Nice post.

It’s pretty clear that music is somehow strongly connected with emotional states, so I like this approach.

I’ve heard that some people associate specific colours with specific keys or notes (e.g. people with perfect pitch). Do you have any comments on this?

Once I was a little stoned when playing guitar (sorry, guess I’m not the first) and I also experienced this effect. If I remember well, G was kind of greenish in colour. Sorry if this sounds a bit wacko but it’s an interesting phenomena. Does anyone else also think there is an association between notes or keys and specific colours?

The only time I can remember seeing this connection made (apart from in a book about the roots of musical ability by the neuropsychologist Oliver Sacks) was in the Buddhist literature. They also associate notes with colours and emotions.

Check http://www.holographicsound.com/chakra-colors.html for example.

S

Heavy emphasis on that “dabble” part though, as I tend to be too busy with other areas of academia to focus too strongly on music. >.o It’s difficult to swing that whilst attending university intent on a degree in computer science with possible minors or even multiple majors in psychology (or possibly neurology instead) and physics. Sometimes I dislike how very many things interest me… it just leaves too little time to do half the things I want. I love storywriting too.

Anyways, most of that ramble was supposed to be leading up to the comment that scientifically minded people don’t really have to deny the inherent character differences in different keys and other such musical patterns. As a person with heavy gearing in both the hard sciences and in psychology, I think that certain aspects of human perception, both learned and instinctive, play a major role in how we receive music. I’m actually hoping to study some of that more rigorously so I can try to design a game that uses EEG technology to do some low-level analysis of how someone feels while they’re playing a game and factors that in as it generates dynamic music that reflects the gamer’s experience more directly. x3

Ack! I’m sorry, this message was longer than anticipated…. >.> I’m just a real geek about some of these things.

Thanks for leaving a comment.

Well, I would say that D major might be a better key to go to only in the respect that it is generally easier to play songs in D major on both the piano and guitar.

However, with regards to whether it would sound better to go from Eb major to D major, I think that is a matter of personal preference. It’s hard to say for certain which key sounds better. Some songs seem to work better in D major, while others seem to work better in Eb major.

Lastly, with regards to the chords, well, Eb-Gm-Ab-Bb-Cm would translate to D-F#m-G-A-Bm respectively.

Cheers!

Thanks

Don Meyers

Yes, I agree…the key of E major can be very emotional. I’m thinking of Chopin’s Etude in E (or better known as “Tristesse”), as well as Robbie Williams’ “Angels”. Both are very emotional songs.

Lingfeng: A manual…haha! I wish, I wish.

I’ve heard some say E is very emotional?

Out of 12 songs on my first CD, 4 are in Db, which has a real mysterious quality to me (and also is an easy capo, one fret up to mix up that C!

–Jannie