How much difference does the Key make?

Subject: RE: How much difference does the Key make?
From: GUEST,the button in celebration mode
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 11:26 PM

Oh, by the way -- 100.

Subject: RE: How much difference does the Key make?
From: GUEST,frshtrx
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 12:21 PM

How much difference?
The question implies, decidedly, there is some difference...let's safely say between 0 and 100% difference.
But, difference of what?
...ease of playing with other musicians?
...difference of enjoyment to the listener?
...difference of perception between the original composers's creation and the current performers' rendition?
I'm sure there are others unaccounted for...

Above responses eloquently hammer into each area, in non-defined response.

I say, if you want the listener to best be virtually transported to recall nostalgic circumstances reflective of their original exposure to a song - my personal belief is that it needs to be in the same key for most true "musicophiles", based on the following:
Recommended reading for everyone on the board "Musicophilia" by Oliver Sacks. (this is not spam, I have nothing to do with the publisher, Mr. Sacks, etc...)
The insight this book gave me into music, after already being recognized by my peers as a "musician", not merely a guitarist, made me feel as though I knew very little about music at all.
The Key of Clear Green: Sythesia and Music, chapter 14, brings forth an understanding on the topic rooted in the physical and nuerological effects of particular keys which I found fascinating.
...
when my band's vocalist says...I can't do this song, it's not in my key, there are 2 choices...don't play it, or change the key. Initially I try a change. At that point if it strikes me as inconsistent with the zeigeist of the song, if it makes my skin crawl or hairs stand on my arms, it gets canned. Sometimes it doesn't. Nothing worse than a Chipmunks version of a blues tune. If you play with your soul; listen with your whole body, not just your ears.

Subject: RE: How much difference does the Key make?
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 03:58 PM

Don Firth - got an **actual example** of an early song collector making the mode-correcting mistake you describe? I can't think of one and I think you're fantasizing. (People trying to notate with microtonal accuracy, as you need for the music of India or the Islamic world, is a different matter).

Well, Jack, if I'm fantasizing, then so is Prof.David C. Fowler, a teacher I had at the University of Washington, author of A Literary History of the Popular Ballad and other books. And Cecil J. Sharp himself, who mentioned this several times in his writings. This is also mentioned in books by MacEdward Leach and Evelyn Kendrick Wells. I think those are fairly solid authorities.

As to examples, Dr. Fowler gave a couple in class, but that was some 50 years ago, and I don't recall the specifics. I do recall, however, that one was a particular version of "The Broken Token" ("Pretty Little Miss" or "John Riley"). One collector notated the song from a particular singer in a straight natural minor (A B C D E F G), and mentioned that the singer, "being untrained, of course, had an indifferent sense of musical pitch." Sharp collected the same song a short time later from the same singer, and in Sharp's notation, the scale was A B C D E F# G. The raised sixth (F# rather than F natural) is the defining characteristic of the Dorian mode.

Sharp found a number of such examples of folk songs being sung in modes and compared them with notations made by previous collectors in which the "wrong note" (or notes) had been "corrected," putting the song into a more conventional scale. Sharp stated that he was certain that these "wrong notes" were not wrong at all. He knew enough about modes to be able to recognize them when he encountered them.

Other than straight major and minor (which, incidentally are the Ionian and Aeolian modes, respectively), the two modes one encounters the most in Anglo-American folk music are the Dorian (like the natural minor or Aeolian mode, but with a raised sixth) and the Mixolydian (like the modern major scale—Ionian mode—but with a flatted seventh). If the song seems to want to end on the dominant chord, it's probably Mixolydian mode. One also encounters pentatonic scales.

And just to be abundantly clear, I'm talking about Anglo-American folk music, not the music of India or the Islamic world.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: How much difference does the Key make?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Mar 08 - 07:10 AM

"It depends on the capo. I'd dispute whether that is actually generally true."

Incidentally a 'mute' on a violin does not muffle the sound like the alleged capo - it modifies it, but it is still clear, not muddy.

Subject: RE: How much difference does the Key make?
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 14 Mar 08 - 11:28 AM

Don--

I just cut & pasted your last post--what you said about modes and "corrections" was very helpful to me in my present state of "learning(??)."

I don't agree that the Dorian mode is all that common, though. The only person I can think of who ever used it was Oscar Wilde.

(Seriously, now I really am going to have to find the passage where Plato discusses the effects/value/morality of the different modes.)

FreshTricks--

Wonder of wonders, my local library actually has the Sacks book. It sounds fascinating & I'm off to get it as soon as they get around to opening. Thanks for that, too.

Chicken Charlie

Subject: RE: How much difference does the Key make?
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Mar 08 - 01:19 PM

Yeah, Charlie, there's a pretty good article on modes in Wikipedia (CLICKY). Probably more than you really want to know on the subject.

As to Oscar Wilde's use of the Dorian mode, I think he was just trying to put the best face on things. . . .

Don Firth