The Sharp Keys

Much to the chagrin of future piano students, music theorists and instrument makers in the 1600’s decided to modify the acoustically pure physics of what is called “just intonation.” They “tempered” the scale to make it possible to modulate successfully on keyboard instruments, thus creating 12 different major keys and 12 minor keys. This paved the way for Bach’s groundbreaking work “The Well-Tempered Clavier,” a series of 24 Preludes and Fugues published in 1722, each one in a different major or minor key. (He published a second book following the same idea in 1738.) How and why that temperament actually works is a complex study worthy of advanced physics, so suffice it to say here that it became the standard for almost all Western music-making in the centuries that followed (though some modern composers and instrument makers have experimented with a return to just intonation).

 

The piano student will recognize this as the hard work of learning how many sharps or flats each key signature has. Part of mastering any piano piece is familiarity with the nature of each key. Of course, it’s not just piano. All orchestra and band instruments must put in the time to play their scales in each of the twelve keys. In actual practice, some keys are more commonly used then others and some of this has to do with the acoustics of particular instruments. Horns, for example, favor the flat keys and strings often lean toward the sharp ones. Very few instruments spend much time in the key of Gb / F#, but it’s still part of those Hanon exercises. 

 

A quick lesson for the novice. The C Major scale is easily found on the piano as the white keys starting on C. Note that there is no black key between E and F, nor B and C. This means that the interval is a half-step. So mathematically, the major scale is an order of pitches that goes whole step, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. If you start on G to make a major scale, you have to play F# instead of F to get that last half step. In D, you need both the F# and the C#. And so it continues in what is called a circle of 5ths, adding one sharp note for each new key a 5^th below the last one until you arrive at the key of F# with 6 sharps. This key can also be described as Gb with 6 flats. Then you continue around the circle subtracting one flat at a time—Db (5 flats), Ab (4 flats), Eb (3 flats), Bb (2 flats), F (one flat) and that returns us to C. (see diagram below)

 

How does a composer/ songwriter decide what key to write a piece in? Some has to do with the range of the melody and where it tends to “sit” well for singers or in general whether it feels too high or low. Many claim that the sharp keys are bright and the flat keys dark. Some associate different keys with different colors, as did the composer Scriabin, who claimed synesthesian powers where one sense spilled over into another, created a color wheel for each key in the circle of 5ths. (Note he seems to agree with the bright and dark associations). 

Why am I giving this music lesson here? Bear with me a moment. I don’t associate nameable colors with each key, but have found that I have an aversion on the piano to keys with 3 sharps and above. Even thought that black key is the exact same note as its equivalent flat (D# in the key of B is the same note as Eb in the key of Bb) and physically the key on the piano is the same width, psychologically it has always felt to me like the sharp black keys are thin and slippery and the flat black keys solid and dependable. Perhaps it's just the association with the terms "sharp", like a sharpened pencil point, and "flat," something made wider by flattening it. In any case, I have gravitated to pieces in the flat keys in choosing a classical repertoire. And because of the role of the horn in jazz, almost all jazz tunes are in flat keys, though theoretically I should be able to transpose in any key, especially to accommodate singers. 

 

And so finally the punch line. Having committed to working on Brahms Intermezzo in the key of A (3 sharps), I started noticing other repertoire in sharp keys that I like. A Scarlatti Sonata in D, Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in F# minor (Volume II of the Well-Tempered Clavier), Mozart’s Second Movement of Piano Concerto in A Major, Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata in C# minor, Debussy’s Arabesque in E major, Jobim’s bossa nova tune Wave in D. Today I’ll play piano at a Senior Home in Marin where two friends are living and will put all these together as my homage to the sharp keys. Whether it evokes colors or degrees of bright and dark or different nuanced emotions brought forth by these key signatures or all of the above, it feels like an interesting way to group pieces. We’ll see what the listeners think.