What is the Saddest Key in the World? #MusicMonday

In a movie full of amazing bits, Nigel’s D-minor is “the saddest of all keys” bit in This is Spinal Tap is a quietly funny moment. But is it true? Recently a quantitative analyst over at Rolling Stone set out to prove Nigel right. But what does a practicing musician and music theorist think? First he plays Earth, Wind, and Fire’s Bookie Wonderland and Beyoncé’s Crazy in Love, just to prove D-minor isn’t inherently sad, and he goes on from there. Here’s more from Ethan Hein:

let’s stipulate that minor keys do tend to be sadder in general than major ones. It is simply untrue that any particular minor key is sadder than any other. In twelve-tone equal temperament (12-TET), all the minor keys feel the same (as do all the major keys, and all the modal keys, and all the blues keys.) The keys are all at different absolute pitch heights, but absolute pitch doesn’t make a difference in musical meaning. The important thing in music is the ratios between the frequencies, and in 12-TET, those are all identical across keys, by definition. D minor is the same as D-flat minor the way that level three of a parking garage is the same as level four.

See and hear more!


Halloween season is here!
Halloween season is here! Check out all the posts, gift guides, and more!

Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards

Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.

Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!

Join us every Wednesday night at 8pm ET for Ask an Engineer!

Join over 38,000+ makers on Adafruit’s Discord channels and be part of the community! http://adafru.it/discord

CircuitPython – The easiest way to program microcontrollers – CircuitPython.org


New Products – Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! — JP’s Product Pick of the Week 10/29/24

Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: New Raspberry Pi Products, 503 CircuitPython Libraries and Much More! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi

EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey

Adafruit IoT Monthly — Garden Lights, Bluetooth 6.0, and more!

Maker Business – Adafruit Daily — First Solar’s $1.1 billion development of vertically integrated factory in the U.S.

Electronics – Adafruit Daily — Trigger happy oscilloscope?

Get the only spam-free daily newsletter about wearables, running a "maker business", electronic tips and more! Subscribe at AdafruitDaily.com !



No Comments

No comments yet.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.