A flat minor equivalent2/10/2024 ![]() Music theorists debate the mechanism behind that despondent sound. If ghosts could speak, their speech would approximate this key.” “Melancholy womanliness” was Schubart’s preferred term in describing the D minor key, a key of particular fascination because it lent itself to music in which “the spleen and humors brood.” And its sibling key, D# minor, somehow evoked “ feelings of the anxiety of the soul’s deepest distress, of brooding despair, of blackest depression, of the gloomiest condition of the soul,” Schubart observed: “Every fear, every hesitation of the shuddering heart, breathes out of D# minor. Schubart was a forefather of musical category creation: In his 1784 essay “A History of Key Characteristics in the 18th and Early 19th Centuries,” he balanced a study of the harpsichord with insights from literature and psychology to match all 24 major and minor musical keys to different auditory personalities, which streaming’s predictive models would later automate. ![]() But well before predictive computer models were let loose on music, German composer Christian Schubart was already on the case - albeit with manual handiwork and antebellum verbal flair. To find a song that matches our mood, in the 21st century, we need only type in how we are feeling or walk into a new room, and a streaming service’s algorithm will grab that data and intuit our needs with unsettling ease.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |