Why do Minor Chords Sound Sad?

The Theory of Musical Equilibration states that in contrast to previous hypotheses, music does not directly describe emotions: instead, it evokes processes of will which the listener identifies with.

A major chord is something we generally identify with the message, “I want to!” The experience of listening to a minor chord can be compared to the message conveyed when someone says, "No more." If someone were to say the words "no more" slowly and quietly, they would create the impression of being sad, whereas if they were to scream it quickly and loudly, they would be come across as furious. This distinction also applies for the emotional character of a minor chord: if a minor harmony is repeated faster and at greater volume, its sad nature appears to have suddenly turned into fury.

The Theory of Musical Equilibration applies this principle as it constructs a system which outlines and explains the emotional nature of musical harmonies. For more information you can google Theory of Musical Equilibration.

Bernd Willimek

Zur Strebetendenz-Theorie (siehe oben) gibt es jetzt einen Wikipedia-Eintrag:
http://www.de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strebetendenz-Theorie
und einen Artikel im neuen Musikforum des Deutschen Kulturrats auf Seite 52:
http://www.kulturrat.de/dokumente/MuFo-01-2015.pdf
Bernd Willimek

Willimek wrote:Why do Minor Chords Sound Sad?

The Theory of Musical Equilibration states that in contrast to previous hypotheses, music does not directly describe emotions: instead, it evokes processes of will which the listener identifies with.

A major chord is something we generally identify with the message, “I want to!” The experience of listening to a minor chord can be compared to the message conveyed when someone says, "No more." If someone were to say the words "no more" slowly and quietly, they would create the impression of being sad, whereas if they were to scream it quickly and loudly, they would be come across as furious. This distinction also applies for the emotional character of a minor chord: if a minor harmony is repeated faster and at greater volume, its sad nature appears to have suddenly turned into fury.

The Theory of Musical Equilibration applies this principle as it constructs a system which outlines and explains the emotional nature of musical harmonies. For more information you can google Theory of Musical Equilibration.

Bernd Willimek

This is still pretty vague and just shifts the question of why major chords generally identify with the message, "I want to!"

I still think that it's because major chords use the same frequencies that we are accustomed to hearing in the harmonics of instruments when even a single "note" is played. That is, the diatonics. You get tonic, octave, fifth, second octave, major third, fifth again, minor seventh, and then it gets complicated. A minor third is a bit "off."

My idea is that a minor chord evokes the feeling of cognitive dissonance, which happens all over the brain and indicates that something is wrong, somehow. But it's not quite as dissonant as other forms found in modern music, so it's a bit between "everything's OK" and "I'm on edge and flipped out." Therefore, we cognitively fill in the experience of just being sort of sad or down, an ordinary experience but not a totally happy one.

epepke wrote:

Willimek wrote:Why do Minor Chords Sound Sad?

The Theory of Musical Equilibration states that in contrast to previous hypotheses, music does not directly describe emotions: instead, it evokes processes of will which the listener identifies with.

A major chord is something we generally identify with the message, “I want to!” The experience of listening to a minor chord can be compared to the message conveyed when someone says, "No more." If someone were to say the words "no more" slowly and quietly, they would create the impression of being sad, whereas if they were to scream it quickly and loudly, they would be come across as furious. This distinction also applies for the emotional character of a minor chord: if a minor harmony is repeated faster and at greater volume, its sad nature appears to have suddenly turned into fury.

The Theory of Musical Equilibration applies this principle as it constructs a system which outlines and explains the emotional nature of musical harmonies. For more information you can google Theory of Musical Equilibration.

Bernd Willimek

This is still pretty vague and just shifts the question of why major chords generally identify with the message, "I want to!"

I still think that it's because major chords use the same frequencies that we are accustomed to hearing in the harmonics of instruments when even a single "note" is played. That is, the diatonics. You get tonic, octave, fifth, major third, fifth again, and then minor seventh, and then it gets complicated. A minor third is a bit "off."

My idea is that a minor chord evokes the feeling of cognitive dissonance, which happens all over the brain and indicates that something is wrong, somehow. But it's not quite as dissonant as other forms found in modern music, so it's a bit between "everything's OK" and "I'm on edge and flipped out." Therefore, we cognitively fill in the experience of just being sort of sad or down, an ordinary experience but not a totally happy one.

'
I agree, it seems to be mainly just restating the obvious with more terminology, so as to veil the lack of understanding of what's really going on.

twistor59 wrote:

Morien wrote:..Can anybody explain this universally agreed upon human perception? Is it universally agreed?

Good question - I haven't a clue. I await the results of the application of the hive brain to this problem !

I guess the only way to study this is to find out whether people who have no experience of European music (with its natural scale, etc), and who might have been brought up with, say oriental music) find minor key music "sad", without being told in advance that it is supposed to sound that way. Unfortunately, it is hard to find such people. Perhaps we should try parts of the South American rain-forest!

DavidMcC wrote:

twistor59 wrote:

Morien wrote:..Can anybody explain this universally agreed upon human perception? Is it universally agreed?

Good question - I haven't a clue. I await the results of the application of the hive brain to this problem !

I guess the only way to study this is to find out whether people who have no experience of European music (with its natural scale, etc), and who might have been brought up with, say oriental music) find minor key music "sad", without being told in advance that it is supposed to sound that way. Unfortunately, it is hard to find such people. Perhaps we should try parts of the South American rain-forest!

Well, as medical technology progresses, we may get a share of people who are born deaf, but who acquire hearing later on in life. At some point, technology may progress to give them hearing that is on par with people who have "natural" hearing. Among those, I imagine we may get those who would be willing to contribute to such research.

Also, what do you mean by "natural scale"? What about the rather artificial scale we use in European music do you propose is 'natural'?

bookmark

DavidMcC wrote:

twistor59 wrote:

Morien wrote:..Can anybody explain this universally agreed upon human perception? Is it universally agreed?

Good question - I haven't a clue. I await the results of the application of the hive brain to this problem !

I guess the only way to study this is to find out whether people who have no experience of European music (with its natural scale, etc), and who might have been brought up with, say oriental music) find minor key music "sad", without being told in advance that it is supposed to sound that way. Unfortunately, it is hard to find such people. Perhaps we should try parts of the South American rain-forest!

That would be an interesting experiment.

I should note at this point that Jewish music tends to use minor chords in even "happy" tunes. But Jews are pretty used to suffering. And Chinese food.

epepke wrote:

Willimek wrote:Why do Minor Chords Sound Sad?

The Theory of Musical Equilibration states that in contrast to previous hypotheses, music does not directly describe emotions: instead, it evokes processes of will which the listener identifies with.

A major chord is something we generally identify with the message, “I want to!” The experience of listening to a minor chord can be compared to the message conveyed when someone says, "No more." If someone were to say the words "no more" slowly and quietly, they would create the impression of being sad, whereas if they were to scream it quickly and loudly, they would be come across as furious. This distinction also applies for the emotional character of a minor chord: if a minor harmony is repeated faster and at greater volume, its sad nature appears to have suddenly turned into fury.

The Theory of Musical Equilibration applies this principle as it constructs a system which outlines and explains the emotional nature of musical harmonies. For more information you can google Theory of Musical Equilibration.

Bernd Willimek

This is still pretty vague and just shifts the question of why major chords generally identify with the message, "I want to!"

I still think that it's because major chords use the same frequencies that we are accustomed to hearing in the harmonics of instruments when even a single "note" is played. That is, the diatonics. You get tonic, octave, fifth, second octave, major third, fifth again, minor seventh, and then it gets complicated. A minor third is a bit "off."

I tried to wrap my brain around this but it just made me dizzy. I gots to go slower.

