The importance of Key

[rlb2250]

Are there significant reasons for a pianist to know the key in which a piece is written?  If so, what are those reasons?  And also, are those reasons essential or simply of moderate importance to playing and learning.

I am a relatively experienced pianist, but have never been able to sight read.  My ear, unfortunately is not very good either, so I learn music by laboriously memorizing sheet music one measure at a time.

So what advantages would there be in knowing the key of a piece I’m attempting to learn?  Would this knowledge make that learning faster, more efficient?  Is it about anticipation, where I, as the sight reader, can predict that that next chord is very likely to be a IV chord in second inversion?

I’m not formally trained, have taken only a handful of lessons over the years and am primarily self taught.  I’m very weak on theory.  When I’ve attempted to study such things on my own, I always get the feeling that I’m missing the big picture of it, that I’m being asked to memorize a bunch of information by rote—scales, intervals, chord inversions--without any sense of why this is important and how it will make me a better player.

Younger pianists, seeing my age and ability, have sometimes asked me to identify the key a particular piece is in and what the significance of that key is.  I am embarrassed to inform them that I don’t have the answer.

[cadenz]

learning music this way is very inefficient and it is a big waste of time. much like spending hours on hanon.
the significance of knowing the key as far as playing the piece is concerned is that it is useful in reading the music. if you know your scales, and the key of the piece (by examining the key signature and some aspects of the piece), you will know for instance whether a note is altered by the key signature without having to refer to it each time you read a note.
knowing theory alone will not make you a great sight-reader, but it will help if you work on your reading and sight reading skills. also, knowing theory helps you memorize a piece, since you can see parts of the piece as more than just the notes. for instance you might see a V-I cadence instead of a bunch of memorized notes.
apart from reading music, more advanced theory helps you learn to gain a grasp of the ideas behind a piece, and enable you to play it more convincingly.
a good start for you in theory would to be to learn about the makeup of major and minor scales, and to learn how to form key signatures. it should not take you too long to develop the ability to recognize the key a piece is in.
if you like, to get you started, here is a website which teaches some basic theory concepts: https://www.musictheory.net.
if you learn a bit more theory i would also advise you to practice sight reading. sight reading takes a while to get the hang of, and it can be a little difficult to know where to start. but there are many threads on this forum related to sight reading, so just do a search

[asyncopated]

The short answer first

Are there significant reasons for a pianist to know the key in which a piece is written?

Yes.

If so, what are those reasons?

Music theory is not difficult if explained well, in context of the piece you are playing.  Otherwise, it's boring like doing senseless sums.  My suggestion is to start by learning theory that pertains to pieces that you are interested in.

 Pieces and musical ideas are not pulled out form a void.  They contain some essence and meaning. 

Any infomation about the composition helps you understand it. Background information is important and so is how the piece is constructed.  Theory will give you an idea of how the piece was constructed.

This will help you play better.

So lets start with some theory...  A crash course in the theory (or history?) of key signatures.

Most compositions, unless you play an atonal (12 tone [13 tone if you include the octave ] , eg. schoeenberg, berg, etc work) work has a key center.  This simply is a set of notes (amongst all 12 tones) that are more commonly used than others.  For historical and some (perhaps vague) mathematical reasons, we usually have 8 tones in a key.  The eight tones can be "derived" from how you divide up a piece of string in equal parts - 2, 3,  4 sections.

The number of sounds that you can make by dividing the piece of string up follows a fibbonacci series...  1 2 3 5 8 13  (this is because some of the ratios are degenerate e.g. 2:4 is congruent to 1:2).

The common 5 tone scale is called the pentatonic scale.  Oriental music is based mostly on this scale.  Unlike a string instrument, with keyboards, it is not possible to have microtones.  Early keyboards used a 13 tone system over an octave, where 8 of which were used for the particular key.  However, as you expand the system over several octaves, there were several problems with having a simple 13 tone system.  Bach partially solved this problem by popularising the well tempered scale.  (Therefore the well-tempered clavier.)  The thing about this systems is that each key had a different quality associated with it.   

In the late 19 century (or there abouts), a different system called equal temperment became popular.  Here all the keys had the same quality about them.  This is the system we use today.

The two (three) 8 tone scales that are common in western music today are the major and minor scales (two of them).

Now you know about keys.  No problem!

al.



   
     
 

[Jacey1973]

I know that some composers e.g Beethoven and Mozart used certain keys because they associated a feeling, importance etc with that key.

Beethoven associated the key of C minor for example (which i'm sure you know) with heroic struggle - used in e.g his 5th symphony. And it's relative major - E flat is also associated with heroism - hence Beethoven's Eroica symphony - links with "the hero", Napoleon etc - also a good key for brass instruments - think fanfares!

