Major and Minor keys in classical musc (OT)
Robert Corcoran
Seemingly Simple question:
Why is a major key happy, and why is a minor key sad?
I have been thinking about it a lot and I can't come up with an
answer.
At first I thought something to do with there being more dissonance in
a minor scale, but that doesn't seem right, in a harmonic minor scale
there is one additional minor second (one between ^2 and ^3, ^5 and
^6, and ^7 and ^8, as opposed to major ^3 and ^4, and ^7 and ^8) and
melodic minor scales have the same amount (as a major scale).
And another idea to toy with, have we somehow associated it with
happiness/sadness through something we link with the piece such as the
material it's written about, accompanying libretto, or visual scenes
it accompanies. But this seems like a cop out because I have a feeling
that it's not that easily explained. I don't even consider this
explanation of having any chance of being correct.
And another explanation my friend gave me which I found to be
insightful but hard to comprehend, is that perhaps when people first
started composing using minor and major tonality, perhaps one person
arbitrarily composed a piece using a particular scale and came up with
a sad/happy piece, and tradition carried on in using that scale for
that particular emotion.
I realise people are tempted to comment on the fact that it's not as
simple as happy and sad emotions, but try to stick to topic.
Somebody suggested to me the true test is to go to africa and play
them some scales and ask them to explain how it makes them feel. I
don't know what the result would be.
Comments and thoughts?
Unknown
Corcoran) wrote:
>Hey guys,
>
>Seemingly Simple question:
>Why is a major key happy, and why is a minor key sad?
>
One possible contributing factor is the dissonance in the overtones.
For example, consider an E minor chord, which consists of E G B.
The overtone series for an E starts out as E (fundamental) E B E G#.
The G# in the overtone series is a half step away from the G which is
the third of the chord.
Tim
http://timberens.com
A Website for Guitarists
Learn something...Have some fun
timb at erinet dot com
Olof Johansson
I like this idea. Funny how such a simple thing as consonance can make
us happy! Doesn't really take that much.
Olof
David Raleigh Arnold
> Hey guys,
>
> Seemingly Simple question:
> Why is a major key happy, and why is a minor key sad?
Not true of Russian music, or so I have read, so it must be
cultural? It is so much more an assertion than a question
that I think that the only way that you will find any answer
is to attempt to prove your premises.
And what about the other four modes? ("Locrian" is bogus) It doesn't
matter which mode it's written in but which mode comprises the notes of
the melody? For example "I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover" is Lydian,
(F to F'). daveA
--
Paying more at the gas pump? Bush's Oil Sheikh Buddies, who support Al
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Roman Turovsky
>> Why is a major key happy, and why is a minor key sad?
> Not true of Russian music, or so I have read, so it must be
> cultural? It is so much more an assertion than a question
> that I think that the only way that you will find any answer
> is to attempt to prove your premises.
culturally and environmentally determined. For example, Ukrainian folk music
is overwhelmingly in minor, and Lithuanian is overwhelmingly in major (Both
Ukrainians and Lithuanians are genetic Slavs, but Lithuanians switched their
language to a Baltic one).
The lyrics in the former are replete with imagery of graves, young widows,
orfans etc., to such a degree, that one Italian friend told me that she
cannot bear to read another Ukrainian song text, and naturally Ukraine
underwent continuous bloodshed from 1200 to 1700.
RT
Roman Turovsky
third (neither minor nor major).
RT
______________
Roman M. Turovsky
http://turovsky.org
http://polyhymnion.org
JoeT
I have no idea but I certainly like listening to happy and sad music ...
Joe
"Robert Corcoran" <robcor...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:7136d783.04041...@posting.google.com...
David Kilpatrick
John Sloan wrote:
> "Robert Corcoran" <robcor...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:7136d783.04041...@posting.google.com...
>
>>Hey guys,
>>
>>Seemingly Simple question:
>>Why is a major key happy, and why is a minor key sad?
>
>
> They're not.
Indeed, they are not. Many Scottish dance tunes are set in a robust Am
or Dm and they are fast - they don't sound sad at all - they sound strong.
but there's something in the question which has made me think a bit
without coming up with answers as to why certain music does influence
mood predictably.
David
Roman Turovsky
>>>
>>> Seemingly Simple question:
>>> Why is a major key happy, and why is a minor key sad?
>> They're not.
