key sound very similar (Haydn and c minor in the symphonies is probably the most extreme example that comes to mind), and even more than one composer in a period but principe will tell you more about this.
> 
> Certain keys do seem to have particular characteristics. Whether this is inherent in the tuning system, or composers having in mind previous works written in that key, or composers being influenced by where a key is on the circle of fifths is a matter for debate. But something does seem to exist in the tuning system, I think, ET or not, because the actual pitch of a note has an influence on its effect, not just its relative position to others.


True, there's certainly the psychoacoustic properties that certain tones can have for certain people which would preclude them towards given keys/sets of keys. And certainly the instrument matters; sympathetic vibrations (on something like the piano) or just natural resonances can give lots of flavor to a particular key.

I think the original question though is interesting in that it asks about people without musical experience. Being a former string player I know that keys that favor the open strings will make the string section sound brighter, and I thus know that I can listen for this on a recording. Someone with no experience, however, may not notice such idiosyncrasies, and will probably have less chance of knowing exactly what keys "sound better" to them.


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## Krisena (Jul 21, 2012)

I know that Beethoven and other composers have thought of keys having inherent characteristics, and for a long time, I was skeptical of this, until one day when I actually reckognized D major in a song I heard. Then I opened up to the fact that they maaaybe had better ears and experience than me, and that they may have been right.

I don't know how I would characterize D major/B minor, but I can reckognize them at once when listening. They have this sort of intensity or important atmosphere in them, unlike, say, A major, which sounds fresh and level-headed.

I have traces of perfect pitch, btw. I could probably train my ears more to really get it, altough it's never really perfect, in reasonable amounts of time, but I'm unsure if I'm going to benefit from it.


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

If I'm not mistaken, all the major keys only differ in pitch. The minor one's too. As opposed to modes, which actually differ in the sequence of intervals. You all know what I mean. So there cannot be any intrinsic musical difference between any of the major keys, or of the minor keys. The only difference is between major and minor.

I used to think that many of my favourite pieces were written in specific keys, d minor and b minor in particular. But I guess that's only because composers often used those keys for pieces of a specific character: solemn, serious, brooding, etc.

I've had no musical training, so if I'd hear some diatonic orchestral movement, I wouldn't be able to tell you its key. Perhaps it'd be fair to say that most non-musicians couldn't. But I guess most could recognize, or at least strongly feel, whether a piece is major or minor or modal/bitonal or chromatic or atonal. But beyond that - which major/minor key? which mode? - I think you either need some serioud training or many years of listening experience.


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## Krisena (Jul 21, 2012)

Andreas said:


> If I'm not mistaken, all the major keys only differ in pitch. The minor one's too. As opposed to modes, which actually differ in the sequence of intervals. You all know what I mean. So there cannot be any intrinsic musical difference between any of the major keys, or of the minor keys. The only difference is between major and minor.


This is where I think you're wrong. The difference between different major keys is that they all have different sets of pitches in them, as you said, therefore, it's _possible_ that the human ear can interpret them differently, that your mind can percieve A major as higher, lighter, fresher than D major. I think this has something to do with different overtone series belonging to each key, but I'm not an expert on that.

I don't know if you misunderstood, but this thread is indeed about keys, not modes, modes are easy to tell apart, keys, who knows?


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Its a sort of conceited statement, but having perfect pitch from a young age gives one associations with various keys. Whether these vary tremendously from person to person or have a uniformity to them, I don't know, but the fact is, there are people like myself out there who can hear a key and it produces a certain sound, most easily likened to colors in my case. My abilities are diminishing though, these days I have to think about it if I want to distinguish A from A flat, though C and C sharp(D flat as some prefer it) are easy.


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## ozradio (Oct 23, 2008)

Probably D minor, (



)


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## Clump (Sep 5, 2012)

I am a (shit, ameteur) musician, but when I was just starting and knew nothing about music I remember discovering that G minor sounds fantastic in a way other minor keys didn't seem to.


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