Hometracked NoteCharacteristics of Musical Keys: Composers through history have associated various moods and colours with each of the 24 major and minor keys in Western music. From the link “This document contains a selection of information from the Internet about the emotion or mood associated with musical keys. It is not complete nor does it include information found only in print sources.” There’s even some agreement on a few of the keys. And of course we all accept that D minor is the saddest of all keys.

As I said in my post on understanding the future indie music market, you need to know the minds of your listeners. If you target teenagers, but you’re a few years off yourself, this article could prove enlightening: High School Round Table: A world of music.

Miguel: I think music is a huge influence. That song “Grills” came out. Ten minutes later, everybody had a grill.
Hilary: If you listen to country, you are going to have jeans and a cowboy hat. If you listen to rap, you are going to dress like the girls on the videos.

Bob Katz originally wrote The Secrets of Mastering for TC Electronics, and buyers of their Finalizer hardware, but his thoughts aren’t specific to the unit.

Mastering is the art of compromise; knowing what’s possible and impossible, and making decisions about what’s most important in the music. When you work on the bass drum, you’ll affect the bass for sure, sometimes for the better, sometimes worse.

He covers, in more detail than you’d expect from a free article, all the main aspects of mastering: Monitoring, metering, equalization, dynamics, and preparing for radio. I’ve read the paper half a dozen times, and I still learn something from it each time.

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