> Indeed, they are not. Many Scottish dance tunes are set in a robust Am
> or Dm and they are fast - they don't sound sad at all - they sound strong.
>
> but there's something in the question which has made me think a bit
> without coming up with answers as to why certain music does influence
> mood predictably.
major is happy. And there is no scientific explanation for this, thankfully.
How one uses them proportionately, and what results can be had from them in
larger contexts is a different story .
dsi1
<Tim Berens> wrote in message news:4081faa1...@news.core.com...
> On 17 Apr 2004 20:32:10 -0700, robcor...@hotmail.com (Robert
> Corcoran) wrote:
>
> >Hey guys,
> >
> >Seemingly Simple question:
> >Why is a major key happy, and why is a minor key sad?
> >
>
> One possible contributing factor is the dissonance in the overtones.
> For example, consider an E minor chord, which consists of E G B.
>
> The overtone series for an E starts out as E (fundamental) E B E G#.
>
> The G# in the overtone series is a half step away from the G which is
> the third of the chord.
>
> Tim
>
It's possible that it is simply our musical culture and it's what we learned
from an early age. Someone not familiar with our dividing of the sonic
spectrum into 12 repeating parts based on ratios of whole numbers might not
find it happy or sad. On the other hand, I might be wrong...
The same might be true with our perception of dissonance; it's learned. The
only 2 or 3 notes that are naturally non-dissonant would be unison notes or
maybe even octaves. From this point of view, a E aug would not be any more
dissonant that an E Maj. On the other hand, I might be wrong... hehe, hell,
I'm probably wrong!
David
cb
chosen because the intervals had a "pleasing effect." Certain intervals
"please" more than others (wasn't one of them named "the devil" in ancient
music), and are probably rooted in millions of years of evolution.
Take birds, for example... they switch keys, intervals, etc., and while I've
never measured or researched this, I would bet that many of the frequencies
animals use (esp. the successful ones) correspond to notes on our scales.
They sing "in tune." It wouldn't suprise me if we ultimately chose these
notes because they unconciously reminded us of our environment. Now that we
have them, they just illicit these feelings. Just my thoughts.
"Robert Corcoran" <robcor...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:7136d783.04041...@posting.google.com...
Olof Johansson
http://www.sr.se/p2/p2pippi/
happy or sad?
Robert Corcoran
> I realise people are tempted to comment on the fact that it's not as
> simple as happy and sad emotions, but try to stick to topic.
Thanks for your opinions guys. Tim your idea is definitely worth
considering. That it pulls away from consonance because it's not in
the harmonic series...
Most everyone else...I'm sure it is possible to find counter-examples
to prove that EVERY piece in a minor key isn't sad and vice versa for
major keys, but without being argumentative, I'm sure you can admit
the majority of them are (though I realise it is the trend of most
newsgroups to argue points to the death that are bleeding obvious).
To me me there is something inherently sad about a minor scale, or
simply improvising in a minor key. I'm fairly sure most of you would
feel the same way. Why?
Jim A
>
> Seemingly Simple question:
> Why is a major key happy, and why is a minor key sad?
>
> I have been thinking about it a lot and I can't come up with an
> answer.
>
> At first I thought something to do with there being more dissonance in
Actually, I think that *IS* part of the reason...
The least dissonant sound is a unison-- two notes that vibrate at the
same frequency. In an octave, the higher not vibrates twice for every
vibration of the lower note. As we make the relationship between the
notes more complex, things get more dissonant. A perfect fifth
vibrates 3 times for every 2 vibrations of the root. A major third
vibrates 5 times for every 4 vibrations of the root, while the minor
third is a 6 to 5 ratio. Therefore, the minor third could be
considered more dissonant than the major third.
However, the biggest factor is likely conditioning: we expect major
to be happy and and minor to be sad, because they have often been
presented to us that way. The origin of the choice may be because of
the dissonance, but I don't think the dissonance itself is
intrinsically sad or happy. A diminished chord doesn't sound happy or
sad -- out of context, it just sounds very dissonant. There are
plenty of folk idioms where happy songs are in minor modes.
Now someone explain to me why Irving Berlin wrote "Blue Skies" in a
minor key...
--Jim
richard c. spross
Tim Berens wrote:
As many of us have already stated, it is likely a cultural phenomenon.
But how and why? One thing to remember is the function of tonality.
