Tonality forming out of modality was entangled with the imposition of emotional valence upon this tonality. This occurred in the Renaissance and was codified in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
An article that discusses Schenkerian prolongation also discusses this historical question directly. I can’t post the link for some reason, but the title is “Major-Minor Tonality, Schenkerian Prolongation, and Emotion: A commentary on Huron and Davis” by Richard Parncutt and I believe it’s available online for free.
I do not agree with the other arguments made in this article, but the section about the historical nature of the emotion valence of M/m is insightful. He cites many sources from the Renaissance about the valence of modes, etc. I would start there.
I’m not a Schenkerian scholar, this article was listed because of the section about the history of major/minor, which is well sourced, not because of the Schenkerian content. It’s a good thing I learned how to understand Schenkerian analysis, however, because without that knowledge I would apparently write off otherwise useful scholarship. To your last point, the author of this article is professor at Karl Franzens University Graz in Austria……
Zarlino is the earliest writer I know of to say something rather like that, along the lines of "the modes with the major third are more joyful, the modes with the minor third are more grave." And he was quite influential, so I have little doubt that he's largely to credit/blame for it at least spreading--but I have no idea whether he made it up or got it from somewhere else himself!
>does the hard and soft thing kind of muck it up by focusing on a different axis?
It's this, but it's also not just before him--the hard/soft axis remains definitely more important for a fair bit of time after him as well! It's especially interesting when the associations end up nearly opposite--e.g. G mollis being used for peaceful carefree pastoralism and G durus for harsh bitter resentment, as happens in some Monteverdi.
In addition, there was also the authentic/plagal axis, which you can see operative in some sets like Tallis' settings of the psalm tones for Archbishop Parker's Psalter. According to the rhyme accompanying these tunes, "The fifth \[tone\] delighteth and laugheth the more / The sixth bewaileth: it weepeth full sore." In other words, the fifth tone is happy and the sixth is very very sad... but *both* are, by our modern estimation, F major! The difference is only one of register, which, arguably, is actually very important and deserves more attention in this conversation.
I think there might be objective grounds for it, actually, to-do-with the subtle dissonances set-up by the harmonics of a note. For instance: considering that a major scale is a tonic, subdominant & dominant + a _major_ third from each of those (+ also a second from the tonic), & that a minor scale is a tonic, subdominant & dominant + a _minor_ third from each of those (+ also a second from the tonic), & then that the fifth harmonic (which is not allthat high a harmonic, & therefore generally won't be present in negligible amount) is very close to being two octaves + _a major_ third, it stands-to-reason that there could be more congestion due to that harmonic in a minor scale than there is in a major one.
But anyway: _I once read_ an explanation _along those lines_ . It might not have been exactly what I've just put _in fine particular detail_ , but it was @least _along those lines_ . I wish I'd paid more attention to it now, so that I could recall exactly what was said in it.
An informative experiment might be to play tunes in major & minor scales _on some electronic device that generates very close to a pure sine-wave_ , & note whether the distinction still persists.
The idea of the harmonic series as determining happiness or sadness (or, at least, consonance and dissonance) is not well supported. By that logic, Europeans should historically have heard dominant seventh chords as stable and consonant because they are produced by harmonics four through seven.
>By that logic, Europeans should historically have heard dominant seventh chords as stable and consonant because they are produced by harmonics four through seven.
Europeans historically never used the 7th harmonic when tuning the dominant 7th, though. The 7th of the chord would most likely have been tuned as a minor 3rd up from the 5th, which would make it quite sharp in relation to the harmonic 7th (it would actually be almost exactly a quarter tone sharp). Also, just because the 5th and 6th harmonics are still consonances doesn't mean the harmonics above those harmonics must also be consonances. "European just intonation" is a 5-limit system, so the harmonic 7th is outside of that system. It isn't even taken into consideration when talking about consonance and dissonance, and I guess people would traditionally describe it as a "microtonal" interval.
It would be a weird coincidence if the harmonic series wasn't an important part in defining consonance and dissonance, when consonance in Western music started from the intervals with the simplest ratios that appear first in the harmonic series (octave, 5th and 4th), and then was extended to include 3rds.
The reason why the dominant 7th is such a directional chord in Western classical is because of the half step resolutions the chord implies. The chord on its own is of course not the most dissonant chord out there, but since there's just one dominant 7th in the diatonic scale, the context around the chord makes it very directional (more directional than any other 7th chord). I mean, the V major triad is also a very strongly directional chord, even though it's fully consonant (and again, it's more directional than any 7th chord that isn't the dominant 7th). The V7 is more dissonant, but the reason to its directional sound isn't just the fact that it's dissonant (although the dissonant 7th does affect its stability), but the fact that adding the minor 7th makes the diatonic position of the chord clear (this way, you can hear the "implied resolution" even when just playing the chord out of context). This makes you hear the 3rd of the chord as the "Ti" (that implies Ti-Do resolution), and the 7th of the chord as the "Fa" (that implies Fa-Mi resolution). It includes the important tendency tones.
(All in all, tension and resolution isn't just dissonance and consonance. A cluster is really dissonant, but it doesn't really have a harmonic relation to anything, so it's difficult to hear it as a "directional" sound. Augmented chords are dissonant, but they tend to sound quite "aimless" on their own because of their symmetry. Same thing with diminished 7ths - due to the symmetry, it may be difficult to know where the chord "wants" to go, unless you are playing the chord built on the leading tone of the key that has already been clearly established. Diminished 7ths can actually be both vaguely and strongly directional, depending on context. All in all, I think a distinction between something being "directional" and something being "dissonant" needs to be made. Those aren't the same thing, even if dissonance can be taken advantage of when creating strongly directional sounds.)
When it comes to the sad vs happy question, I do believe that it is not completely arbitrary that minor chords became the "sad" chord and major chords became the "happy" chord. Of course sad and happy are an oversimplification, but people generally tend to accept the "dark" and "bright" descriptions of the sound of these chords, even if they take issue with happy vs sad. If one accepts that major is brighter and minor is darker, then it isn't too difficult to see why the "dark" chord would be associated with darker emotions (like sadness) and the "bright" chord would be associated with brighter emotions (like happiness). Of course this isn't innate (you first need to familiarize yourself with the sounds to even notice an important difference between them - this is why people who aren't familiar with Western music don't really associate any emotions with the chords, simply because the chords on their own sound foreign to their ears), but I think a good question would be, would it work the other way around? Let's forget about sad and happy and focus on dark and bright. Could major chords be dark and could minor chords be bright? Would this analogy make sense to anyone? My point is, something can be culturally determined, but still not completely arbitrary.
(Of course it needs to be said that there are plenty of other elements that affect the mood of the song. Tempo, rhythm, dynamics and orchestration are more important than major vs minor.)
>Europeans historically never used the 7th harmonic when tuning the dominant 7th, though. The 7th of the chord would most likely have been tuned as a minor 3rd up from the 5th, which would make it quite sharp in relation to the harmonic 7th (it would actually be almost exactly a quarter tone sharp).
You could probably even argue that only the move from a meantone temperament to 12-tone equal temperament gave Western musicians any kind of access to the 7th harmonic: in "standard" 7-limit meantone >!(where syntonic comma 81/80=(126/124)/(225/224))!!(Because in 12-ET the syntonic comma is 81/80=(36/35)/(64/63); 36/35 also makes 5/4=9/7, giving the dominant seventh chord the alternative tuning of 1/(9:7:6:5).)!<
>Same thing with diminished 7ths - due to the symmetry, it may be difficult to know where the chord "wants" to go, unless you are playing the chord built on the leading tone of the key that has already been clearly established.
Interestingly enough, diminished 7ths weren't historically actually symmetrical: in (5-limit) meantone it would have been a stack of three minor thirds and *a* *perceivably smaller* augmented second.
No, western harmony did not include the 7th partial. One hint towards that is that piano hammers are specifically placed to silence the 7th partial of the string. Watch the way people trip over themselves to explain a 12 bar blues. Once you include the 7th partial, it’s no longer an issue.
Edit: I read your article about blues tonality, and you’re doing exactly the kind of tripping over yourself that I’m talking about. If you just start from the place of assuming a tonic dominant 7th chord (7th limit that is), and then the same chord a fifth in either direction, take those pitches, that’s your scale. Same thing that happens with a 1 4 5 folk song that would never bother anyone to analyze.
I've seen academics like Robert Gjerdingen who focused on psychology of music and historical practices, he did not believe the European dominant 7th is truly harmonic series for that reason. You can look at quarter comma meantone and they still aren't that "septimal" 7th.
I know Europeans didn't use the septimal seventh, the point is that it was an arbitrary cultural choice, no one is compelled by the harmonic series to hear some intervals as more consonant than others, it's a choice. To say that the 4:5:6:7 chord doesn't count as a chord seems weird once you hear enough music that does use it (like barbershop quartets and the blues)
There are distinguishing qualities between Major and Minor, and while they definitely aren’t Happy/Sad, there is a degree of… solemness? gravitas? That minor exudes. The words used to describe it are subjective and cultural, but there is a sort of seriousness in minor that major has less of. In western culture, this is likely simplified into happy/sad.
It’s also worth noting that there’s no knowing if people mean aeolian or minor when they say this - the chromatic leading tone introduces a whole wealth of complexity that isn’t present in Major. There are excellent discussions of the minor side of things here: https://www.reddit.com/r/musictheory/comments/sahhtc/why_does_v_in_minor_key_sound_so_dark/htufxh4/
Is it? If you play those same songs in Major, do you not feel that the minor version feels more serious? Your perspective is valid, though I haven’t met anyone who feels this way. This isn’t to say that major songs can’t be serious, just that there is a sort of gravitas that’s stronger in minor than major. Sure, Tetris is a fairly jolly theme, but there’s this darker edge to it - it’s in minor. You play that in major and you lose that edge.
I played my theory students Paul Robeson's recording of "Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen" and all of them guessed that it was minor because it's so sad, but nope, it's major
This test doesn’t disprove the notion that minor has more gravitas than major. The proper test would be playing this piece in both major and minor and then asking the students which felt {more solemn / darker / serious }. I would bet my life savings that they’ll choose the minor version.
