How does music have different moods? What exactly makes a combination of notes sound “happy” or “sad”?
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So there are a couple of ways to answer this, depending on what you’re looking for. If you want to know why the thing that sounds happy sounds happy, that’s just cultural. There are certain chords that we use in happy songs (starting with all the nursery rhymes), so we’ve trained ourselves to associate that with happy. Different parts of the world, or indeed history, have different associations. If we go back to medieval chants, these sound quite haunting to our modern ears. But at that time, that was the sound of worship music. Okay, it probably wouldn’t have evoked the same feelings that gospel music does now, but it would certainly have sounded ‘nicer’ than it does today.
But what makes up our standard “happy” sound? From here on, I’m assuming a musical heritage that traces back to 18th century western Europe. (Basically all western stuff including rock, pop, classical, jazz, whatever.)
Picture a piano, or better yet look at a picture! There are white notes and black notes. The low notes are left and the high ones right. There’s a pattern where the black notes are grouped in 2s and 3s. The way the piano works, each pair of notes next to each other are the same step apart to our ears, called an *interval*. We give the notes names. The white notes are named from A to G, then it repeats. The black notes are named after the white ones. The black note just higher than a C is a C# (C-sharp) and the black note just lowed than a D is called a Db (D-flat). Actually, these two notes are the same! C is the note just to the left of a pair of black notes. Now, if we play a C and an E (to the right of the pair of black notes), we’re playing an interval called a major 3rd, having stepped up 4 keys from the C. On the other hand, if we play C and Eb, the black note below the E, this is called a *minor* 3rd (major=big, minor=small).
But we can also stack intervals. Say we play a C and E, then add in a G (two white notes higher again), this is what we call a major chord, specifically C major. If you count the intervals, we’re playing a major 3rd with a minor 3rd on top. We’ve trained ourselves to feel this is the “happy” chord. Now, keep the C and G, but lower the E to Eb. Now it’s a minor 3rd with a major 3rd on top. This is what we call C minor, and we associate this with “sad”. Music based around major chords feels happy, and music based around minor ones feels sad.
Okay, can we push this further for extra credit? Of course! What happens if we stack a minor 3rd on a minor 3rd, say C, Eb, Gb. Well this is what we call a diminished chord (diminished=shrunk). And it sounds spooky. It’s not just sad, it’s evil.
What about the other way? If we shrink major to minor to diminished, it goes happy to sad to evil. Surely if we play an *augmented* (stretched) chord like putting a major 3rd on a major 3rd (C,E,G#) it’s going to be super happy? Well yes and no. It’s happy like a clown grinning at you in an ice-cream van. Everything about it *should* be happy, but it just ends up being really creepy and wrong!
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