Tonality creates by the repetition of the major chord developed out of
the major scale the framework around which the minor and diminished
chords revolve. Thus the anchoring chords give the us the sense of
Key. By comparison we hear the exchange and minor chords in a major
key tonalilty, give us a feeling of restlessnes, of unresolution. The
major
chords particularly the I give us the sense of beginning, and anchor us
to that beginning as it reoccurs. The IV and V chords and the dim vii
chord provide impetus to the I.
Now if we reverse the effect and play in a minor key all the effects
of the major chords become the restless unresoloved ones and
the other scale degrees iv and V and the dim 7th still function
as driving towards the minor i.
I suspect there are other influences such as the rhythm, tempo
and color which affect our sense of sadness or happiness too.
One thing fun to do is to try playing "Italian Dance" by Hans
Neuslieder sp? in unequal time. This means that you play the
straight eighth notes as dotted or with a "swing" beat, ( broken
triplets quarter eighth ) and listen to the difference!!!
I was told once by a serious recorder player that the C does
not mean Common Time, but represents a broken circle
and as such was an indicator of music which was "Imperfect"
theologically speaking. The broken circle in the Renaissance
and maybe even earlier in the Medieval age, represented a
duality. Where as the Complete circle represented the Trinity
or Perfection in the cosmos as understood by the Monks
who parceled out this belief. When music was written
with a whole circle it was always in 3/4 time. Because 3/4
represented perfection the individual beats were to be played
in equal time or as we would say to day, they had to be divided
evenly.
So for those of you who play Early music, try playing the 2/4
or 4/4 times unequally as mentioned above and hear how it
changes the sense of "happiness" or sadness.
I've found it most interesting.
Just my two cents.
Richard Spross
Sam Culotta
"richard c. spross" <rcsp...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:408354B1...@pacbell.net...
2 cents, hell.. that was at least a quarter's worth.
Interesting stuff, Richard.
But happy, sad.. who knows why? Why are some colors soothing, others
stimulating? Why do words put just the right way squeeze the heart?
Why, oh why ?
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?
The _Shadow_ do.
--
Sam
( Change "invalid" to net to reply )
>
Scott Daughtrey
Well, I think that he didn't - it's actually in a major key, despite the fact
the first chord of the chorus is a major.
Scott
Scott Daughtrey
minor.
D'oh.
>
>Scott
David Kilpatrick
Klezmer music
Greek music
Much Balkan music
Much English/Scots/Irish song - example 'Matty Groves', 'Henry Martin',
'Jock o Bredeslaw' etc (typically a crossed minor/major structure called
a minor drop tonic - mixolydian, as are many tunes in the examples above)
Even more Scottish dance tunes (for some reason when Irish tunes use a
minor key they often do sound a little sadder)
Much Flamenco and Latin - example, Enrique Iglesias every single damn
song goes Am, G, F, E
Same goes for the House of the Rising Sun... it ain't sad but it
resolves to a minor
Greensleeves - it isn't really sad or especially melancholy, not
compared (say) with many of Dowland's uses of minor keys
In a lot of these cases the minor key is conveying a mood of suspense,
drama or unresolved tension rather than sadness, and if you take a tune
and simply alter the closing chord to its major it can be surprising how
that resolution affects the final mood of the listener.
David
Scott Daughtrey
<icon...@btconnect.com> wrote:
>Minor chords not sad:
>
>Klezmer music
>Greek music
>Much Balkan music
>Much English/Scots/Irish song - example 'Matty Groves', 'Henry Martin',
>'Jock o Bredeslaw' etc (typically a crossed minor/major structure called
>a minor drop tonic - mixolydian, as are many tunes in the examples above)
>Even more Scottish dance tunes (for some reason when Irish tunes use a
>minor key they often do sound a little sadder)
>Much Flamenco and Latin - example, Enrique Iglesias every single damn
>song goes Am, G, F, E
>Same goes for the House of the Rising Sun... it ain't sad but it
>resolves to a minor
I dunno, that's a pretty sad song. How about Devil Went Down To Georgia
instead?
Scott
Robert Corcoran
imagine he would mind me posting it here. I feel bad about posting his
details on the internet without asking permission so if anyone has
gripes with that then they can email me.
"An interesting question! Undoubtedly, it's largely cultural: a
listener unfamiliar with the conventions of Western tonal music is not
going to perceive a major/minor distinction in that way (if at all!),
any more than your average Westerner is going to grasp intuitively the
subtleties of meaning attributed to the various Indian ragas.