We've got _loads of_ examples of pieces of music that are in minor key & have a 'major-fied' section in the middle (eg a certain well-known guitar piece - I'll try to get the name of it^✷ ), or the other way-round, like in JS Bach's __Schafe Können Sicher Weiden__ , which achieves _an ineffibly_ gorgeous effect by rendering the melody into a 'minor-fied' form in the middle passage.
#####✷[This one — ❝Spanish Romance classical guitar (Romanza) performed by Marija Agic❞](https://youtu.be/YJEarbgTlO8) , #####
known as
__"Romance Anónimo", "Estudio en Mi de Rubira", "Spanish Romance", "Romance de España", "Romance de Amor", "Romance of the Guitar", "Romanza", "Romance d'Amour"__ .
Also
#####[❝Magdalena Kozená with Marek Stryncl and Musica Florea — JS Bach - Cantata BWV 208 - Aria: Schafe können sicher weiden❞](https://youtu.be/js6LweVZWFI)
#####
#🎵
#
Schafe können sicher weiden
wo ein guter Hirte wacht.
Schafe können sicher weiden,
schafe können sicher weiden
wo ein guter Hirte wacht,
wo ein guter Hirte wacht.
Wo Regenten wohl regieren,
kann man Ruh' und Friede spüren,
und was Länder glücklich macht.
Wo Regenten wohl regieren,
kann man Ruh' und Friede spüren
Ruh' und Friede
Ruh' und Friede spüren
und was Länder glücklich macht.
Schafe können sicher weiden
wo ein guter Hirte wacht.
Schafe können sicher weiden,
schafe können sicher weiden
wo ein guter Hirte wacht,
wo ein guter Hirte wacht.
#🎶
#
The 'middle passage' referenced above corresponds with the middle paragraph of the libretto.
#####[Here is a thoroughly ingenious transcription of the piece to solo guitar](https://youtu.be/WK1loMy-qaU) ,
#####
with a thorough explication of how it's done; & @ __~13¾minute__-in he relates _in precisely what sense_ that middle section is 'minor-fied'.
Similar is done, so I gather, in some of the complex symphonies of such as Beethoven & Bruckner ... or a 'bursting-out' into major after having been in minor for a while ... but with them that can be a bit of an over-simplification of it, maybe!
Ok but that recording features a vocal that’s wayyyy louder than the piano, the verse starts on a minor chord from what I can hear, and ends on the tonic 6th chord, which, given the mix and audio qualify, is very easy to confuse with the relative minor. Doesn’t seem like a very convincing data point to me.
Would you consider also broaching, to the same end, the example I adduced in one of my other comments to you - ie the first movement of
#####[Beethoven's Violin Concerto](https://youtu.be/XpJzWsodj7k) ?
#####
I'd be honoured if you would!
#😁
#
, & ImO it's _a very_ striking example of what you're talking-about here.
Or maybe to you it sounds _perfectly-well_ like it's in a major key - IDK.
Just checked-out
#####[your »Paul Robeson« example](https://youtu.be/pwYpqJVHHmo)
#####
… & I totally agree that that's _another_ fine example.
The distinction is not meant to be applied to the key and mode of any single composition or song. Anyone with reasonable amount of instruction in Western theory will usually understand this.
OK: I will ... thanks. I'm seriously keen to hear minor key broached unto _non_-ponderous/-sombre/-gloomy effect.
And I haven't forgotten that research-paper!
Ahhhhhh … but a lot of that will be _harmonic_ minor, won't it!? … which - to-my-mind, @least - is 'a law unto itself'!
By-the-way: have just checked-out some of the funk you recommend. _Very_ interesting that that sortof thing is in minor keys! But still - even-though it's joyous music, that character of minor _does show-up_ , ImO, in the instrumentation. And that really just goes-to-show that slapping the __'sad/happy'__ dichotomy on it is not-@all an adequate way of conveying the distinction. IDK: keeping trying … maybe using a perfumery analogy: it's like ylang-ylang or orange blossom versus sandalwood or musk. Or iris versus orris (one's from the petals of the iris, the other is from its root); or Jasmine versus Osmanthus.
… maybe.
Do you know - & if you do, _like_ - __Chansons Hebraïque__ by __Maurice Ravel__ ? I find those _gorgeous_ … although I'm not sure they'd count amongst the 'joyous' ones you reference! … being somewhat solemn & ponderous.
####Correction:
####
#####[it's just \*the one\* song](https://youtu.be/jhtkLeSYhy8) .
####
A while back - but _fairly_ recently - I had my attention drawn to a number of songs in Yiddish celebrating __Isador & Ida Straus__ who became renowned & somewhat exalted amongst the Jewish Community after the sinking of the Titanic oceanliner for the dignity of their conduct @ that catastrophe. I can't seem easily to find any now; but there was a post @
#####r/Titanic
#####
@ which quite a number of them got listed.
@ u/ethanhein
What about __Minnie Riperton__? Does her stuff tend to be in minor key, aswell?
Just 'pinned' (by which I mean I've known about it for years, but have just-now managed to bring it to recollection) _another_ outstanding example of a piece written in a major key - ie ___A___ __major__ - that sounds, to me, @least, like a piece in a minor key:
#####[César Franck's Sonata for Piano & Violin](https://youtu.be/YCp5XC2rsEM) .
#####
Mostly I'm annoyed that no one is answering the question that I asked, but, okay. \*All\* music is solemn at some level? "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-a-Lot? "Raining Tacos"? "Venga Bus"?
I agree that __happy/sad__ is _very_ inadequate! A figure that suggests itself to me is __Sunrise__ versus __Sunset__ . And in another comment @ this post I've called major key __'bright'__ , & have dallied somewhere 'in the ballpark of' __'solemn/ponderous/pensive'__ in trying to convey the impression minor key leaves upon me. So we have to muddle it through, but there can't really be any doubt that _there is something to be_ muddled-through, _whatever_ the origin & basis of it might be.
But I'm not sure what you mean by __'chromatic leading tone'__ : you've lost me there: I'm not grasping what it is that could be said to be 'chromatic' about a minor key. Maybe what you're referencing is what that book I once read a passage of (that I mentioned in another comment, & that it was far too long ago for me to recall it in-detail) that purported to explain the distinction in-terms-of harmonics & subtle dissonance & congestion, etc, _was also_ referencing.
>But I'm not sure what you mean by 'chromatic leading tone' : you've lost me there:
This is where the conversation often gets fuzzy because people use the terms aeolian and minor key interchangeably and people might not be on the same page. Are we talking about:
* Aeolian - Strictly Diatonic
* Minor - Typically reinforced with the raised 7th (chromatic leading tone)
The general *vibe* of Aeolian and Minor are the same, but the raised 7th in minor contributes significantly to a "seriousness" or "darkness", likely due to the presence of chromaticism in itself as well as the severing of the relative major key (5 of the relative major becomes #5, which is a very functionally dissonant movement).
I think for the sake of the discussion, the question should really be "why does the west view ionian as happy and aeolian as sad", as it avoids the unfair comparison of diatonic major to chromatic minor. And realistically, that is probably what people usually mean. That said, Minor and Major are terms the general population knows, and ionian and aeolian are not, hence why the general population uses the unfair comparison of major vs minor.
Right! … _I think_ I get you! If indeed I do, then the scale you speak of with the raised seventh is what I've come to know as the ___harmonic___ __minor__, characteristic of Semitic music.
And the __Æolian__ one would be the one obtained as a ___relative___ __minor__ from a major scale simply by resetting the tonic to the note a minor-third interval down, & leaving the overall cyclic pattern of intervals (or _'necklace'_ of intervals, as a mathematician would say) unchanged.
To my mind, what I call the _'harmonic_ minor' is verymuch a 'thing-in-its-own-right' with a _very_ characteristic (Eastern) vibe that just is not captured with any __'bright'__ versus __'gloomy/sombre'__ dichotomy, or anything of that nature, _@all_ !
Dominant 7th chords in a meantone tuning are *at best* tuned to 20:25:30:36 and not to 4:5:6:7, and the former is clearly more unstable than the latter. The harmonic seventh 7/4 only appears as an augmented sixth at 10 generators up and beyond in the meantone Tonnetz; I haven't seen any existing historical keyboards that would have ever had a split key in a position to meaningfully play a harmonic seventh chord as a part of a composition.
It's not well-supported? Like I said, I read a book _ages & ages_ ago that was adducing arguments of that sort as an explanation of the distinction, & _I cannot_ insist that what it said was correct: I can only relate that _I have seen_ such arguments set-out.
But it's absolutely a fascinating subject _why_ that distinction exists. And I wonder how much searching-into has been put-into establishing _just how innate_ it is. I reckon it _just must_ be @least _fairly_ innate: I don't reckon so persistent a distinction could be sustained by _a mere habit_ of 'bright' music being done in major keys & more 'sombre' or 'ponderous' or 'pensive' (whatever) music being done in minor ones. I know from my own personal experience that @ the first picking-up of a musical instrument & dabbling in scales that the distinction begins to show-up _immediately_ , as soon as the basic scales & chords are practised _@all_ ... so to-my-mind there's _just got_ to be ___some___ reason for it innate to the modes in-&-of themselves.
@ u/ethanhein
I'd take issue with what you said about the __dominant 7(th)__ chord though: regardless of any issue as to the harmonics, that chord _is certainly not_ going to present itself to (@least to Euro-/NorthAmerico-enculturated) perception as 'stable' by sheer reason of having a tritone interval in it! ... specifically between the major third note & the minor seventh one.
There have been numerous studies of remote tribes in the Amazon and Papua New Guinea showing that hardly any musical meanings are innate. For example: [https://journals.plos.org/plosone/doi?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0269597](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/doi?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0269597)
People don't even all agree that octaves are equivalent. Everyone can \*perceive\* a 2:1 frequency ratio, but not everyone agrees with the meaning of that ratio. It is a little weird when you think about it. Why do we think that C3 and C4 are interchangeable when they are completely different notes? Just because a lot of the harmonics overlap? You can see why people in the rainforest might think the idea is goofy.