Let's take an A note with a fundamental of 440 hz. and look at the frequencies of the first few harmonics.
A 440 harmonics
1 440
2 880
3 1320
4 1760
5 2200
6 2640
7 3080


You say "You get tonic, octave, fifth, second octave, major third, fifth again, minor seventh,"

tonic - 1st harmonic 440
octave - 2nd harmonic 880
fifth - - 3rd harmonic 1320 (the E above 880 not the fundamental?) 1318.52 hz - pretty close!
second octave - 4th harmonic 1760
major third - 5th harmonic 2200 (the C# above the second octave A fundamental?) 2217.46
5th again - 6th harmonic 2640 ( E above the second octave A fundamental?) 2637.
minor seventh - 7th harmonic 3080 (G above the second A fundamental?) 3135.96

which is where my confusion starts, why minor seventh instead of major 7th? (3322.44)

But what really makes my head spin is trying to figure out how the harmonics of the major or minor 3rd
interact with the harmonics of the root of the chord. Is there no dissonance among any of these harmonics if a major 3rd is used? Is there an easy way to visualize this?

Could a minor third (C) four octaves above the root of the A chord (2616 Hz sound major because it's close to the 6th
harmonic 2640 of the A note)? Perhaps it would have been better if I stuck to the formulas and didn't compute actual note frequencies, then it might be easier to see how the various harmonics are related.

ummm. I made a quick spread sheet to come up with these numbers it could be off.

My idea is that a minor chord evokes the feeling of cognitive dissonance, which happens all over the brain and indicates that something is wrong, somehow. But it's not quite as dissonant as other forms found in modern music, so it's a bit between "everything's OK" and "I'm on edge and flipped out." Therefore, we cognitively fill in the experience of just being sort of sad or down, an ordinary experience but not a totally happy one.

You're just adding octaves. A major is A C and E.

440
523.25
659.25

Frequencies for each note here.

http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html

ETA - sorry that's not what you were getting at. Carry on..

felltoearth wrote:You're just adding octaves. A major is A C and E.

440
523.25
659.25

Frequencies for each note here.

http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html

ETA - sorry that's not what you were getting at. Carry on..

Ummmm. A major is A C# E

I didn't show all my work because it was getting a bit cumbersome cutting and pasting from my spread sheet but I'm not just adding octaves.

The harmonics are found by multiplying the fundamental by integers. People dispute what is the first harmonic - the fundamental or 2x the fundamental, I'm calling the fundamental the first harmonic to keep things simple (for me).

Then, if you want to find a note that has a fundamental that matches (close to) a particular harmonic, e.g. the third harmonic of the A 440 note (3 * 440) which is 1320 Hz. Then using the table you gave a link to we find: E6 1318.51 hz. (my spreadsheet had 1318.52 Hz.

And if we look for a note close to the A 440's fifth harmonic (5 * 440), 2200 Hz. the table at your link shows C#7 at 2217.46 Hz. which is what I had too.

If you just use the C# that's right above A 440 then the fundamental is 554.37 Hz. it's fourth harmonic is close to the fifth harmonic of A 440. But I don't know where its second and third harmonics fit into the picture: 1108.73 Hz, 1663.09 Hz.

Sorry. Yes A minor is C

John Platko wrote:

felltoearth wrote:You're just adding octaves. A major is A C and E.

440
523.25
659.25

Frequencies for each note here.

http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html

ETA - sorry that's not what you were getting at. Carry on..

Ummmm. A major is A C# E

I didn't show all my work because it was getting a bit cumbersome cutting and pasting from my spread sheet but I'm not just adding octaves.

The harmonics are found by multiplying the fundamental by integers. People dispute what is the first harmonic - the fundamental or 2x the fundamental, I'm calling the fundamental the first harmonic to keep things simple (for me).

Then, if you want to find a note that has a fundamental that matches (close to) a particular harmonic, e.g. the third harmonic of the A 440 note (3 * 440) which is 1320 Hz. Then using the table you gave a link to we find: E6 1318.51 hz. (my spreadsheet had 1318.52 Hz.