Also when i was researching Mozart's Sonata in D K576 for my recital programme notes i found that he often used that key for virtuosic piano music - hence K576 being closer to his piano concertos in difficulty. I noticed that many violin concertos are written in the key of D (e.g Beethoven's, Brahms's, Tchaikovsky's) this is apprently because is is a suitable key for violin music

In terms of the piano -I particulary love the key of G flat major- because it has such a warm sound - perhaps the warmest of all keys (i'm thinking Schubert's Impromptu in G flat for example). I find the key of D really bright and joyful on the piano, C sharp minor particulary poignant (think Beethoven's moonlight, Chopin's Nocturne in C sharp minor...there has been much written for the piano in C sharp minor ever since the Moonlight). E flat to me sounds powerful on the piano but not as elegant or soft as G flat.

Does anyone else associate feelings/emotions with keys? Sometimes when experimenting with chords - when i was composing earlier this year for example, i see images, scenes or even sometimes colours. When i was little i spent alot of time listening to classical orchestral music in particular and for me the music told a story that i would sometimes make into a story board or comic strip.

[xvimbi]

Does anyone else associate feelings/emotions with keys?

This has been discussed many times on this board. To summarize: with equal temperament, there is no difference between the keys. Any perceived feeling/mood is purely psychological and related to the pitch rather than the key. Moods/feelings associated with keys come from the use of temperaments where intervals change with the different keys.

[ted]

The way I see it "keys" are the twelve subsets (those containing the seven most closely related frequencies in the case of major ones) of the chromatic scale which have been used the most in Western music. Therefore there is a lot of sense in getting to know them intimately because it will provide all sorts of insights by virtue of this historical fact alone. A large proportion of piano music, even unorthodox music, modern music and music without a key centre, still uses them in a huge variety of ways.

They're just important keyboard patterns because they have been found to be useful in generating music which a large section of the population considers beautiful. To neglect them would probably be analogous to studying mathematics but taking care to avoid all power series - possible, but pointlessly self-limiting and a hell of a struggle.

[JPRitchie]

As mentioned by cadenz above, in sight-reading, one can be trained to use automatically F# in a section scored in the key of Gmaj, for example, when an F is encountered, without having to sight back to the beginning of the system to see that. Or recognize by sight the I,II, III etc. chords of a key and their inversions, which appear repeatedly in a piece.

I'm not familiar with orchestras to know for sure, but one can see the following additional possibility:  Some instruments are pitched such that when the finger position of "C3", for example, is taken, a B2b tone is sounded; that is, they sound a step lower than a "C" instrument. (You might have noticed that fake books come in "C", "Bb", at least, editions.) Consequently, "Bb" instruments played a step higher than a
"C" instrument give the same tone and everyone in the orchestra can hit the same absolute "C" pitch, and any other, when desired. To accomplish this, one might transpose the score up a step and alter the key signature accordingly (Cmaj ->Dmaj, say).  So, a piece scored in Dmaj may be of interest to a "Bb" clarinet player, if the composer scored it in "C". That is, the I chord goes from "Cmaj" to "Dmaj". Moreover, this changes the absolute pitch and tone center, and one might prefer the sound of one pitch or another.

Finally, the key signature of a composition can be changed and the notes left unaltered. This changes the number of accidentals and one might choose to alter spellings in some cases. One key signature or spelling may be preferred over another because it's less cluttered, more natural, or because the accidentals are more or less helpful to a player.

Regards,
Jim

[Jacey1973]

This has been discussed many times on this board. To summarize: with equal temperament, there is no difference between the keys. Any perceived feeling/mood is purely psychological and related to the pitch rather than the key. Moods/feelings associated with keys come from the use of temperaments where intervals change with the different keys.

I remember my performance practise lecturer once telling us about how the temperament of harpsichords in Bach's day (being different from today's equal temperament) gave each individual keys difficult character.

[xvimbi]

I remember my performance practise lecturer once telling us about how the temperament of harpsichords in Bach's day (being different from today's equal temperament) gave each individual keys difficult character.

That's correct (assuming you meant "different" character). With today's pianos, there is no such thing anymore. However, there is with other instruments that are not tuned with equal temperament, or with certain instrumentalists who use different tunings, intervals, etc. on the fly (that's a nightmare when they play together in an orchestra).

So, if someone on a modern piano plays somthing in C major today and says it's giddy and plays the same tune in D major tomorrow and says it's sad, then that person has a vivid imagination, that's all.

[alzado]

rib --

Well, you are fairly new to piano, if I read your question right.

You need to know what key it is in so you know when to press the black keys and when to press the white keys.

You say you can't sight read.  But if you are young, you have lots of time to learn this skill.

Any of us have only two choices -- read sheet music or play by ear.

So it is very important.

I wish you the best of success--

[asyncopated]

That's correct (assuming you meant "different" character). With today's pianos, there is no such thing anymore. However, there is with other instruments that are not tuned with equal temperament, or with certain instrumentalists who use different tunings, intervals, etc. on the fly (that's a nightmare when they play together in an orchestra).

So, if someone on a modern piano plays somthing in C major today and says it's giddy and plays the same tune in D major tomorrow and says it's sad, then that person has a vivid imagination, that's all.