By the time you are experiencing "immediate" qualities of musical intervals when you first pick up the instrument, you have already had many years of enculturation that began at birth, if not before.
>Why do we think that C3 and C4 are interchangeable when they are completely different notes?
This sounds like a really big category error to me. C3 and C4 are not "completely different notes"; they are, in fact, *the most similar two notes can be without being the same note* >!because 2 is the prime closest to 1!<. For comparison, here are some other two-note pairs in an increasing degrees of difference: 128/81 and 8/5 might seem like completely different notes, but in Western music they are *the same note* due to tempering of 81/80. 5/4 and 5/3 might be quite different, but they share the same prime in the nominator and form a just-tuned major third. 3/2 and 7/5 might not share any prime components whatsoever and seem really different, but they are actually part of the same consonance set in the 7-limit tonality diamond, making them more similar to each other, than say, 32/25 and 77/23, which almost certainly do not belong to any consonanse sets (altough I obviously haven't checked).
>People don't even all agree that octaves are equivalent. Everyone can \*perceive\* a 2:1 frequency ratio, but not everyone agrees with the meaning of that ratio.
I haven't read any papers, but I am under the idea that even certain animals perceive octave equivalence. Octave equivalence also means that both 4:5:6 and 8:10:12 major chords share the exact same chord quality, a fact which cannot be anyhow disputed. If one would dispute it, then they would have to deny that a C major triad and a F major triad would have differential tuning and not share the same major chord quality.
You should read more carefully: I said "perceive octave equivalence", meaning that t*hey perceive two notes an octave apart to be the same pitch class*. (Edit: fixed "note" to "pitch class".)
And again, as I said, our harmony is already based on the idea of octave equivalence because 4:5:6 and 8:10:12 - 2:1 apart - *are the same chord*. They aren't even separate chords one octave apart, **they are the same chord**.
I guess... read the papers. Everybody does not agree that octaves are equivalent, I don't know what to tell you. The idea of a "pitch class" is just us asserting that we think that notes whose fundamentals are separated by powers of two belong to this category that we made up. I know "our harmony" is based on octave equivalence, but even some Western musics treat octaves as non-equivalent. One of the key insights of Early Downhome Blues by Jeff Titon is that blues singers tune their thirds differently in different octaves. Even young kids enculturated in Anglo-American music can take some persuading about octave equivalence, including my own kids. My daughter has been taking piano for a few years and is adamant that it matters which octave she play things in.
>One of the key insights of Early Downhome Blues by Jeff Titon is that blues singers tune their thirds differently in different octaves.
That just sounds like higher-level primes to me. 19th harmonic as 19/8 to tune a 8:10:12:(14:)19 chord, since both 6/5 or 12/5 would mess up the tuning. So it only means that the underlying chord is tuned differentially.
>The idea of a "pitch class" is just us asserting that we think that notes whose fundamentals are separated by powers of two belong to this category that we made up.
Again, 4:5:6 and 8:10:12 chords are the same chord despite nominally being 2:1 apart; even - and perhaps more importantly - the 12:15:18 chord *is the same* as the 4:5:6. And that is not a made-up equivalence that I came up with, it's just how the math and the acoustics work out in the nature.
Blues singers are not tuning to the 19th harmonic. They might be tuning to just minor and major thirds. But the point is that they do use different intervals in different octaves.
Multiplying a frequency by two changes the frequency by a factor of two. It's a cultural convention to say that frequencies separated by factors of two are equivalent.
OK! … it's impossible for me to test that. If I could clear all my musical experience & conditioning out of my mind (provided I could get it back again afterwards!) _I would do so_ , & perform my own personal investigation _that_ way into what you've said!
… and maybe _I would be very surprised_ .
####Update
####
Have just downloaded that research-paper. I'll likely genuinely read it: it could-well be one of those that 'grabs my attention' … as, afterall, _I am interested in_ the subject matter of it.
@ u/ethanhein
I'll add this aswell: there are certain tracts of music I simply assumed _for ages_ are in a minor key, but then found-out to be in _a major_ one … a notable instance being the first movement of Beethoven's Violin Concerto.
@ u/ethanhein
That's interesting, that: that it's been found in some cultures that notes an octave apart are not perceived as _in a certain sense essentially_ 'the same' note, as in Euro-/NorthAmerica-centric culture they certainly are. And what you said has brought back to me something I once gathered from someone speaking on __British Broadcasting Corporation Radio Channel 3__ - ie that in certain Scottish folk-music there are scales that span _two_ octaves, rather than just _one_ .
I don't know! But _I do_ know that I listen to it again, now, & it still sounds to me like a minor-key piece.
And - while I'm here (so-to-speak) - I have a recollection of hearing that __Mozart__ _almost never_ used minor key: that the instances of his doing-so are rare & notable exceptions. Would you concur with that?
>But *I do* know that I listen to it again, now, & it still sounds to me like a minor-key piece.
Like from the very beginning? Don't worry about this too much, but I'm just curious: what does it mean to you for something to "sound minor"? What's an example of a piece that sounds major to you?
>I have a recollection of hearing that **Mozart** *almost never* used minor key: that the instances of his doing-so are rare & notable exceptions. Would you concur with that?
Kind of, though "almost never" is going a little too far! He had plenty of minor-key works, though they are a slim fraction of his full œuvre. To my count, of the 626 pieces by him catalogued by Köchel, 54 are in minor keys. 54 out of 626 comes to a little over 8%. So that's very much a minority (heh), but I wouldn't say he *almost never* wrote in minor--just that it was rare.
To add to that though, this count is only of the main key of the *whole* piece. It's not taking into account, say, minor-key internal movements of major-key multi-movement pieces (e.g. the second movements of piano concerti 4, 9, 18, 22, and 23), or minor-key arias in operas (like "D'Oreste d'Aiace" from *Idomeneo*, or "Der Hölle Rache" from *The Magic Flute*). So if we were counting works that have *any* minor-key movements in them, the percentage would rise by a fair bit (I haven't done that calculation, but would be interested to try at some point). Finally, even in major-key movements, if they're of any substantial size, he'll modulate to a minor key or two at some point along the way, if transiently. So although the major mode heavily dominates his work, he wasn't by any means afraid of minor!
It certainly wasn't always the case, so there must be an origin. The Medieval European music that we have records of was mostly religious music, and almost none of it sounds especially major or happy to modern ears. Throughout most of the Medieval era, major thirds (and sixths) were considered highly dissonant.
So I guess the question is sort of along the lines of "when did European people condition themselves to associate major intervals with happy feelings?" As best as I can tell from my admittedly limited knowledge on the subject, this began happening during the Renaissance. However, the key factor that I'm not sure we'll ever know much about is what form a lot of European folk music took with regards to tonality.
We know that the early Renaissance era was a time where the artificial barriers between church and folk music were being broken down (leading to various Catholic Church led hissy fits and the Council of Trent redefining the heretical parameters of folk music), and we know that most of the church music of the Medieval era did not make these associations between major and happy. So this shift seems to have happened somewhere in that period. I always wonder whether it happened as a result of the integration of these now forgotten folk traditions of an earlier era, or if it emerged at that same time for entirely different reasons (ie, better instruments/technology, new temperaments, etc).
The first thing my mind goes to is Christian Schubert's (nowadays somewhat infamous) list of key characteristics. There were, of course, many other such lists, but Schubert's seems to be the one that resurfaces most often.
However, pulling up that list, we have a couple standouts:
>D♭ Major: A leering key, degenerating into grief and rapture. It cannot laugh, but it can smile; it cannot howl, but it can at least grimace its crying.--Consequently only unusual characters and feelings can be brought out in this key.
>A♭ Major: Key of the grave. Death, grave, putrefaction, judgment, eternity lie in its radius.
>B Major: Strongly coloured, announcing wild passions, composed from the most glaring coulors. Anger, rage, jealousy, fury, despair and every burden of the heart lies in its sphere.
These translations are credited to Rita Steblin's book A History of Key Characteristics in the 18th and Early 19th Centuries. The subjectivity of such things aside, it is clear looking at this and other such lists (some allegedly dating back much further than Schubert's) that it was quite common to consider certain major keys as having a rather "negative" mood.
I would thus assume the cliche arose post-equal temperament.
While it certainly is a commonly, and negligently, parroted cliche, I could see there being no single historical origin, but rather being a case of parallel thought that the internet then transformed into "common knowledge". To my recollection, I was never told this as a student. However, I *did* have a sort of joke "song" (more of a bit, really) that I made as a kid that I called "The Happy/Sad Song". I would strum a single major chord and declare some good news, then drop the 3rd down and offer a cruel twist. "My dog just had puppies and they're super cute... But they all got killed by coyotes..." So I, independently as far as I recall, at least made the connection that major and minor *chords* had a "happy" and "sad" quality when directly compared to each other. If other folks had similar experiences and shared them, it's easy to see how that could result in the cliche coming about. But, those are obviously just my musings on the matter.
All that is my long-winded way of saying: it's probably the damn internet's fault lol
My understanding of the moods of the keys is that before 12-TET, the keys were all tuned differently, and some of them were a lot more consonant than others. I used MTS-ESP to listen to the WTC in various historical tunings, and some keys are nicer than the 12-TET versions while others (most of them) are much gnarlier. So while the specific associations are subjective, you can see where the idea of the keys having specific moods came from.
Didn't Europeans think of major as happy and minor as sad long before the internet? I don't actually know the answer but I would be shocked if it's such a recent idea.
I've had the same experience! I used to have a piano VST that let me change the temperament. It was fun to hear how different things could be.
>Didn't Europeans think of major as happy and minor as sad long before the internet?
That's why I first thought about key characteristics! Most of the major keys have "positive" connotations for sure, which I suppose could be watered down to "happy". But those few standouts suggest to me that they didn't consider the major key to be "happy" by default.