You're right about the minor second issue: it's really the way they're
used in minor key pieces that creates the distinctive sound, rather
than their frequency in the scale. I think there is some validity
though, to the notion that the major system is closer to the overtone
series; minor conflicts with it to some extent, therefore produces a
more 'disturbed' effect.
The source for the major/minor scheme seems to lie in a division which
started to emerge in theoretical writing of the second half of the
16th century, between modes with minor thirds and those with major
thirds. Joel Lester's book 'Between Modes and Keys' has more on this.
The idea that different pitch resources were appropriate to different
extra-musical functions or associations was already very well
established in the modal system (see for example, Zarlino, "On the
Modes").
Of course it is a good deal more complex than just 'happy/sad': the
significance attached to the various keys by 18th-century theorists is
dealt with extensively in 'A history of key characteristics in the
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries' by Rita Steblin. For
Schubert, there's also the notion that major within minor evokes a
sense of an imagined (or recalled) better world, in contrast to that
of present experience."
I still have problems swallowing that it is cultural. I think that if
you played a particularly sorrowful piece to someone who did not know
anything of music, then they could still identify it as sad.
saraband
While the happy-major, sad-minor association may well be a cultural
one, I do think there is room for universals in our judgment of the
emotional affect of a piece of music. For example, other musical
factors such as tempo, orchestration and pitch range play as strong a
role as "mode" in our perception of the emotional affect of a piece of
music.
A recent study that I know of had Western listeners with no
familiarity of the raga-rasa system listen to examples of North Indian
ragas (in this tradition, ragas or scales are associated with specific
affects or rasas). They found that Western listeners were remarkably
sensitive to the emotions of joy, sadness, and peace. They also found
that succesful judgments of emotional affect were related to judgments
of aspects of the music such as tempo, rhythmic complexity, melodic
complexity and pitch range.
Jim A
> Minor chords not sad:
>
> Klezmer music <snip etc.,>
Agree with you basic point, but...
> Same goes for the House of the Rising Sun... it ain't sad but it
> resolves to a minor
???
Mothers, please tell your children / Not to do what I have done / To
spend you lives in sin and misery / At the house of the rising sun
Yeh... that's a real pick-me-up! Not to mention the "ball and chain"
and the "ruin of many a man" lines.
> Greensleeves - it isn't really sad or especially melancholy
The first lines of the first three verses:
- "Alas, my love, you do me wrong to cast me off discourteously"
- "Alas, my love, that you should own a heart of wanton vanity"
- "Your vows, you've broken like my heart. Oh, why did you enrapture
me?"
I'm beginning to wonder what it takes for you to consider a song sad!
;^)
--Jim
In my experience, most songs that begin with the word "Alas" qualify
"Alas, my
Igor Jarm
news:7136d783.04041...@posting.google.com...
> imagine he would mind me posting it here. I feel bad about posting his
> details on the internet without asking permission so if anyone has
> gripes with that then they can email me.
>
> "An interesting question! Undoubtedly, it's largely cultural: a
> listener unfamiliar with the conventions of Western tonal music is not
> going to perceive a major/minor distinction in that way (if at all!),
> any more than your average Westerner is going to grasp intuitively the
> subtleties of meaning attributed to the various Indian ragas.
Indeed.
In Alain Danielou's Ragas of north India there is IMS a theory, why certain
relations between 2 notes (drone is always present) produce certain
"feelings".
Notes that have power of 2 in denominator all have "positive", "happy" feel,
they are overtones of a drone so they are in a sense only harmonic variants.
These notes are 9/8 (major 2), 5/4 (major 3), 3/2 (pure fifth), 27/16 (major
6), 15/8 (major 7).
Notes, that don't have power of 2 in denominator are different than drone
and so don't have "positive", "happy" feel. These notes are 16/15 (minor 2),
6/5 (minor 3), 4/3 (pure 4), 8/5 (minor 6), 16/9 (minor 7).
But this is only one possible set of notes, for instance major 2 can also be
10/9 in which case it's not so "happy" anymore.
All notes of equal temperament are more or less close to most of these
simple ratios.
This was all out of my memory and very simplified, just to ilustrate the
point. The book is very interesting to read and goes in great details about
effects of particular notes on the listener.
Perhaps similar things apply to western tonal music, where tonic is not
deliberately masked (implicit drone).
Igor