# Favourite key?



## maestro267 (Jul 25, 2009)

I would've done a poll for this, but you can only have 10 options max, and I really need 24!

Do you have a particular favourite key in music? 

I'm a B minor fan myself, and I've come to find many of my favourite pieces (or themes within pieces) are in that key.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Frankly I don't think this topic makes much sense. You could ask whether we prefer major or minor keys, but there's not really anything different moodwise between B minor and C minor for example. I'm not sure whether there's much difference even for those with absolute pitch. If we modulate from B minor to C minor then clearly we are going to notice the change of key, but after we have used to the new key it sounds pretty much the same. There are technical/pragmatic reasons for preferring certain major keys over other major keys, or certain minor keys over other minor keys, but not really musical ones.


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## danae (Jan 7, 2009)

My personal favourite is my car key. It's my way out whenever I want to escape form everything. 

Sorry, maestro, I couldn't possibly resist making a joke on a thread with such a title!


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## LvB (Nov 21, 2008)

Dim7 said:


> Frankly I don't think this topic makes much sense. You could ask whether we prefer major or minor keys, but there's not really anything different moodwise between B minor and C minor for example. I'm not sure whether there's much difference even for those with absolute pitch. If we modulate from B minor to C minor then clearly we are going to notice the change of key, but after we have used to the new key it sounds pretty much the same. There are technical/pragmatic reasons for preferring certain major keys over other major keys, or certain minor keys over other minor keys, but not really musical ones.


I would disagree here; those "technical/pragmatic reasons" can have a tremendous impact on the _sound_ of the piece (the greater sympathetic resonance of the open strings in a minor, as opposed to b-flat minor, for example). If someone prefers that particular sound, then their preference will tend toward those particular keys-- even if they don't know the reason(s) for their preference; as they discover that more of the pieces they prefer are in certain keys, they will come to think of those keys as being favorites. Asked to pick one as a conversational gambit, they may simply add up various favorite pieces (or sections thereof), pieces which were written in specific keys for specific reasons on the part of the composers, and-- voila! a 'favorite' key. It makes sense to me.

Now, as to my favorite key: there are really two types of answer here. One is the more common, and more sensible, one: which key includes more of my favorite pieces? The other, which reflects a quirkiness of my own, has to do with how weird (unusual) the key is  . Using the first criterion, I'd say d minor, the key of Beethoven's and Bruckner's Ninth Symphonies, Rubinstein's Fourth Piano Concerto, Bach's most famous Toccata and Fugue, and so on. Using the second criterion, I'd say it was a three way tie between C-Flat Major, a-flat minor, and a-sharp minor (hey, I said I was strange  ). While a-flat minor is not unheard of (Prokofiev and Janacek wrote in it, especially the latter), the other two are very rare indeed....


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

D flat major is my most favorite


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## bdelykleon (May 21, 2009)

Eb major - the first inversion of the tonic chord is the spelling of my initials


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## Marco01 (Apr 18, 2009)

> Favourite key?


The one that opens my front door 

Sorry, couldnt help it. As for the question, you know, I've never really considered it. To be honest, half of the time I'm not sure what key things are in


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

I like C sharp minor a lot these days.


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## TresPicos (Mar 21, 2009)

Dim7 said:


> Frankly I don't think this topic makes much sense. You could ask whether we prefer major or minor keys, but there's not really anything different moodwise between B minor and C minor for example. I'm not sure whether there's much difference even for those with absolute pitch. If we modulate from B minor to C minor then clearly we are going to notice the change of key, but after we have used to the new key it sounds pretty much the same. There are technical/pragmatic reasons for preferring certain major keys over other major keys, or certain minor keys over other minor keys, but not really musical ones.


The key matters greatly to the synesthetics, at least. And to Christian Schubart: 
http://www.rollingball.com/A01c.htm


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## andruini (Apr 14, 2009)

A flat major and E flat major.. I love the latter on the Prelude to Wagner's Das Rheingold..


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## danae (Jan 7, 2009)

TresPicos said:


> The key matters greatly to the synesthetics, at least. And to Christian Schubart:
> http://www.rollingball.com/A01c.htm


If people with synaesthesia had also perfect pitch then yes, it would matter a lot. What does matter, though, and not only to synaesthetics, is whether the key is major or minor.


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## Conservationist (Apr 5, 2007)

maestro267 said:


> Do you have a particular favourite key in music?


Yeah, a fat key of Havana red. Wait, what? D minor!


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

B-flat minor.


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## nickgray (Sep 28, 2008)

I have some familiarity with A major, D minor and B minor. 21 left to go


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## BuddhaBandit (Dec 31, 2007)

Dim7 said:


> Frankly I don't think this topic makes much sense. You could ask whether we prefer major or minor keys, but there's not really anything different moodwise between B minor and C minor for example. I'm not sure whether there's much difference even for those with absolute pitch. If we modulate from B minor to C minor then clearly we are going to notice the change of key, but after we have used to the new key it sounds pretty much the same. There are technical/pragmatic reasons for preferring certain major keys over other major keys, or certain minor keys over other minor keys, but not really musical ones.


This is not true for the reasons mentioned above and for another reason: most musicians learn to play in C major first, as it's the easiest key to read (no sharps or flats). Thus, different keys are subconsciously stronger (~more tension) and weaker (~less tension) depending on their relationship to C. Keys on the flat half of the circle of fifths tend to sound weaker because they are based on the subdominant of C, F major. Keys on the sharp side, conversely, tend to sound stronger because they are based on the dominant of C major, G.

So, besides that, what is my favorite key? For classical music, E-flat major. For popular music, F major.


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## bdelykleon (May 21, 2009)

BuddhaBandit said:


> This is not true for the reasons mentioned above and for another reason: most musicians learn to play in C major first, as it's the easiest key to read (no sharps or flats). Thus, different keys are subconsciously stronger (~more tension) and weaker (~less tension) depending on their relationship to C. Keys on the flat half of the circle of fifths tend to sound weaker because they are based on the subdominant of C, F major. Keys on the sharp side, conversely, tend to sound stronger because they are based on the dominant of C major, G.
> 
> So, besides that, what is my favorite key? For classical music, E-flat major. For popular music, F major.


And it also depends on the tuning, if you use a equal-temperement tuning, it is all the same. But if you use any other temperement, all keys sound different. That's one of the reasons why an enharmonic change in Romantic (eg. Chopin) music sound differently.


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## Efraim (Jun 19, 2009)

Dim7 said:


> Frankly I don't think this topic makes much sense. You could ask whether we prefer major or minor keys, but there's not really anything different moodwise between B minor and C minor for example. I'm not sure whether there's much difference even for those with absolute pitch. If we modulate from B minor to C minor then clearly we are going to notice the change of key, but after we have used to the new key it sounds pretty much the same. There are technical/pragmatic reasons for preferring certain major keys over other major keys, or certain minor keys over other minor keys, but not really musical ones.


This is true but not entirely. Rimsky-Korsakov said that for him every scale had a very different hue; possibly other composers would have given, if asked, the same answer. There are technical reasons for choosing this key or that key as the main key for some piece, but other reasons too. On violin D Major sounds especially well, even so not every piece for violin is in this key. D Minor seems to have had some special meaning for many composers, if we consider the number of especially meaningful works written in D Minor: the Art of Fugue of Bach (not destined to any special instrument...), his most popular Sonata for Violin Solo, his most popular 'Cello suite, the extremely popular Toccata & Fugue in this key, and more; Mozart: Requiem, the most popular of his twenty-odds piano concerti, Don Giovanni, two quartets. Haydn: a string quartet, nothing terrific but his very last work. Schubert: only one, but it is called The Death and the Maiden. Franck: his only symphony. And so on. Even though a musical composition doesn't remain in every moment in its basic key, on the contrary it gets very far from it, nevertheless it revolves somehow around it and comes back to it at the end.

By the way, what is today, say, D Minor would have been perceived two hundreds years ago as closer to E Flat Minor than to D Minor... (because the pitch has been raised since then according to the decision of international conventions).


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## handlebar (Mar 19, 2009)

B minor and C minor


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## bdelykleon (May 21, 2009)

Each instrument, in fact each object has a physical resonance, so every tonality sound effectively different even with equal temperement.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

You could perhaps talk about favorite keys for specific instruments, I'll admit. And also things obviously change if the tuning system is something else than equal temperament. However I don't buy that stuff about keys being more "tense" more they are away from C major; most of us don't have absolute pitch afterall.


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## Guest (Aug 7, 2009)

Nobody likes *H flat* ???


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

As far as individual instruments go...

C minor on viola. I'm not so familiar with the other instruments to give my favorite keys for them, so maybe in a while I'll come back to this...

Still, my favorite overall key is B-flat minor.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

A minor, I guess.


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## bdelykleon (May 21, 2009)

Andante said:


> Nobody likes *H flat* ???