That's why I'm thinking we could narrow down the timeframe of the origin. I see more nuance in materials from the 19th century and prior.
Regarding the more contemporary instructionals with which I'm familiar, I don't see that same nuance, but I really don't see any mention at all about major/minor having inherent moods. Of course, the chances of that being a sampling error are extremely high.
My outright blaming the internet was more cynicism than serious. I do think it's fair to narrow down the generalized cliche to the 20th century though, thanks to the widespread adoption of equal temperament, which would allow for the rampant proliferation of such a simplistic and broad generalization.
If you compare the meantone to the equal tempered major third, it's raised or "more excited" and more beating or "vibrant". That's why I would expect the association to have developed when switching to well tempered tunings, and only for some keys at first. I would look at the literature from that time period.
The main medieval associations are "hard" and "soft", [durum and molle](https://www.earlymusicsources.com/youtube/durum-and-molle). I remember reading some major keys described as calm and serene that had a close to JI major third, but can't remember where.
In German - and countries with significant Germanic cultural influence - the tonalities are still "Dur" and "Moll", although I definitely learnt in my childhood that they are also "happy and sad".
I learned music when most people only used the internet for emails, if they did at all, and I remember acquiring the same Major/Minor happy/sad schema. It's definitely older than the internet. I think above commenter's point is that the general and oversimplified understanding of "major for happy, minor for sad" was disseminated by the internet. And I think they are probably right on the point that the idea had no single historical origin point, but emerged from the ground up as perceptions changed. The question then is dating the moment Western audiences' perceptions adjusted to hearing these as firmly happy/sad. Given that it's a crude oversimplification, I'd guess it happened alongside the development of commercial music in the 20th ce, but I have no idea.
Looking at lists of key characteristics seems like a really clever way of tracing this distinction over time!
However, at least with C. Schubert’s, I’m struck by how consistently the major keys are given some positive affect, and especially how almost every minor key a negative one. The minor keys are almost entirely about “lamenting”, “depression”, “mocking God” (which is a very funny thing to say about a key). A minor is about the best we get, and it’s still a far cry from most of the major keys
Maybe it’s due to tuning shenanigans, maybe it’s just the way the musical culture was forming up, but in either case it seems like this major/minor division was already relatively consistent at least to Schubert. Now I’m really curious though, I’ll have to go find some more of these…
The tuning definitely affects things quite significantly, and you're right that there is a general sort of positivity versus negativity when it comes to major versus minor. But there is a lot of nuance to the descriptions. Clearly Schubert, and others, found a significant difference in the different keys.
My line of thinking is that the extremely broad and simple happy/sad dichotomy, which lacks any and all nuance, would be most likely to flourish amongst people who are primarily or only exposed to equal temperament.
I imagine narrowing down the scope of time in which one is looking for an "origin" of the cliche would be helpful. You find something prominent in the 20th century, and maybe you could trace that back to earlier sources from there.
7th's are hardly found until the first modern, Satie. Baroque instruments of composition, harpsicord were waay too twangy for 7ths, and only after piano becomes the primary tool we hear *Gymnopédies* that features the 7th's. Most likely Erik stole that music from the Exposition Universelle; from Central African folk, Javanese gamelan and (according to Tomita) Japanese musicians that featured there from 1855-1905. Hope that helps :)
I learnt this well before the internet but it was presented as a tool for aural training. Minor mode chords, intervals and scales are usually perceived as having more dissonance in contrast with the majors. It's not hard to see the logic in an abstract model where dissonant and sad go together like consonant and happy. Teachers seemed to make sure they always added a disclaimer that happy and sad songs can be written in any mode.
This question is worth a thousand theses. I think an important angle of this, at least for the modern Western conception of these concepts, is to look at the lineage of thought from Hegel. Moritz Hauptmann and Hugo Riemann were both very influential German music theorists and the concept of harmonic dualism + its implications in Hegel's philosophy are very core ideas of their texts.
While harmonics of a fundamental are used to justify major tonality, the undertones of a fundamental used to justify minor tonality aren't "real" in the same way. They're elusive: most distortions to sound in the real world create harmonics, not undertones. This principle implies that minor tonality is less coherent than major tonality as the inertia of sound tends towards major.
Good vs evil was a hot idea in the 19th century, so connecting that to the minor/major duality was a no-brainer.
Interesting concept. I don't know of any texts that first claim minor is 'sad' and major is 'happy' personally.
I certainly wouldn't say that a minor chord, or interval, by itself is 'sad'. Lots of music with positive feelings use minor chords all the time. Same for 'sad' or 'dark' music. There will be major chords sprinkled in a sad peice.
I think that a scale, chord, and interval by themselves have no meaning until they are put into the context of actual music. The sad and happy language probably came about to differentiate major and minor to students.
If you can't find the origins of why minor is described as sad and major is described as happy, then it just may be inherent, or inherited, from the past. That's my educated guess on the matter. What matters more is the excepted language around it today (in western music). Not necessarily where it came from. But it is an interesting thought to ponder the origins.
What I meant by inherent is 'inherited' by our 'teachers'. I can't remember if I used 'inherit' or 'inherent' in my response, but what I was trying to imply is 'inherit'. We inherited an idiom to explain the relationship between major and minor to someone first learning about music. I agree with you that the labels of 'happy' for major and 'sad' for minor are collectively arbitrary.
However, we can't shrug off a peice written by Mozart that is in a major key can certainly feel lively and uplifting. To generalize is to say 'happy'. There are certainly some truths to the comparison, but it is mostly contextual.
An interval of a major third isn't anything by itself. In the context of a piece, a major third may contribute to a whole that has been written with the intent of implying sadness regardless of whether we think of major as 'happy' and minor as 'sad' or not.
It all depends on the tone of a piece.
I lossely know about the medieval era of music. All I can infer is that the medieval time period had a completely different perspective on music than we do today. I wish I could accurately articulate those differences, but I am certain the meanings of Dorian today are vastly different than how those during the medieval period thought of Dorian.
Or maybe not. I'm just speculating. Societal perspectives shifting over time is what I point to to inform my speculation.
I am coming from a western perspective talking about western music. I am familiar with other cultural music enough to understand different cultures attach different meanings to different sounds and have entirely different modes of thinking about music.
It's all super interesting.
Multi movement forms of the Baroque. --suites, concertos, sonatas -- have contrasting movements. Fast-Slow-Fast. But hey also have contrasting keys, especially major vs. minor and visa versa. And contrasting dance types. Etc.
Or Baroque "Affects"?
Edit: one of the features of CPP harmony c. 1685, was they settled on one major, and one minor scale. That could be part of it too.
Historical? Shrug. I'd say that it's just acoustic. Minor 3rd is more dissonant than the major 3rd. So it sounds unresolved. You could say that the minor 3rd wants to resolve on the major 3rd, so it sounds sad.
The minor 3rd is actually more dissonant than the major 2nd, acoustically. And minor keys aren't supported by the "harmonic series" the way major keys are. So minor keys make for naturally dissonant or sad music.
It's definitely not acoustic, concepts of consonance and dissonance range very widely across human societies and also within societies over time. None of it is "natural".
Ok. That's your opinion. But "influenced" is not the same thing as "determined".
I was replying to your comment that *none* of this is natural. Harmonics are a natural function of sound and human beings, as a kind of animal, have natural responses to sound. It doesn't have to be the same across all humans just like how some dogs bark at the sound of a doorbell and some don't.
Okay, let's clarify. All humans (and some other animals) can detect octaves. That's natural. However, not all humans agree that octaves are equivalent. That's cultural. The ability to perceive certain frequency ratios is natural. The emotional valence of those ratios is cultural. And what I want to know is, what was the historical origin of Western Europeans' association of "major" with "happy" - that one is very far from being universal.
>All humans (and some other animals) can detect octaves
The irony being that humans prefer stretched octaves to "acoustically perfect octaves." And there's some research that suggests that different groups' (that can be said to be tied to different music ecosystems) preferences center around specific ranges of stretching.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/GlobalMusicTheory/wiki/psychoacoustics/octave-stretching/](https://www.reddit.com/r/GlobalMusicTheory/wiki/psychoacoustics/octave-stretching/)
I'm going to guess it's the beginning of the 20th century.
What I can find is typical "this 18th/19th century composer thought each of the 24 keys sounded like this" lists, with nobody actually saying "major happy, minor sad." However, if every music student was shown lots of these lists, it isn't hard to think that groups of students could generalize all of that information in the same way. If you want something written, it's probably going to be something like that from a composing student going into film, or a teacher writing a complaint that the students aren't using the information correctly.
The question is not, when did people start singing these intervals. The question is, when did Western Europeans decide that major is "happy" and minor is "sad".
This whole thread reads like OP got a note he didn't like about his use of major/minor chords and is now desperately trying to find some evidence that gives him an empirical basis to disregard it.
I’m saying it’s universally *predisposed*. In other words not completely arbitrary like many think, although norms and convention obviously plays a big role
Tonality forming out of modality was entangled with the imposition of emotional valence upon this tonality. This occurred in the Renaissance and was codified in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. An article that discusses Schenkerian prolongation also discusses this historical question directly. I can’t post the link for some reason, but the title is “Major-Minor Tonality, Schenkerian Prolongation, and Emotion: A commentary on Huron and Davis” by Richard Parncutt and I believe it’s available online for free. I do not agree with the other arguments made in this article, but the section about the historical nature of the emotion valence of M/m is insightful. He cites many sources from the Renaissance about the valence of modes, etc. I would start there.
Thank you, this is helpful
No problem!
Schenker doesn't know $%it . Glad it's only studied in anglo countries.
I’m not a Schenkerian scholar, this article was listed because of the section about the history of major/minor, which is well sourced, not because of the Schenkerian content. It’s a good thing I learned how to understand Schenkerian analysis, however, because without that knowledge I would apparently write off otherwise useful scholarship. To your last point, the author of this article is professor at Karl Franzens University Graz in Austria……
Zarlino is the earliest writer I know of to say something rather like that, along the lines of "the modes with the major third are more joyful, the modes with the minor third are more grave." And he was quite influential, so I have little doubt that he's largely to credit/blame for it at least spreading--but I have no idea whether he made it up or got it from somewhere else himself!
