Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Key Of The Grave

Melancholy womanliness, quaint creature, wild passions: these are descriptions of musical keys, made by an 18th century German poet named Christian Schubart. ("...student of theology" and "he led a dissolute life"? Rock on, Herr Schubart!)

My favorite description is for "F# minor"
"A gloomy key: it tugs at passion as a dog biting a dress. Resentment and discontent are its language."
A lot of blues music is in the key of E Major. So how does Schubart, who lived in an era and culture far removed from the blues, describe that key? Quite accurately, actually:
"Noisy shouts of joy, laughing pleasure and not yet complete, full delight lies in E Major."
It makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Real blues music is not about despair and hopelessness. When you wake up one morning and find your money gone, you may cry for a few hours or even a few days but then, let out "noisy shouts of joy" you must. (Wonder if that's my accountant on the phone?)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

And here I thought blues were for the most part in the minor scales?

km said...

Anonymous:

Not necessarily so. Blues music can be heard in both minor and major pentatonic (i.e. five notes) scales.

But the so-called "blues scale" is indeed a minor scale. Perhaps you are referring to that scale. It contains not 5 but 6 notes. (The sixth note is what is commonly called the "blue note". It's a flat or a sharp note.)

OK, too much theory, not enough blues :)

shom said...

My day today started out in F Major, changed over time to Ab Minor, fretted a lot over G Minor and right now it is: F# Major. E Major seems too far away for me right now.

km said...

Shom: Considering that it's already Thursday, E Major can't be *that* far away :)