Isn't life Grand... piano gig at RIBA, London July 2008
I recently devoured a great book called “Quirkology” by Prof Richard Wiseman, whose experiment measuring how fast people walk in different cities around the world showed (unsurprisingly) that the pace of walking has got faster (to find out which cities were faster than others, and other weird and wonderful experiments, buy the book!)
This increase in pace mirrors an increase in musical pitch over the last few centuries – as the pace of life gets faster, Middle C gets higher! In Baroque times, (around 1700) Middle C was a full semitone lower – this is why I have to transpose in my head when I play baroque-pitch harpsichords.
When I’d go dancing, it would distress me musically as the sound systems would regularly play music at about 5-6Hz higher than it should have been – I wondered whether this pitch-shift was intentional, and people would unwittingly dance more / drink more as a consequence of this increase, or whether the sound systems were just rubbish, no-one was experimenting, and only freaks like me would suffer?
Ahh, A=440, thank goodness
My freakiness is Perfect Pitch, a strange affliction/gift that means I can correctly identify notes, chords etc., and tell someone what key they are speaking in – where it starts to get a little strange is that I’ve found that people who speak in, say, F major, appear to be quite persuasive and good at motivating, whereas people who speak in B minor appear to be quite negative in their outlook – I’ll go out on a further limb here, and mention that everyone seems to have a key they normally speak in, and others that they modulate to depending on their situation/company/mood – this is something I’ve done since I was a kid, but last weekend at the Food 2.0 wrap party, I mentioned that someone was speaking in Bb major, which resulted in strange looks and a request to blog about it, hence the post.
…but one digresses (as usual). Continuing the pacing theme, in the 90s, music at 135bpm was considered ridiculously fast, however, in the noughties, we happily imbibe 160bpm without missing a beat (no pun intended) – there’s not that much more room in terms of tempo, (before it becomes pitch) so what happens next?
How fascinating that music affects us so deeply! During (and after) my music degree, I performed some (very) empirical research. As a lifelong insomniac, I wanted to find out a way to get to sleep easily. The relaxation tapes I purchased were fine in terms of the NLP-type hypnotic language used etc, however, the background music kept me awake! After reading all kinds of weird and wonderful research that music at 60bpm, the average resting heart rate, can sometimes have a calming effect on the body, I decided to test that out by composing - and engineered music that would relax me by using this tempo and also choosing the keys that I personally found calming. Well, it worked on me, because I fell asleep writing it, and had to compose some of the stuff in double time (how frustrating). What was even stranger was that it appeared to work on other people, too…
I’d be very interested to hear any thoughts on music and how it affects humans (or other animals – I remember New Scientist running a piece about chickens listening to Pink Floyd) - and I’ll put some samples up online soon (will blog with link) so you can have a listen. LJ x
August 14, 2008 at 3:11 pm
That’s fascinating about speech ‘key’s – does a person’s regional dialect affect the key used (as for mood etc). Are Brummies condemned because of the key they speak in for example? (what key is it if there is a ’standard’ one for Brummies?) I am unable to produce anything other than flat sounding keys…including when I play wind instruments – why is that? Gosh you really have got me thinking.
August 14, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Hi Bina, thanks for your comment.
I have noticed that some families appear to speak in the same key, although it doesn’t seem to be the case with accents in general, so there will not be a standard “Brummie” key as far as I know. There do seem to similarities in cadence (i.e. how sentences end) within regional dialects, including Brummie. I’m beginning to wonder if a person’s key is more due their environmental input rather than accent when it comes to speech? I’m under the impression that key appears to have a direct link to personality, however, you’ve got me thinking too!
August 22, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Absolutely fascinating. When you say that the key people speak in relates to their outlook, do you think that people change key dependant on their current mood or is it ‘other way round?
September 4, 2008 at 11:51 am
Hi Idris, thanks for your comment.
I think that people have a favourite key that they speak in for most of the time, their “tonic” key in musical terms, and they modulate to different keys depending on the subject matter (i.e. work-related jargon) and/or mood (i.e. happy, stressed etc).
In my experience, people will stick around a few main central themes, changing key for special occasions (surprise, for example, is always about a fourth above the tonic in my limited empirical research!)
As to whether keys and moods appear to be interdependent, this is an intriguing thought – although I’ve never researched fully what happens to one’s mood if you spoke in one key, when you felt more like another – I would be inclined to think of the experiment where subjects smiled for a certain amount of time each day whether they were happy or not, and had their mood assessed as a result. To run a similar experiment in voices and keys would be difficult, as everyone speaks in their own key – what might count as “happy” for some. may be “angry” for others.
It would be very difficult to gather any worthwhile evidence without the help of someone highly qualified and able to structure the research in a credible manner, so the roundabout answer to your question is “I’m not exactly sure” !
April 22, 2009 at 3:08 pm
My understanding is that the main cause for the elevation of pitch was the move from just intonation to equal temperament.
This move impacted church organs a great deal, and while pipes could be moved higher in pitch by cutting a bit off, lowering them (which the change also required in some cases) was a pain. So they raised the pitch reference until ALL pipes could be shortened and none needed lengthening. Fact or legend? You tell me.
Personally, I think the move to equal temperament was a mixed blessing: the special sound of certain keys and intervals was largely lost, and although you can tell the difference (particularly if you have perfect pitch), their character is no longer as differentiated as it was in earlier times, when choosing a key for a mood was much more than just major and minor.
July 8, 2009 at 2:51 am
I have perfect pitch as well, is it a common or uncommon thing? I find radio 5 eventually gets me to sleep, again I guess something to do with the sound of their voices! Intersting blog, I am now officially hooked!
July 8, 2009 at 2:58 am
You apply for a Ph.D. somewhere and suggest it as a basis for a thesis. I could see it being rather scientific as well as musical which is good
There’s a sciart funded by Wellcome Trust who finds me, but we should start something called scimusic!!