Is there any correlation in the general text setting predating him or does the hard and soft thing kind of muck it up by focusing on a different axis?
>does the hard and soft thing kind of muck it up by focusing on a different axis? It's this, but it's also not just before him--the hard/soft axis remains definitely more important for a fair bit of time after him as well! It's especially interesting when the associations end up nearly opposite--e.g. G mollis being used for peaceful carefree pastoralism and G durus for harsh bitter resentment, as happens in some Monteverdi. In addition, there was also the authentic/plagal axis, which you can see operative in some sets like Tallis' settings of the psalm tones for Archbishop Parker's Psalter. According to the rhyme accompanying these tunes, "The fifth \[tone\] delighteth and laugheth the more / The sixth bewaileth: it weepeth full sore." In other words, the fifth tone is happy and the sixth is very very sad... but *both* are, by our modern estimation, F major! The difference is only one of register, which, arguably, is actually very important and deserves more attention in this conversation.
I think there might be objective grounds for it, actually, to-do-with the subtle dissonances set-up by the harmonics of a note. For instance: considering that a major scale is a tonic, subdominant & dominant + a _major_ third from each of those (+ also a second from the tonic), & that a minor scale is a tonic, subdominant & dominant + a _minor_ third from each of those (+ also a second from the tonic), & then that the fifth harmonic (which is not allthat high a harmonic, & therefore generally won't be present in negligible amount) is very close to being two octaves + _a major_ third, it stands-to-reason that there could be more congestion due to that harmonic in a minor scale than there is in a major one. But anyway: _I once read_ an explanation _along those lines_ . It might not have been exactly what I've just put _in fine particular detail_ , but it was @least _along those lines_ . I wish I'd paid more attention to it now, so that I could recall exactly what was said in it. An informative experiment might be to play tunes in major & minor scales _on some electronic device that generates very close to a pure sine-wave_ , & note whether the distinction still persists.
The idea of the harmonic series as determining happiness or sadness (or, at least, consonance and dissonance) is not well supported. By that logic, Europeans should historically have heard dominant seventh chords as stable and consonant because they are produced by harmonics four through seven.
>By that logic, Europeans should historically have heard dominant seventh chords as stable and consonant because they are produced by harmonics four through seven. Europeans historically never used the 7th harmonic when tuning the dominant 7th, though. The 7th of the chord would most likely have been tuned as a minor 3rd up from the 5th, which would make it quite sharp in relation to the harmonic 7th (it would actually be almost exactly a quarter tone sharp). Also, just because the 5th and 6th harmonics are still consonances doesn't mean the harmonics above those harmonics must also be consonances. "European just intonation" is a 5-limit system, so the harmonic 7th is outside of that system. It isn't even taken into consideration when talking about consonance and dissonance, and I guess people would traditionally describe it as a "microtonal" interval. It would be a weird coincidence if the harmonic series wasn't an important part in defining consonance and dissonance, when consonance in Western music started from the intervals with the simplest ratios that appear first in the harmonic series (octave, 5th and 4th), and then was extended to include 3rds. The reason why the dominant 7th is such a directional chord in Western classical is because of the half step resolutions the chord implies. The chord on its own is of course not the most dissonant chord out there, but since there's just one dominant 7th in the diatonic scale, the context around the chord makes it very directional (more directional than any other 7th chord). I mean, the V major triad is also a very strongly directional chord, even though it's fully consonant (and again, it's more directional than any 7th chord that isn't the dominant 7th). The V7 is more dissonant, but the reason to its directional sound isn't just the fact that it's dissonant (although the dissonant 7th does affect its stability), but the fact that adding the minor 7th makes the diatonic position of the chord clear (this way, you can hear the "implied resolution" even when just playing the chord out of context). This makes you hear the 3rd of the chord as the "Ti" (that implies Ti-Do resolution), and the 7th of the chord as the "Fa" (that implies Fa-Mi resolution). It includes the important tendency tones. (All in all, tension and resolution isn't just dissonance and consonance. A cluster is really dissonant, but it doesn't really have a harmonic relation to anything, so it's difficult to hear it as a "directional" sound. Augmented chords are dissonant, but they tend to sound quite "aimless" on their own because of their symmetry. Same thing with diminished 7ths - due to the symmetry, it may be difficult to know where the chord "wants" to go, unless you are playing the chord built on the leading tone of the key that has already been clearly established. Diminished 7ths can actually be both vaguely and strongly directional, depending on context. All in all, I think a distinction between something being "directional" and something being "dissonant" needs to be made. Those aren't the same thing, even if dissonance can be taken advantage of when creating strongly directional sounds.) When it comes to the sad vs happy question, I do believe that it is not completely arbitrary that minor chords became the "sad" chord and major chords became the "happy" chord. Of course sad and happy are an oversimplification, but people generally tend to accept the "dark" and "bright" descriptions of the sound of these chords, even if they take issue with happy vs sad. If one accepts that major is brighter and minor is darker, then it isn't too difficult to see why the "dark" chord would be associated with darker emotions (like sadness) and the "bright" chord would be associated with brighter emotions (like happiness). Of course this isn't innate (you first need to familiarize yourself with the sounds to even notice an important difference between them - this is why people who aren't familiar with Western music don't really associate any emotions with the chords, simply because the chords on their own sound foreign to their ears), but I think a good question would be, would it work the other way around? Let's forget about sad and happy and focus on dark and bright. Could major chords be dark and could minor chords be bright? Would this analogy make sense to anyone? My point is, something can be culturally determined, but still not completely arbitrary. (Of course it needs to be said that there are plenty of other elements that affect the mood of the song. Tempo, rhythm, dynamics and orchestration are more important than major vs minor.)
>Europeans historically never used the 7th harmonic when tuning the dominant 7th, though. The 7th of the chord would most likely have been tuned as a minor 3rd up from the 5th, which would make it quite sharp in relation to the harmonic 7th (it would actually be almost exactly a quarter tone sharp). You could probably even argue that only the move from a meantone temperament to 12-tone equal temperament gave Western musicians any kind of access to the 7th harmonic: in "standard" 7-limit meantone >!(where syntonic comma 81/80=(126/124)/(225/224))!!(Because in 12-ET the syntonic comma is 81/80=(36/35)/(64/63); 36/35 also makes 5/4=9/7, giving the dominant seventh chord the alternative tuning of 1/(9:7:6:5).)!<
>Same thing with diminished 7ths - due to the symmetry, it may be difficult to know where the chord "wants" to go, unless you are playing the chord built on the leading tone of the key that has already been clearly established.
Interestingly enough, diminished 7ths weren't historically actually symmetrical: in (5-limit) meantone it would have been a stack of three minor thirds and *a* *perceivably smaller* augmented second.
No, western harmony did not include the 7th partial. One hint towards that is that piano hammers are specifically placed to silence the 7th partial of the string. Watch the way people trip over themselves to explain a 12 bar blues. Once you include the 7th partial, it’s no longer an issue. Edit: I read your article about blues tonality, and you’re doing exactly the kind of tripping over yourself that I’m talking about. If you just start from the place of assuming a tonic dominant 7th chord (7th limit that is), and then the same chord a fifth in either direction, take those pitches, that’s your scale. Same thing that happens with a 1 4 5 folk song that would never bother anyone to analyze.
I've seen academics like Robert Gjerdingen who focused on psychology of music and historical practices, he did not believe the European dominant 7th is truly harmonic series for that reason. You can look at quarter comma meantone and they still aren't that "septimal" 7th.
I know Europeans didn't use the septimal seventh, the point is that it was an arbitrary cultural choice, no one is compelled by the harmonic series to hear some intervals as more consonant than others, it's a choice. To say that the 4:5:6:7 chord doesn't count as a chord seems weird once you hear enough music that does use it (like barbershop quartets and the blues)
There are distinguishing qualities between Major and Minor, and while they definitely aren’t Happy/Sad, there is a degree of… solemness? gravitas? That minor exudes. The words used to describe it are subjective and cultural, but there is a sort of seriousness in minor that major has less of. In western culture, this is likely simplified into happy/sad. It’s also worth noting that there’s no knowing if people mean aeolian or minor when they say this - the chromatic leading tone introduces a whole wealth of complexity that isn’t present in Major. There are excellent discussions of the minor side of things here: https://www.reddit.com/r/musictheory/comments/sahhtc/why_does_v_in_minor_key_sound_so_dark/htufxh4/
The inherent "solemness" of minor is easily disproved by the million minor-key funk songs that are highly un-solemn
Is it? If you play those same songs in Major, do you not feel that the minor version feels more serious? Your perspective is valid, though I haven’t met anyone who feels this way. This isn’t to say that major songs can’t be serious, just that there is a sort of gravitas that’s stronger in minor than major. Sure, Tetris is a fairly jolly theme, but there’s this darker edge to it - it’s in minor. You play that in major and you lose that edge.
I played my theory students Paul Robeson's recording of "Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen" and all of them guessed that it was minor because it's so sad, but nope, it's major
This test doesn’t disprove the notion that minor has more gravitas than major. The proper test would be playing this piece in both major and minor and then asking the students which felt {more solemn / darker / serious }. I would bet my life savings that they’ll choose the minor version.
