# Music by Genre > Orchestral, Classical, Italian, Medieval, Renaissance >  The saddest key

## lightnbrassy

I would like to know, in your opinion, what the saddest and most melancholy key is? So far, the minor of B flat major seems pretty sad. Thanks for your input.

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## Neil Gladd

D minor, according to Nigel Tufnel.

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## Spruce

> D minor, according to Nigel Tufnel.


Indeed.... # #

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## lightnbrassy

Man, I posted this question on a guitar thread, and they gave me the same answer.

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## Kevin K

We do Wayfaring Stranger in Dm and it has that lonesome sad sound which along with the words to that song is powerful.

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## John Craton

I guess I'm a little flatter than most. I've always felt C-sharp minor was the most melancholy key. Doesn't work well on mando, of course, but it can drip tears out of a piano. (Come to think of it, my piano cries every time I try to play it # #) Maybe it's really just D minor with baroque tuning.

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## John Goodin

I think that's just because Nigel doesn't know that Bb minor even exists. :Smile: 

John G.

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## Jim Garber

The saddest key occurred in a West Virginia disaster: A Flat Miner



Jim

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## Paul Kotapish

Have you seen Guy Maddin's feature film on the subject, The Saddest Music in the World?

If you aren't familiar with Maddin's work, it's pretty impossible to describe. Let's just say that this one features Isabella Rosselini sporting beer-filled glass legs, a mysterious cellist in a veil, and the quirkiest musical score ever.

My vote goes for Gm, but Nigel is pretty persuasive with his excerpt from "Lick," isn't he?

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## Spruce

_"My vote goes for Gm, but Nigel is pretty persuasive with his excerpt from "Lick," isn't he?"_

I don't know how Rob Reiner kept a straight face after getting that tune's title...

Now _that's_ acting....

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## Neil Gladd

> Have you seen Guy Maddin's feature film on the subject, The Saddest Music in the World?
> 
> If you aren't familiar with Maddin's work, it's pretty impossible to describe. Let's just say that this one features Isabella Rosselini sporting beer-filled glass legs, a mysterious cellist in a veil, and the quirkiest musical score ever.


Great film, I was going to mention it! And the blindfolded orchestra has a mandolin in it.

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## Keith Miller

according to my kids, the saddest key is the one that unlocks my mandolin case

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## Brady Smith

> according to my kids, the saddest key is the one that unlocks my mandolin case


Hmmm...I think your onto something there Keith. 
I'm usually playing in the saddest key.

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## SternART

Shalom Alechem is in Dmin......maybe it makes me sad since I've heard Grisman play the heart out of it at funerals and memorial services,
events that are sad anyway. Lets see Vassar's.... Lonesome Fiddle Blues is Dmin.....never thought of that one as sad.

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## RSW

Without a doubt : a minor (Tchaikovsky's trio in hommage to his deceased colleague and friend Anton Rubinstein comes to mind). :Frown:

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## John Kavanagh

I'd have said F minor, but I think it depends on what instrument you're playing. D minor is a pretty rich and warm key on most stringed instruments, which (other things being equal) makes it less sad, maybe (?)

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## angrymandolinist

To me, none is sadder than C minor. This site has some interesting opinions on the characteristics of all the keys, major and minor.

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## Jonathan

Offhand, I would vote for C or C# minor. Perhaps it's because I'm an orchestral bassist by profession, and pieces in those keys often end with the basses on their lowest (or next-to-lowest) note. "Metamorphosen" by Richard Strauss (his response to the devastation of WWII) is in C minor, as is the Funeral March from Beethoven's Eroica symphony, which Strauss quotes. In C# minor we have the famous first movement of the Moonlight Sonata, as well as the movingly melancholy Adagio from Bruckner's 7th symphony.
Hmm..not much mandolin content here.

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## Jim Garber

> Hmm..not much mandolin content here.


Beethoven's Sonatine is originally in Cminor, tho it goes to C major in the middle. 

Jim

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## SternART

hey angrymandolinist.......I got a chuckle out of the site's descriptions of Keys, here is one:

D Minor
Melancholy womanliness, the spleen and humours brood.

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## Jim MacDaniel

Wow, after reading angrymandolinist's link, D# Minor gets my vote:

_"Feelings of the anxiety of the soul's deepest distress, of brooding despair, of blackest depresssion, of the most gloomy condition of the soul. Every fear, every hesitation of the shuddering heart, breathes out of horrible D# minor. If ghosts could speak, their speech would approximate this key."_

(Oddly, Eb minor triggers similarly dark emotions in me.)

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## JimD

> "Feelings of the anxiety of the soul's deepest distress, of brooding despair, of blackest depresssion, of the most gloomy condition of the soul. Every fear, every hesitation of the shuddering heart, breathes out of horrible D# minor. If ghosts could speak, their speech would approximate this key."


and that's just the emotions that you experience when you have to sightread in D# minor...

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## Jim MacDaniel

> Originally Posted by  
> 
> "Feelings of the anxiety of the soul's deepest distress, of brooding despair, of blackest depresssion, of the most gloomy condition of the soul. Every fear, every hesitation of the shuddering heart, breathes out of horrible D# minor. If ghosts could speak, their speech would approximate this key."
> 
> 
> and that's just the emotions that you experience when you have to sightread in D# minor...


Then A# Minor & Ab Minor must be the keys that inspired Dante and Bosch.

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## Eugene

> This site has some interesting opinions on the characteristics of all the keys, major and minor.


As the page states, this is Rita Steblin's translation of Christian Schubart's (1806) theories. Steblin tends to focus her efforts on the latter part of the 18th and first half of the 19th c.

Frankly, one minor key sounds pretty much like the next to me in equal temperament. Before equal temperament was so widespread, baroque theoreticians like Charpentier (ca. 1692) and Mattheson (1713) wrote quite a bit on the affects of different keys. In baroque music, I kinda like c minor that Mattheson describes as having "exceeding loveliness and, at the same time, sadness."

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## billkilpatrick

i think the saddest key is key-less - the one you sing in with no accompaniment what-so-ever.

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## lightnbrassy

> i think the saddest key is key-less - the one you sing in with no accompaniment what-so-ever.


Yes, these instruments truly do make good company when you are alone - for happier moods or those somber. 

This thread turned out to be very informative to me, and I am grateful for your responses. Thank you very much. It is neat to hold a small lute in your lap and know that you yet have so much left to learn (when you want to). Out of my ignorance, gross ignorance, I did not appreciate the subjective element to how the keys move.

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## JeffD

I think the D#m key is terrifyingly sad, especially when played immediately after a passage in C. The C passage sets up an expectation that D#m violates like tragic news on a sunny day.

It would probably be true for transitions of similar distance between other keys - but also the mandolin really plays brightly in C, so the effect may be more dramatic.

That is my experience anyway.

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## billkilpatrick

i understand that middle-eastern tunings can be associated with moods ... seasons; times of the day; colors, etc. - a different key and scale for each.

there-in madness lay, methinks ...

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