I also heard (or read) somewhere that since the renaissence period, the pitches have been changing.  An instrument tuned to A then would not be 440Hz as is the standard today, but around 437Hz - almost a whole semitone lower.   

If you did want to perform an authentic renaissence piece, you'ed have to get your strings to play slighly less than a semitone lower!

Also, some ochestral conductors today choose to tune their orchestra to 441 or 442 Hz.  The reason I heard is that it gives a brighter sound in the hall.  Maybe the speed of sound or density of air has changed.   

I don't really know why a composer chooses a particular key.  But I would really like to find out.  I do compose and key selection seems pretty natural at this point.  Somehow, when I learn a piece in my head (although I don't have perfect pitch.) I immediately think ok... G major! or A minor!  It seems to turn out well but I can't put my finger on how I really selected the key.

I would like to also argue that differnt keys do have a differnt psycological effect.  I think I has to do with the human voice and range.  For example I'm a tenor.  I know that my usable range is between a D (1 octave below middle c) to Bb.  And that my best (most resonant) notes are E, Eb F.  Most tenor voices have a similar structure and it fits music that peaks at these notes.  A composer might pick a key so that the main melody fits a particular voice (hero -- male tenor range, screaming CHARGE at an Eb pitch)  .

Also in general,  songs that are composed at lower pitches then to have a warmer tone and at higher pitches a brighter tone.  Somehow I also associate the keys with flats with a warm tone and the sharps, a bright tone.  E.g. A major is very bright. A flat major is very warm -- sounds rediculous doesn't it.


al.

     

[xvimbi]

I would like to also argue that differnt keys do have a differnt psycological effect.  I think I has to do with the human voice and range.  For example I'm a tenor.  I know that my usable range is between a D (1 octave below middle c) to Bb.  And that my best (most resonant) notes are E, Eb F.  Most tenor voices have a similar structure and it fits music that peaks at these notes.  A composer might pick a key so that the main melody fits a particular voice (hero -- male tenor range, screaming CHARGE at an Eb pitch)  .

Also in general,  songs that are composed at lower pitches then to have a warmer tone and at higher pitches a brighter tone.  Somehow I also associate the keys with flats with a warm tone and the sharps, a bright tone.  E.g. A major is very bright. A flat major is very warm -- sounds rediculous doesn't it.

I agree, but as you said, the difference comes from the different PITCH. Now, with equal temperament, different PITCH is practically synonymous with different KEY. Yet, it is really much better to think about pitch rather than key. So many people get caught up in these old myths that certain keys are used to represent certain moods. That was true in Bach's days, but practically nobody plays Bach with authentic temperament. Much of the different characters of the preludes and fuges are lost when played on a modern piano. Still people imagine such different moods, and they insist on it, although there is no basis for it whatsoever (except for the pitch aspect).

[asyncopated]

Xvimbi,

Yes I don't think we disagree.  For equal temperment pitch and key are largely the same.  Here there are no pure intervals.  That's one thing that I've always wonded for people with perfect pitch.  If you did have it would you not be irritated with the lack of purity of each interval?

So many people get caught up in these old myths that certain keys are used to represent certain moods.

I don't see the harm.  If people like to make the association, that's fine.  For me, in choosing a key there are many other things to consider, like how the piece fits the hand, if the pitch is balanced throughout the piece, if I'm using good registers of the piano. 

That was true in Bach's days, but practically nobody plays Bach with authentic temperament. Much of the different characters of the preludes and fuges are lost when played on a modern piano.

Much has of course been gained as well.  Never before has the clavier been so sonorous and responsive.  I don't think bach had three strings in his piano for each note and I'm sure he only had at most 4 octaves.  Also with canned music so accessible, never has virtuosity been more demanding.

The argument about how much authenticity in interpretation and performance is always relavant.  Although you could say that it's finally up to taste, nevertheless, here is an interesting question.   Would you have performed piece exactly as bach would have heard it, or would you try and perform it the way bach might have if he were alive today? I happened to hear the RCM ochestra play Brahms first symphony a couple of years back.  The conducter-- can't remember who, but famous, insisted that the string section play without vibrato.  His clam being that the constant vibrato heard in violin sections today are largely an artifact of the early 20th centuary.  The rendition of the symphony was amaizing.

al.
 

[xvimbi]

Much has of course been gained as well.  Never before has the clavier been so sonorous and responsive.  I don't think bach had three strings in his piano for each note and I'm sure he only had at most 4 octaves.  Also with canned music so accessible, never has virtuosity been more demanding.

Sorry, that didn't come out quite right. I meant to say "modern pianos" in the sense that they are tuned with equal temperament. I didn't mean to refer to the general acoustic properties of modern pianos. Those are of course a delight, and Bach would have used them to their fullest, I am convinced.

Has Bach ever been recorded on an acoustic piano tuned in temperaments other than equal temperament? One can do this easily with digital pianos, but I wonder if ever anybody went through the trouble with an acoustic piano.