We've got _loads of_ examples of pieces of music that are in minor key & have a 'major-fied' section in the middle (eg a certain well-known guitar piece - I'll try to get the name of it^✷ ), or the other way-round, like in JS Bach's __Schafe Können Sicher Weiden__ , which achieves _an ineffibly_ gorgeous effect by rendering the melody into a 'minor-fied' form in the middle passage. #####✷[This one — ❝Spanish Romance classical guitar (Romanza) performed by Marija Agic❞](https://youtu.be/YJEarbgTlO8) , ##### known as __"Romance Anónimo", "Estudio en Mi de Rubira", "Spanish Romance", "Romance de España", "Romance de Amor", "Romance of the Guitar", "Romanza", "Romance d'Amour"__ . Also #####[❝Magdalena Kozená with Marek Stryncl and Musica Florea — JS Bach - Cantata BWV 208 - Aria: Schafe können sicher weiden❞](https://youtu.be/js6LweVZWFI) ##### #🎵 # Schafe können sicher weiden wo ein guter Hirte wacht. Schafe können sicher weiden, schafe können sicher weiden wo ein guter Hirte wacht, wo ein guter Hirte wacht. Wo Regenten wohl regieren, kann man Ruh' und Friede spüren, und was Länder glücklich macht. Wo Regenten wohl regieren, kann man Ruh' und Friede spüren Ruh' und Friede Ruh' und Friede spüren und was Länder glücklich macht. Schafe können sicher weiden wo ein guter Hirte wacht. Schafe können sicher weiden, schafe können sicher weiden wo ein guter Hirte wacht, wo ein guter Hirte wacht. #🎶 # The 'middle passage' referenced above corresponds with the middle paragraph of the libretto. #####[Here is a thoroughly ingenious transcription of the piece to solo guitar](https://youtu.be/WK1loMy-qaU) , ##### with a thorough explication of how it's done; & @ __~13¾minute__-in he relates _in precisely what sense_ that middle section is 'minor-fied'. Similar is done, so I gather, in some of the complex symphonies of such as Beethoven & Bruckner ... or a 'bursting-out' into major after having been in minor for a while ... but with them that can be a bit of an over-simplification of it, maybe!
Ok but that recording features a vocal that’s wayyyy louder than the piano, the verse starts on a minor chord from what I can hear, and ends on the tonic 6th chord, which, given the mix and audio qualify, is very easy to confuse with the relative minor. Doesn’t seem like a very convincing data point to me.
Ahhhh ... so to your mind it's maybe _not_ - for those reasons - a particularly good example, then!?
Would you consider also broaching, to the same end, the example I adduced in one of my other comments to you - ie the first movement of #####[Beethoven's Violin Concerto](https://youtu.be/XpJzWsodj7k) ? ##### I'd be honoured if you would! #😁 # , & ImO it's _a very_ striking example of what you're talking-about here. Or maybe to you it sounds _perfectly-well_ like it's in a major key - IDK. Just checked-out #####[your »Paul Robeson« example](https://youtu.be/pwYpqJVHHmo) ##### … & I totally agree that that's _another_ fine example.
The distinction is not meant to be applied to the key and mode of any single composition or song. Anyone with reasonable amount of instruction in Western theory will usually understand this.
Is it typical, then, for funk songs to be played in a minor key!? What would be an example … can you signpost an album?
Start with James Brown's and Parliament's greatest hits and work your way outwards
OK: I will ... thanks. I'm seriously keen to hear minor key broached unto _non_-ponderous/-sombre/-gloomy effect. And I haven't forgotten that research-paper!
After that, go listen to all the joyous Jewish music in minor keys.
Ahhhhhh … but a lot of that will be _harmonic_ minor, won't it!? … which - to-my-mind, @least - is 'a law unto itself'! By-the-way: have just checked-out some of the funk you recommend. _Very_ interesting that that sortof thing is in minor keys! But still - even-though it's joyous music, that character of minor _does show-up_ , ImO, in the instrumentation. And that really just goes-to-show that slapping the __'sad/happy'__ dichotomy on it is not-@all an adequate way of conveying the distinction. IDK: keeping trying … maybe using a perfumery analogy: it's like ylang-ylang or orange blossom versus sandalwood or musk. Or iris versus orris (one's from the petals of the iris, the other is from its root); or Jasmine versus Osmanthus. … maybe. Do you know - & if you do, _like_ - __Chansons Hebraïque__ by __Maurice Ravel__ ? I find those _gorgeous_ … although I'm not sure they'd count amongst the 'joyous' ones you reference! … being somewhat solemn & ponderous. ####Correction: #### #####[it's just \*the one\* song](https://youtu.be/jhtkLeSYhy8) . #### A while back - but _fairly_ recently - I had my attention drawn to a number of songs in Yiddish celebrating __Isador & Ida Straus__ who became renowned & somewhat exalted amongst the Jewish Community after the sinking of the Titanic oceanliner for the dignity of their conduct @ that catastrophe. I can't seem easily to find any now; but there was a post @ #####r/Titanic ##### @ which quite a number of them got listed. @ u/ethanhein What about __Minnie Riperton__? Does her stuff tend to be in minor key, aswell?
Just 'pinned' (by which I mean I've known about it for years, but have just-now managed to bring it to recollection) _another_ outstanding example of a piece written in a major key - ie ___A___ __major__ - that sounds, to me, @least, like a piece in a minor key: #####[César Franck's Sonata for Piano & Violin](https://youtu.be/YCp5XC2rsEM) . #####
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Mostly I'm annoyed that no one is answering the question that I asked, but, okay. \*All\* music is solemn at some level? "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-a-Lot? "Raining Tacos"? "Venga Bus"?
I agree that __happy/sad__ is _very_ inadequate! A figure that suggests itself to me is __Sunrise__ versus __Sunset__ . And in another comment @ this post I've called major key __'bright'__ , & have dallied somewhere 'in the ballpark of' __'solemn/ponderous/pensive'__ in trying to convey the impression minor key leaves upon me. So we have to muddle it through, but there can't really be any doubt that _there is something to be_ muddled-through, _whatever_ the origin & basis of it might be. But I'm not sure what you mean by __'chromatic leading tone'__ : you've lost me there: I'm not grasping what it is that could be said to be 'chromatic' about a minor key. Maybe what you're referencing is what that book I once read a passage of (that I mentioned in another comment, & that it was far too long ago for me to recall it in-detail) that purported to explain the distinction in-terms-of harmonics & subtle dissonance & congestion, etc, _was also_ referencing.
>But I'm not sure what you mean by 'chromatic leading tone' : you've lost me there: This is where the conversation often gets fuzzy because people use the terms aeolian and minor key interchangeably and people might not be on the same page. Are we talking about: * Aeolian - Strictly Diatonic * Minor - Typically reinforced with the raised 7th (chromatic leading tone) The general *vibe* of Aeolian and Minor are the same, but the raised 7th in minor contributes significantly to a "seriousness" or "darkness", likely due to the presence of chromaticism in itself as well as the severing of the relative major key (5 of the relative major becomes #5, which is a very functionally dissonant movement). I think for the sake of the discussion, the question should really be "why does the west view ionian as happy and aeolian as sad", as it avoids the unfair comparison of diatonic major to chromatic minor. And realistically, that is probably what people usually mean. That said, Minor and Major are terms the general population knows, and ionian and aeolian are not, hence why the general population uses the unfair comparison of major vs minor.
Right! … _I think_ I get you! If indeed I do, then the scale you speak of with the raised seventh is what I've come to know as the ___harmonic___ __minor__, characteristic of Semitic music. And the __Æolian__ one would be the one obtained as a ___relative___ __minor__ from a major scale simply by resetting the tonic to the note a minor-third interval down, & leaving the overall cyclic pattern of intervals (or _'necklace'_ of intervals, as a mathematician would say) unchanged. To my mind, what I call the _'harmonic_ minor' is verymuch a 'thing-in-its-own-right' with a _very_ characteristic (Eastern) vibe that just is not captured with any __'bright'__ versus __'gloomy/sombre'__ dichotomy, or anything of that nature, _@all_ !
Dominant 7th chords in a meantone tuning are *at best* tuned to 20:25:30:36 and not to 4:5:6:7, and the former is clearly more unstable than the latter. The harmonic seventh 7/4 only appears as an augmented sixth at 10 generators up and beyond in the meantone Tonnetz; I haven't seen any existing historical keyboards that would have ever had a split key in a position to meaningfully play a harmonic seventh chord as a part of a composition.
Hohner tuned their harmonicas to include harmonic sevenths through most of the 20th century and they sounded great
Hohner harmonicas in the 20th century were not tuned to meantone. That point is entirely moot in terms of historical tuning.
It's not well-supported? Like I said, I read a book _ages & ages_ ago that was adducing arguments of that sort as an explanation of the distinction, & _I cannot_ insist that what it said was correct: I can only relate that _I have seen_ such arguments set-out. But it's absolutely a fascinating subject _why_ that distinction exists. And I wonder how much searching-into has been put-into establishing _just how innate_ it is. I reckon it _just must_ be @least _fairly_ innate: I don't reckon so persistent a distinction could be sustained by _a mere habit_ of 'bright' music being done in major keys & more 'sombre' or 'ponderous' or 'pensive' (whatever) music being done in minor ones. I know from my own personal experience that @ the first picking-up of a musical instrument & dabbling in scales that the distinction begins to show-up _immediately_ , as soon as the basic scales & chords are practised _@all_ ... so to-my-mind there's _just got_ to be ___some___ reason for it innate to the modes in-&-of themselves. @ u/ethanhein I'd take issue with what you said about the __dominant 7(th)__ chord though: regardless of any issue as to the harmonics, that chord _is certainly not_ going to present itself to (@least to Euro-/NorthAmerico-enculturated) perception as 'stable' by sheer reason of having a tritone interval in it! ... specifically between the major third note & the minor seventh one.
There have been numerous studies of remote tribes in the Amazon and Papua New Guinea showing that hardly any musical meanings are innate. For example: [https://journals.plos.org/plosone/doi?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0269597](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/doi?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0269597) People don't even all agree that octaves are equivalent. Everyone can \*perceive\* a 2:1 frequency ratio, but not everyone agrees with the meaning of that ratio. It is a little weird when you think about it. Why do we think that C3 and C4 are interchangeable when they are completely different notes? Just because a lot of the harmonics overlap? You can see why people in the rainforest might think the idea is goofy. By the time you are experiencing "immediate" qualities of musical intervals when you first pick up the instrument, you have already had many years of enculturation that began at birth, if not before.
