Re: GG: Tuning

[Bradley Lehman <bpl@umich.edu>]

At 09:57 AM 5/16/2000 -0400, Elisha Tseng wrote:
> On Tue, 16 May 2000 14:16:20 +0100 Thayer A <A.Thayer@RHBNC.AC.UK>
> writes:
> > > Was it on this list recently that I read that the association of  the
> minor key with sadness is a very recent, 19th-century historical
> development?
>
> > I'm not too sure if that's true. I've just been doing a really boring
> music history course at university. Early vocal music, including Italian
> madrigals tends to makes use of minor keys to display specific emotions
> in > the  text.  Often a piece in a major key will briefly depart to the
> minor if the mood of the text becomes optimistic. I'm no expert on this
> because I find such old music unbelievably boring and take no interest in
> it,
> > but still that's what they told us, anyway.

Elisha, I think it's highly unfortunate that the course and the music are
both so intensely boring to you.  Was this a required course or an elective?

It's clear that either the material or the instructor (or both) have failed
to convince you that there's more variety and depth there than you think
there is.  Keep digging; you might find something you really like!

Or here, give this a try, a chronologically arranged set of examples.  The
music from the various centuries certainly sounds different from the
others, and I don't think any of it is boring:
http://www.mp3.com/stations/clavichord


> The major as 'happy' and minor 'sad' tonality was probably not developed
> and defined until around 17th century by a man of the name Corelli,
> Archangeli ( correct me if I'm wrong...but you DON'T have to know this,
> brain cells are more useful for other things if you're not a music
> history major ) who was famous mainly for his trio sonatas.

Since you invited correction, it's Archangelo Corelli (1653-1713), famous
to his contemporaries as a superstar violinist and composer based in
Rome.  He composed all sorts of things.  Actually, the way things are
going, Corelli's fame nowadays seems to be based almost as much on his
being gay as on his music.

But I don't remember ever seeing or hearing any assertion that Corelli
developed a "major=happy, minor=sad" idea; can you please cite some
examples of the evidence they gave you for that?

> In the past
> minor was considered a 'happy' key and often pieces in the early 13th and
> 14th century were written in minor to express joy (and you thought we're
> masochistic in this day and age :-).  Also, before the invention of the
> tuning system call 'just intonation (which came around the Renaissance),'
>  instrumentalists tuned their instruments by Pythagorean tuning, so they
> had wonderful pure fifths and octaves but horrible thirds, and
> major/minor tonality is defined by the thirds within the piece.

There are some who would say that the 12-note equal temperament of today
also has horrible thirds.

I think the issues of Pythagorean, just, and other types of intonation are
far more complicated than you've been led by this course to believe.  Did
they actually play comparative examples of Pythagorean, just,
equal-temperament, and other in-between types of major thirds in your
class, or merely make generalizations like this?

> So many
> pieces back then didn't emphasize so much what is major or minor, but the
> thirds were out of tune.  Just as a suggestion, you can listen to music
> by Josquin des Pres ( a more conventional composer ) or if you're in the
> mood for 'just intonation' hell, listen to works by Gesualdo (I wouldn't
> recommend it if you have equal-temp. pitch assoc).

Josquin and Gesualdo were 100 years apart and all the way across Europe
from each other.  They're about as much alike as Grieg and Xenakis...except
in music history courses where they're both blurred together as "early music."

Good ensembles (choirs, strings, brass, whatever) are adjusting their
pitches all the time to bring triads into tune better than they would be in
equal temperament.  That's on account of being *good musicians* rather than
from trying to stick to preset keyboard temperaments.  The intervals of
just intonation come directly from the harmonic series; triadic chords
sound "in tune" when the notes all reinforce the harmonics of a low
note.  (For an example in familiar music, listen to the trombones at the
end of a good recording of the Brahms 2nd symphony; the middle player will
be lowering the F# to make the entire chord more resonant, rather than
playing it anywhere near equal temperament's F#.)

Gesualdo's music, like Marenzio's, is difficult for anyone to sing (whether
or not they're trying to use just intonation) because the voice parts often
jump all over the place and because the harmonic successions are tricky for
modern singers to find; he used those techniques to illustrate the emotions
in the text.  It's difficult because it's difficult, not because of any
particular intonation systems in use either then or now.  *Any* tonal or
pre-tonal music becomes more rewarding if the ensemble members are willing
to adjust their pitches to one another in close listening.

>   Point is that the
> rule of major/minor tonality wasn't definite and after 14th century
> composers were experimenting mix uses of these tonalities...and later
> composers wrote pieces that are essentially minor but with a major ending
> (call piccardy thirds??? Bach used a lot of this technique in his
> works..esp fugues).  Another useless trivial, but hopefully this might
> clear something.

17th and 18th century composers (including Bach) came from a milieu where
the default practical keyboard temperament was most likely a form of
meantone: the major thirds are pure (in 1/4 comma meantone), or nearly so
(in some of the other varieties).  As a practical technique, the Picardy
third used by Bach and many of his predecessors simply makes the final
chord of a piece more resonant; it therefore makes the piece sound more
final.  The major triads were more nearly in tune than the minor triads were.

People used the meantone temperaments because, plain and simple, they made
the instruments sound good.  They still do.  I keep my virginal (a variety
of harpsichord) in 1/4 comma meantone all the time.

But once again it's probably not tied so much to temperament choice,
either.  The simplest explanation is probably the best.  The notes of the
major triad appear earlier (lower) in the harmonic series than do the notes
of a minor triad.  The frequency ratios are simpler.  A piece ending on a
major triad sounds more definitely over (ready to be at rest) than a piece
ending on a minor triad, because the notes all simply reinforce a bass
note's harmonics.

For whatever reason, a Picardy third makes the performer(s), the composer,
and the instruments/voices sound good in the final sounds heard, and
*that's* the type of thing that makes people happy, not any romanticized
association of "major=happy, minor=sad".  Let the room resonate with a
sound that's nicely in tune and not too complex.


> Come to think of it, since F-minor is Gould's favorite key, he may not
> had been a sad chap after all... :-)

To paraphrase an old commercial: "Was he or wasn't he?  Only his String
Quartet knows."


Bradley Lehman
Dayton VA
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl