HIgh Key, Low Key, Soprano, Bass

There are many similarities between various art forms.  Music and painting/drawing have similarities in a couple of ways.

Each singer has a vocal range that is the lowest note the singer can sing to the highest note.  In a choir singers are divided up based mainly on this range.  So for women the categories are soprano, and alto  with soprano being higher range and alto being lower.  For male voices the categories are tenor and bass with tenor being a higher range than bass.  In opera or professional choirs the female and male voices may be divided into more categories.

Anyone who has every played in a band also knows about ranges - soprano, alto, tenor and baritone saxophones

I am a lousy singer which is why I was in the band in junior high and high school- and yes I played sax.  So I'm on dangerous ground talking about voice ranges.

Understanding Vocal Range  has lots of great information on voice ranges and classifications if you are interested in learning more.

So let's make the connection with painting and drawing- we are going to go back to values.

Painter's sometimes refer to a painting based in higher values as high key and one's based in lower values as low key.  So just as voices or instruments have ranges with associated names, so do paintings or drawings- both of which are based being predominately higher or lower.

"Dancer" by Edgar Degas
Pastel on paper

This painting by Degas is an example of a high key painting.  There are no really dark darks.

This painting by Edward Gorey  is an example of a low key painting.  Although there are a few  highlights that are light, the painting is predominately in the darker values.

"Mile Becat at the Cafe des Ambassadeurs, Paris" by  Edgar Degas

However if we go to this painting, again by Degas, you can see that it covers the range of values of lights to darks  with fairly similar amounts of darks and lights.  This painting wouldn't be described as either a high key or low key.

There are other similarities between music and painting that I'll cover in the future.

In the meantime look at the paintings in your house or your favorite paintings - do you gravitate to high key or low key paintings?  Post an example of one of them.