The Post Your Thoughts of the Moment Thread 2

[Olimar12345]

I don't have synesthesia, so I'm wondering, do those who do see different colours with stuff like different modes and non-traditional western scales? What does a B major pentatonic invoke? What about an octatonic scale on G, starting with a whole step? Or an in/miyako-bushi scale starting on D? Going even further, what colour do atonal pieces invoke?

I don't have any associations with specific pitches, at least audibly. For me, it affects how I perceive written music and sounding rhythms, making it slightly more visual than audible (this might make no sense, lol). For example, the letter F in both music and regular text is orange, so if I'm not given adequate time to view each letter of a word (or note of a scale-passage), the entire word or passage appears orange. Rhythm grouped in specific time signatures also appear (as I said before) in the color that the symbols are hued in. Multi-meter passages, or pieces that use hybrid meters look, sound and feel like an array of colors, similar to a rainbow (literally the only way I can describe this xD ).

[Dudeman]

I imagine that if I also had perfect pitch things would be even crazier, lol.

Oh, you have no idea.

I personally can't pick out a specific color for a given key, but each one definitely has some sort of hue or shade to it. I also like to gravitate towards flatted or sharped key signatures for some reason. I really like the vibe I get from black keys. Also, C Major is disgustingly plain. I don't know what it is, but songs in C Major lack any sort of depth of emotion. I can't understand why.

[12Mari0]

Oh, you have no idea.

I personally can't pick out a specific color for a given key, but each one definitely has some sort of hue or shade to it. I also like to gravitate towards flatted or sharped key signatures for some reason. I really like the vibe I get from black keys. Also, C Major is disgustingly plain. I don't know what it is, but songs in C Major lack any sort of depth of emotion. I can't understand why.

Maybe because it's so easy, therefore boring, simple and bland? Maybe because all of the "pieces" you played when you were learning piano were all in C major and exceptionally boring (C-C-C-C was my first...) therefore you relate all pieces in C major to boredom and blandness?

[InsigTurtle]

Now that I think about it, I don't like too much stuff that's in C major. Only thing I can think of that I like is this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QnslrVV5jE

I don't usually think of C major as being too interesting either. Stuff like Bb minor, now that's a spicy meatball. I guess it could have to do with our associating C major with stuff kids play when they first learn piano. Sprucing it up with stuff like secondary dominants and borrowed chords does help, IMO.

[Oronoco]

Oh, but C Major has its moments! It's effective when a piece written with many accidentals can eventually "lift itself" out into C Major. It's like wiping the slate clean, being reborn, or feeling like a child again. It's freeing.

[SlowPokemon]

No key is better than any other lmao what that's where you start losing me

[Bespinben]

Oh, but C Major has its moments! It's effective when a piece written with many accidentals can eventually "lift itself" out into C Major. It's like wiping the slate clean, being reborn, or feeling like a child again. It's freeing.

But what if notation of music never developed? How much of this "slate being wiped clean" feeling would exist if we had no concept of sharps or flats? I agree the effect you noted can be poignant, but it plays off of expectations that have been ingrained in Western Civilization for the last 500 years. How much of our perception of music is based off of preconditioned responses (i.e. minor = sad, major = happy), and how much of it is truly based on physical realities (ex: the effect of temperaments on the sonic quality of music)?

[MaestroUGC]

Beethoven's 1st Symphony, while not his greatest work (though that's like saying it's his least shiniest gold trophy), is still a great example of works in C Major that are very interesting. Also the second and final movements of his 5th are in C major, the finale in particular is one of his most exuberant. Schubert's 9th is also in C Major and it's one of the best thing he'd ever written. Prokofiev's 3rd Piano Concerto is in C Major for most of the work, and it is probably one of the most dramatic things written in the genre.

Bolero by Ravel is a good example of a piece that Oronoco is talking about, using chromatics and dissonances to create music drama while still definitely being in C. Mercury from The Planets by Holst is a condensed packet of flight and speed, all in C.

To those of you who find C Major boring are clearly not looking close enough, some of the greatest works of music are written in C.

[Dudeman]

Oh no, I'm not denying the fact that there are some amazing pieces of classical literature that are written in C and sound incredible. I'm just saying that the concept of C is far more plain and textureless in my mind compared to any other key. Any key can be made to sound amazing in its own right, and every key probably has at this point. But if I strip a key simply down to its bare bones, I get a different feel from each one regardless of what's been written in the past.

[Tobbeh99]

I also feel like certain keys has different modes.

like Bb and Bbm is a golden like heroic color (maybe because of Zelda)
C is pink
F is nature like, not really a color but still...
F# is Dark Pink/Purple
Em is Dark, like black or dark green or something
Am is not as dark as the minor scales mentioned above

[mikey]

SO HOW ABOUT THEM METS

[BlackDragonSlayer]

SO HOW ABOUT THEM METS

I DUNNO. HOW 'BOUT THEM.

[TheMarioPianist]

Well, the Browns hired a coach. Again. It disappoints me that this is the most interesting thing I could come up with for my 700th post.

[mikey]

did anyone else know that Nintendo owns the mariners?

[Latios212]

did anyone else know that Nintendo owns the mariners?

Yep.