You mean B double flat? Enharmonic with A? Well, I like hyperchromaticism, but I must confess I never saw it...


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## mueske (Jan 14, 2009)

bdelykleon said:


> You mean B double flat? Enharmonic with A? Well, I like hyperchromaticism, but I must confess I never saw it...


Isn't 'H', 'B'? So that would make it B flat..? B flat in german would be B double flat, no?


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## bdelykleon (May 21, 2009)

mueske said:


> Isn't 'H', 'B'? So that would make it B flat..? B flat in german would be B double flat, no?


Sorry, you're right. I messed up the letters, B moll would be B double flat, I use the far more euphonic _Si natural_ and _bemol _


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

F-sharp minor is a nice key.


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## Guest (Aug 8, 2009)

bdelykleon said:


> You mean B double flat? Enharmonic with A? Well, I like hyperchromaticism, but I must confess I never saw it...


And here was me thinking every one was sleeping


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## Somnifer (Jul 23, 2009)

I don't believe there's any difference between key signatures when listening to them... to me it'll always be total rubbish when a particular key is "brighter" or "darker" than another.

But as far as playing them goes, I like D Flat Major and C Minor.


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## Rachmaninov (Sep 11, 2007)

Minor keys are my favourite.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

There was another thread on this very subject, and in it I quipped about a micro-tonal key, but in all seriousness I'll have to say *F minor / Ab major*. That's the key my fingers want to improvise (still rather clumsily) on the keyboard. Why is this I wonder? It has four flats which would seem difficult. Maybe it's the distance between the black and white keys that is comfortable for my fingers. From F minor I can comfortably lapse into Eb major and Bb major. C actually gives me fits for some reason and feels very awkward.

So when I putter around at composing in my tyro sort of way, it always begins in F minor or Ab major and modulation is very much non-intuitive and by the numbers.


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## woodwind_fan (Sep 9, 2008)

E Minor for me!

Just look at all of the kick-*** symphonies in E Minor: Rachmaninoff 2, Shostakovich 10, Brahms 4, Tchaikovsky 5, Dvorak 9, Vaughan Williams 6 & 9...


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

woodwind_fan said:


> E Minor for me!
> 
> Just look at all of the kick-*** symphonies in E Minor: Rachmaninoff 2, Shostakovich 10, Brahms 4, Tchaikovsky 5, Dvorak 9, Vaughan Williams 6 & 9...


Not to mention Elgar's cello concerto and Sibelius' first symphony and Kullervo! And Mahler 7... and... and... and...


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

B-sharp major is by far the best one...


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## Efraim (Jun 19, 2009)

> Originally Posted by Andante
> Nobody likes H flat ???
> 
> 
> ...


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## TresPicos (Mar 21, 2009)

> H flat doesn't exist. H (in German) is B in English, so "H flat" must mean, if anything, B flat.


There might be a notion of H flat (or Hes) in German. It would of course coincide with B and probably never be called anything but "B" in real life.

I mean, you have a notion of F flat in English, don't you, even though you would say "E" in almost every situation?


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## LvB (Nov 21, 2008)

Dim7 said:


> B-sharp major is by far the best one...


The only place where I know of this actually occurring is in the piano-four-hands version of _Le Sacre du Printemps_, where there are scales notated in this key. Even weirder is Ravel's piano trio, which has a scale notated in D-Double-Flat Major . These, though, are freak incidents of enharmonic writing, rather than actual foundational keys.


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

I think you can deduce from my username and avatar what my favourite key is.

The blue-gray colour of the avatar is the colour that the F sharp major chord
'looks/sounds' like to me.


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## Ostinato (Jun 24, 2009)

LvB said:


> Using the second criterion, I'd say it was a three way tie between C-Flat Major, a-flat minor, and a-sharp minor (hey, I said I was strange  ). While a-flat minor is not unheard of (Prokofiev and Janacek wrote in it, especially the latter), the other two are very rare indeed....


This rather supports my view that key preferences have a visual as well as an aural element. Even with equal temperament, the 'feel' of C flat major is subtly different from that of B major. The idea of a particular key having a purely aural distinctiveness has always struck me as rather odd, considering that instruments can be tuned differently and the pitch of a particular named note can vary over a range of at least a semitone.

An earlier example of A flat minor is to be found in parts of Beethoven's piano sonata Op. 26. Part of the trio section of the 3rd movement of Schubert's piano sonata D894 is written (using accidentals) in the key of G sharp major!


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