And if we look for a note close to the A 440's fifth harmonic (5 * 440), 2200 Hz. the table at your link shows C#7 at 2217.46 Hz. which is what I had too.

If you just use the C# that's right above A 440 then the fundamental is 554.37 Hz. it's fourth harmonic is close to the fifth harmonic of A 440. But I don't know where its second and third harmonics fit into the picture: 1108.73 Hz, 1663.09 Hz.

Erm OK. You saw my ETA though right?

felltoearth wrote:

John Platko wrote:

felltoearth wrote:You're just adding octaves. A major is A C and E.

440
523.25
659.25

Frequencies for each note here.

http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html

ETA - sorry that's not what you were getting at. Carry on..

Ummmm. A major is A C# E

I didn't show all my work because it was getting a bit cumbersome cutting and pasting from my spread sheet but I'm not just adding octaves.

The harmonics are found by multiplying the fundamental by integers. People dispute what is the first harmonic - the fundamental or 2x the fundamental, I'm calling the fundamental the first harmonic to keep things simple (for me).

Then, if you want to find a note that has a fundamental that matches (close to) a particular harmonic, e.g. the third harmonic of the A 440 note (3 * 440) which is 1320 Hz. Then using the table you gave a link to we find: E6 1318.51 hz. (my spreadsheet had 1318.52 Hz.

And if we look for a note close to the A 440's fifth harmonic (5 * 440), 2200 Hz. the table at your link shows C#7 at 2217.46 Hz. which is what I had too.

If you just use the C# that's right above A 440 then the fundamental is 554.37 Hz. it's fourth harmonic is close to the fifth harmonic of A 440. But I don't know where its second and third harmonics fit into the picture: 1108.73 Hz, 1663.09 Hz.

Erm OK. You saw my ETA though right?

Yes, I just thought I better add some clarification on what I was going on about.

Got it :thumb up:

Here's an interesting paper suggesting it's not only music that has this major minor quality - with some speculation at the end as to a common origin for both.

http://ase.tufts.edu/psychology/music-c ... motion.pdf

I'm afraid to jump into this discussion. It's such a big topic. I've thought about it all my life as a music lover, and for over 30 years as a professional musician. I feel like I'd either have to say nothing, or try to say everything I think. I don't think I'd be able to resist the latter, and I simply don't have time for it. That sucks, because it really is fascinating.

I'll just throw the following into the mix. (Perhaps someone has already posted something like it; if so, I apologize):

Ok, minor=sad; major=happy. But often the great composers reverse this, making minor happy and major sad. A great example of this is from Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings. The piece begins with what may be the happiest A-minor chord ever written. Then, 25 minutes later, near the very end of the last movement, it's transformed into the saddest C-major chord ever. Tuning in to his "wavelength" is subtle; you have to listen with absolutely no irony. (Hard to do with our 21st century post-modern ears!). But once you do tune in, the effect is unmistakable, and heart-wrenching.

I’ve included the relevant pages from the score, with the chords circled. If you like, you can download the entire score here: http://imslp.org/wiki/Serenade_for_Stri ... ,_Pyotr%29. (imslp.org is a fantastic resource, by the way. So many scores, and a lot of recordings, for free download.)

Here are the two moments. YouTube clips are below the score pages.

First, the beginning:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMfjgyHcIWk.


Next, the last movement, very near the end. It’s important to get the context, so begin listening at 24:00 or earlier. At 25:00, the fast, joyous music stops, there’s a pause, and we get this terribly sad C-major chord:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8-U99FQmYk


Now, I have NO idea how Tchaikovsky achieves this reversal of emotions. There’s absolutely nothing in traditional music theory that explains it. It's simple, it's miraculous, and it's so moving. Lots of composers look down their noses at Tchaikovsky, but secretly most of them would give their right arm to be able to do something like this.

Plus you get to shoot cannons.

laklak wrote:Plus you get to shoot cannons.

Yep. His music has more awesomeness than any one person should be allowed to handle.

I suppose minor chords sound sad because they've only got a small part to play.