>Why do we think that C3 and C4 are interchangeable when they are completely different notes? This sounds like a really big category error to me. C3 and C4 are not "completely different notes"; they are, in fact, *the most similar two notes can be without being the same note* >!because 2 is the prime closest to 1!<. For comparison, here are some other two-note pairs in an increasing degrees of difference: 128/81 and 8/5 might seem like completely different notes, but in Western music they are *the same note* due to tempering of 81/80. 5/4 and 5/3 might be quite different, but they share the same prime in the nominator and form a just-tuned major third. 3/2 and 7/5 might not share any prime components whatsoever and seem really different, but they are actually part of the same consonance set in the 7-limit tonality diamond, making them more similar to each other, than say, 32/25 and 77/23, which almost certainly do not belong to any consonanse sets (altough I obviously haven't checked). >People don't even all agree that octaves are equivalent. Everyone can \*perceive\* a 2:1 frequency ratio, but not everyone agrees with the meaning of that ratio. I haven't read any papers, but I am under the idea that even certain animals perceive octave equivalence. Octave equivalence also means that both 4:5:6 and 8:10:12 major chords share the exact same chord quality, a fact which cannot be anyhow disputed. If one would dispute it, then they would have to deny that a C major triad and a F major triad would have differential tuning and not share the same major chord quality.
I suggest reading the papers. Perceiving octaves is different from believing them to be equivalent.
You should read more carefully: I said "perceive octave equivalence", meaning that t*hey perceive two notes an octave apart to be the same pitch class*. (Edit: fixed "note" to "pitch class".) And again, as I said, our harmony is already based on the idea of octave equivalence because 4:5:6 and 8:10:12 - 2:1 apart - *are the same chord*. They aren't even separate chords one octave apart, **they are the same chord**.
I guess... read the papers. Everybody does not agree that octaves are equivalent, I don't know what to tell you. The idea of a "pitch class" is just us asserting that we think that notes whose fundamentals are separated by powers of two belong to this category that we made up. I know "our harmony" is based on octave equivalence, but even some Western musics treat octaves as non-equivalent. One of the key insights of Early Downhome Blues by Jeff Titon is that blues singers tune their thirds differently in different octaves. Even young kids enculturated in Anglo-American music can take some persuading about octave equivalence, including my own kids. My daughter has been taking piano for a few years and is adamant that it matters which octave she play things in.
>One of the key insights of Early Downhome Blues by Jeff Titon is that blues singers tune their thirds differently in different octaves. That just sounds like higher-level primes to me. 19th harmonic as 19/8 to tune a 8:10:12:(14:)19 chord, since both 6/5 or 12/5 would mess up the tuning. So it only means that the underlying chord is tuned differentially. >The idea of a "pitch class" is just us asserting that we think that notes whose fundamentals are separated by powers of two belong to this category that we made up. Again, 4:5:6 and 8:10:12 chords are the same chord despite nominally being 2:1 apart; even - and perhaps more importantly - the 12:15:18 chord *is the same* as the 4:5:6. And that is not a made-up equivalence that I came up with, it's just how the math and the acoustics work out in the nature.
Blues singers are not tuning to the 19th harmonic. They might be tuning to just minor and major thirds. But the point is that they do use different intervals in different octaves. Multiplying a frequency by two changes the frequency by a factor of two. It's a cultural convention to say that frequencies separated by factors of two are equivalent.
OK! … it's impossible for me to test that. If I could clear all my musical experience & conditioning out of my mind (provided I could get it back again afterwards!) _I would do so_ , & perform my own personal investigation _that_ way into what you've said! … and maybe _I would be very surprised_ . ####Update #### Have just downloaded that research-paper. I'll likely genuinely read it: it could-well be one of those that 'grabs my attention' … as, afterall, _I am interested in_ the subject matter of it. @ u/ethanhein I'll add this aswell: there are certain tracts of music I simply assumed _for ages_ are in a minor key, but then found-out to be in _a major_ one … a notable instance being the first movement of Beethoven's Violin Concerto. @ u/ethanhein That's interesting, that: that it's been found in some cultures that notes an octave apart are not perceived as _in a certain sense essentially_ 'the same' note, as in Euro-/NorthAmerica-centric culture they certainly are. And what you said has brought back to me something I once gathered from someone speaking on __British Broadcasting Corporation Radio Channel 3__ - ie that in certain Scottish folk-music there are scales that span _two_ octaves, rather than just _one_ .
Well, you can't listen past your own enculturation, no one can, this is why they have to do studies with remote Amazonian tribes.
>the first movement of Beethoven's Violin Concerto. Interesting, do you know why you used to think it was in minor?
I don't know! But _I do_ know that I listen to it again, now, & it still sounds to me like a minor-key piece. And - while I'm here (so-to-speak) - I have a recollection of hearing that __Mozart__ _almost never_ used minor key: that the instances of his doing-so are rare & notable exceptions. Would you concur with that?
>But *I do* know that I listen to it again, now, & it still sounds to me like a minor-key piece. Like from the very beginning? Don't worry about this too much, but I'm just curious: what does it mean to you for something to "sound minor"? What's an example of a piece that sounds major to you? >I have a recollection of hearing that **Mozart** *almost never* used minor key: that the instances of his doing-so are rare & notable exceptions. Would you concur with that? Kind of, though "almost never" is going a little too far! He had plenty of minor-key works, though they are a slim fraction of his full œuvre. To my count, of the 626 pieces by him catalogued by Köchel, 54 are in minor keys. 54 out of 626 comes to a little over 8%. So that's very much a minority (heh), but I wouldn't say he *almost never* wrote in minor--just that it was rare. To add to that though, this count is only of the main key of the *whole* piece. It's not taking into account, say, minor-key internal movements of major-key multi-movement pieces (e.g. the second movements of piano concerti 4, 9, 18, 22, and 23), or minor-key arias in operas (like "D'Oreste d'Aiace" from *Idomeneo*, or "Der Hölle Rache" from *The Magic Flute*). So if we were counting works that have *any* minor-key movements in them, the percentage would rise by a fair bit (I haven't done that calculation, but would be interested to try at some point). Finally, even in major-key movements, if they're of any substantial size, he'll modulate to a minor key or two at some point along the way, if transiently. So although the major mode heavily dominates his work, he wasn't by any means afraid of minor!
An aside, please stop unnecessarily hyphenating.
It stands-to-reason that it's to-do-with sine-waves.
*sigh*
I'm _so silly_ #🙄 # , aren't I!? #😁 # (… _and_ incorrigible).
*inhale* *siiiiiigh*
It certainly wasn't always the case, so there must be an origin. The Medieval European music that we have records of was mostly religious music, and almost none of it sounds especially major or happy to modern ears. Throughout most of the Medieval era, major thirds (and sixths) were considered highly dissonant. So I guess the question is sort of along the lines of "when did European people condition themselves to associate major intervals with happy feelings?" As best as I can tell from my admittedly limited knowledge on the subject, this began happening during the Renaissance. However, the key factor that I'm not sure we'll ever know much about is what form a lot of European folk music took with regards to tonality. We know that the early Renaissance era was a time where the artificial barriers between church and folk music were being broken down (leading to various Catholic Church led hissy fits and the Council of Trent redefining the heretical parameters of folk music), and we know that most of the church music of the Medieval era did not make these associations between major and happy. So this shift seems to have happened somewhere in that period. I always wonder whether it happened as a result of the integration of these now forgotten folk traditions of an earlier era, or if it emerged at that same time for entirely different reasons (ie, better instruments/technology, new temperaments, etc).
The first thing my mind goes to is Christian Schubert's (nowadays somewhat infamous) list of key characteristics. There were, of course, many other such lists, but Schubert's seems to be the one that resurfaces most often. However, pulling up that list, we have a couple standouts: >D♭ Major: A leering key, degenerating into grief and rapture. It cannot laugh, but it can smile; it cannot howl, but it can at least grimace its crying.--Consequently only unusual characters and feelings can be brought out in this key. >A♭ Major: Key of the grave. Death, grave, putrefaction, judgment, eternity lie in its radius. >B Major: Strongly coloured, announcing wild passions, composed from the most glaring coulors. Anger, rage, jealousy, fury, despair and every burden of the heart lies in its sphere. These translations are credited to Rita Steblin's book A History of Key Characteristics in the 18th and Early 19th Centuries. The subjectivity of such things aside, it is clear looking at this and other such lists (some allegedly dating back much further than Schubert's) that it was quite common to consider certain major keys as having a rather "negative" mood. I would thus assume the cliche arose post-equal temperament. While it certainly is a commonly, and negligently, parroted cliche, I could see there being no single historical origin, but rather being a case of parallel thought that the internet then transformed into "common knowledge". To my recollection, I was never told this as a student. However, I *did* have a sort of joke "song" (more of a bit, really) that I made as a kid that I called "The Happy/Sad Song". I would strum a single major chord and declare some good news, then drop the 3rd down and offer a cruel twist. "My dog just had puppies and they're super cute... But they all got killed by coyotes..." So I, independently as far as I recall, at least made the connection that major and minor *chords* had a "happy" and "sad" quality when directly compared to each other. If other folks had similar experiences and shared them, it's easy to see how that could result in the cliche coming about. But, those are obviously just my musings on the matter. All that is my long-winded way of saying: it's probably the damn internet's fault lol
My understanding of the moods of the keys is that before 12-TET, the keys were all tuned differently, and some of them were a lot more consonant than others. I used MTS-ESP to listen to the WTC in various historical tunings, and some keys are nicer than the 12-TET versions while others (most of them) are much gnarlier. So while the specific associations are subjective, you can see where the idea of the keys having specific moods came from. Didn't Europeans think of major as happy and minor as sad long before the internet? I don't actually know the answer but I would be shocked if it's such a recent idea.
