Category talk:Musical keys

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2005 comments[edit]

Two issues I want to bring up to anyone else interested in this category.

1. Stylistically, I had been taught in music theory classes to capitalize the tonic of major scales and place the tonic of minor scales in lower case--D major but b minor. Does anyone agree/disagree, and can this be done in Wikipedia given that the title of the b minor page will probably come out capitalized anyway?

This is certainly true in German. The German Wikipedia articles on the minor keys all have little messages saying things like "Der korrekte Titel dieses Artikels lautet „d-Moll“. Leider ist dieser Titel in der Wikipedia aufgrund technischer Einschränkungen nicht möglich." But in English it has become common practice to capitalize the pitch class letter even for minor keys. Concert programmes for major American orchestras (New York, Chicago, San Francisco, etc.) are fairly consistent in this. If a British music-lover can confirm this for British orchestras, I think that the English Wikipedia should stick to capitalizing pitch class letters. Volunteer Sibelius Salesman 17:03, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

2. In the Baroque era, the commonly used major and minor keys had characteristics assigned to them, based on the timbre of compositions centered on them and their relative suitability to different instruments as well as the older church modes they recalled. For instance, G major was the key of benediction, D major the key of glory, A major the key of grace, b minor the key of passive suffering, g minor the key of tragic consumation. An old page by "Xinh" at caltech http://www.its.caltech.edu/~tan/bachbminor/indmov.html mentions these, but I am unfamiliar with his source. Any help?

I will look that page over. Volunteer Sibelius Salesman 17:03, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]