M&D p 172 spoiler question

[frewsie at interport.net]

Brian D. McCary writes:
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> >Spoiler
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> >Anyone have any idea about the emotional state to be invoked by
> >F# minor?  "Her voice affects him like music in F-sharp minor,
> >drawing him to the dire promise."  I'm assuming he is in a natural
> >tuning, so that F# minor would be differant from, say, F minor, but
> >there must be a root scale then, and I'm not sure what it would be.
> >Maybe one of you musicologists has run across some old writings on
> >the emotional content of various scales.
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I quit taking piano lessons in 8th grade, but here's my two cents anywho. I
think the key of F-sharp minor (or any key, for that matter) has the
potential to inspire an infinite variety of emotional states. I suspect
Mason, in his state of Melancholy, would hear "dire promise" in C major.
The idea that specific tones = specific states of mind sounds like the kind
of Science TRP might enjoy poking holes in. I don't have GR on hand, but
this question calls to mind a certain Romantic v. 12-tone Theory debate . .
. ?

--Susie Frank