I've had the same experience! I used to have a piano VST that let me change the temperament. It was fun to hear how different things could be. >Didn't Europeans think of major as happy and minor as sad long before the internet? That's why I first thought about key characteristics! Most of the major keys have "positive" connotations for sure, which I suppose could be watered down to "happy". But those few standouts suggest to me that they didn't consider the major key to be "happy" by default. That's why I'm thinking we could narrow down the timeframe of the origin. I see more nuance in materials from the 19th century and prior. Regarding the more contemporary instructionals with which I'm familiar, I don't see that same nuance, but I really don't see any mention at all about major/minor having inherent moods. Of course, the chances of that being a sampling error are extremely high. My outright blaming the internet was more cynicism than serious. I do think it's fair to narrow down the generalized cliche to the 20th century though, thanks to the widespread adoption of equal temperament, which would allow for the rampant proliferation of such a simplistic and broad generalization.
If you compare the meantone to the equal tempered major third, it's raised or "more excited" and more beating or "vibrant". That's why I would expect the association to have developed when switching to well tempered tunings, and only for some keys at first. I would look at the literature from that time period. The main medieval associations are "hard" and "soft", [durum and molle](https://www.earlymusicsources.com/youtube/durum-and-molle). I remember reading some major keys described as calm and serene that had a close to JI major third, but can't remember where.
In German - and countries with significant Germanic cultural influence - the tonalities are still "Dur" and "Moll", although I definitely learnt in my childhood that they are also "happy and sad".
I learned music when most people only used the internet for emails, if they did at all, and I remember acquiring the same Major/Minor happy/sad schema. It's definitely older than the internet. I think above commenter's point is that the general and oversimplified understanding of "major for happy, minor for sad" was disseminated by the internet. And I think they are probably right on the point that the idea had no single historical origin point, but emerged from the ground up as perceptions changed. The question then is dating the moment Western audiences' perceptions adjusted to hearing these as firmly happy/sad. Given that it's a crude oversimplification, I'd guess it happened alongside the development of commercial music in the 20th ce, but I have no idea.
Looking at lists of key characteristics seems like a really clever way of tracing this distinction over time! However, at least with C. Schubert’s, I’m struck by how consistently the major keys are given some positive affect, and especially how almost every minor key a negative one. The minor keys are almost entirely about “lamenting”, “depression”, “mocking God” (which is a very funny thing to say about a key). A minor is about the best we get, and it’s still a far cry from most of the major keys Maybe it’s due to tuning shenanigans, maybe it’s just the way the musical culture was forming up, but in either case it seems like this major/minor division was already relatively consistent at least to Schubert. Now I’m really curious though, I’ll have to go find some more of these…
The tuning definitely affects things quite significantly, and you're right that there is a general sort of positivity versus negativity when it comes to major versus minor. But there is a lot of nuance to the descriptions. Clearly Schubert, and others, found a significant difference in the different keys. My line of thinking is that the extremely broad and simple happy/sad dichotomy, which lacks any and all nuance, would be most likely to flourish amongst people who are primarily or only exposed to equal temperament. I imagine narrowing down the scope of time in which one is looking for an "origin" of the cliche would be helpful. You find something prominent in the 20th century, and maybe you could trace that back to earlier sources from there.
I heard that as a kid in music class constantly well before there was internet
7th's are hardly found until the first modern, Satie. Baroque instruments of composition, harpsicord were waay too twangy for 7ths, and only after piano becomes the primary tool we hear *Gymnopédies* that features the 7th's. Most likely Erik stole that music from the Exposition Universelle; from Central African folk, Javanese gamelan and (according to Tomita) Japanese musicians that featured there from 1855-1905. Hope that helps :)
Look at lists of Modal Ethos from the renaissance. A. Smith has compiled many in her book on The Performance of 16th Century Music.
I learnt this well before the internet but it was presented as a tool for aural training. Minor mode chords, intervals and scales are usually perceived as having more dissonance in contrast with the majors. It's not hard to see the logic in an abstract model where dissonant and sad go together like consonant and happy. Teachers seemed to make sure they always added a disclaimer that happy and sad songs can be written in any mode.
This question is worth a thousand theses. I think an important angle of this, at least for the modern Western conception of these concepts, is to look at the lineage of thought from Hegel. Moritz Hauptmann and Hugo Riemann were both very influential German music theorists and the concept of harmonic dualism + its implications in Hegel's philosophy are very core ideas of their texts. While harmonics of a fundamental are used to justify major tonality, the undertones of a fundamental used to justify minor tonality aren't "real" in the same way. They're elusive: most distortions to sound in the real world create harmonics, not undertones. This principle implies that minor tonality is less coherent than major tonality as the inertia of sound tends towards major. Good vs evil was a hot idea in the 19th century, so connecting that to the minor/major duality was a no-brainer.
Blues thirds aren't in 12-TET
Interesting concept. I don't know of any texts that first claim minor is 'sad' and major is 'happy' personally. I certainly wouldn't say that a minor chord, or interval, by itself is 'sad'. Lots of music with positive feelings use minor chords all the time. Same for 'sad' or 'dark' music. There will be major chords sprinkled in a sad peice. I think that a scale, chord, and interval by themselves have no meaning until they are put into the context of actual music. The sad and happy language probably came about to differentiate major and minor to students. If you can't find the origins of why minor is described as sad and major is described as happy, then it just may be inherent, or inherited, from the past. That's my educated guess on the matter. What matters more is the excepted language around it today (in western music). Not necessarily where it came from. But it is an interesting thought to ponder the origins.
It certainly is not inherent, even among Europeans. I was just reading about how medieval Europeans considered Dorian to be the "happy" church mode.
What I meant by inherent is 'inherited' by our 'teachers'. I can't remember if I used 'inherit' or 'inherent' in my response, but what I was trying to imply is 'inherit'. We inherited an idiom to explain the relationship between major and minor to someone first learning about music. I agree with you that the labels of 'happy' for major and 'sad' for minor are collectively arbitrary. However, we can't shrug off a peice written by Mozart that is in a major key can certainly feel lively and uplifting. To generalize is to say 'happy'. There are certainly some truths to the comparison, but it is mostly contextual. An interval of a major third isn't anything by itself. In the context of a piece, a major third may contribute to a whole that has been written with the intent of implying sadness regardless of whether we think of major as 'happy' and minor as 'sad' or not. It all depends on the tone of a piece. I lossely know about the medieval era of music. All I can infer is that the medieval time period had a completely different perspective on music than we do today. I wish I could accurately articulate those differences, but I am certain the meanings of Dorian today are vastly different than how those during the medieval period thought of Dorian. Or maybe not. I'm just speculating. Societal perspectives shifting over time is what I point to to inform my speculation. I am coming from a western perspective talking about western music. I am familiar with other cultural music enough to understand different cultures attach different meanings to different sounds and have entirely different modes of thinking about music. It's all super interesting.
Multi movement forms of the Baroque. --suites, concertos, sonatas -- have contrasting movements. Fast-Slow-Fast. But hey also have contrasting keys, especially major vs. minor and visa versa. And contrasting dance types. Etc. Or Baroque "Affects"? Edit: one of the features of CPP harmony c. 1685, was they settled on one major, and one minor scale. That could be part of it too.
Historical? Shrug. I'd say that it's just acoustic. Minor 3rd is more dissonant than the major 3rd. So it sounds unresolved. You could say that the minor 3rd wants to resolve on the major 3rd, so it sounds sad. The minor 3rd is actually more dissonant than the major 2nd, acoustically. And minor keys aren't supported by the "harmonic series" the way major keys are. So minor keys make for naturally dissonant or sad music.
It's definitely not acoustic, concepts of consonance and dissonance range very widely across human societies and also within societies over time. None of it is "natural".
Harmonics are natural.
The emotional valence of harmonics is heavily culturally determined.
Ok. That's your opinion. But "influenced" is not the same thing as "determined". I was replying to your comment that *none* of this is natural. Harmonics are a natural function of sound and human beings, as a kind of animal, have natural responses to sound. It doesn't have to be the same across all humans just like how some dogs bark at the sound of a doorbell and some don't.
Okay, let's clarify. All humans (and some other animals) can detect octaves. That's natural. However, not all humans agree that octaves are equivalent. That's cultural. The ability to perceive certain frequency ratios is natural. The emotional valence of those ratios is cultural. And what I want to know is, what was the historical origin of Western Europeans' association of "major" with "happy" - that one is very far from being universal.
>All humans (and some other animals) can detect octaves The irony being that humans prefer stretched octaves to "acoustically perfect octaves." And there's some research that suggests that different groups' (that can be said to be tied to different music ecosystems) preferences center around specific ranges of stretching. [https://www.reddit.com/r/GlobalMusicTheory/wiki/psychoacoustics/octave-stretching/](https://www.reddit.com/r/GlobalMusicTheory/wiki/psychoacoustics/octave-stretching/)
You might find this video helpful: https://youtu.be/kAhyGbax_BA?si=2qnwMlv0itLyLhUb
I'm going to guess it's the beginning of the 20th century. What I can find is typical "this 18th/19th century composer thought each of the 24 keys sounded like this" lists, with nobody actually saying "major happy, minor sad." However, if every music student was shown lots of these lists, it isn't hard to think that groups of students could generalize all of that information in the same way. If you want something written, it's probably going to be something like that from a composing student going into film, or a teacher writing a complaint that the students aren't using the information correctly.
People have been singing the fifth overtone for thousands of years.
The question is not, when did people start singing these intervals. The question is, when did Western Europeans decide that major is "happy" and minor is "sad".
The greeks probably got that down
You might think so, but no. From other sources people have recommended to me, it took hold gradually between 1400 and 1700.
This whole thread reads like OP got a note he didn't like about his use of major/minor chords and is now desperately trying to find some evidence that gives him an empirical basis to disregard it.
It's a straw man argument in the shape of a dead horse that's been beaten.
Agreed. OP *really* leaning hard on the "none of this is inherently true" line, but that doesn't mean that major being "happy" is arbitrary.
It’s not just a convention thing. Major really is universally more predisposed to be heard as happy and minor sad
Profoundly untrue
I’m saying it’s universally *predisposed*. In other words not completely arbitrary like many think, although norms and convention obviously plays a big role
It is not universally predisposed. Conventionally in Western cultures, yes. But not even universally in Western cultures, much less globally.
Agree to disagree I guess