I know very little about music theory. I’ve tried to learn piano, guitar, other instruments… but always failed because I don’t understand what makes a good chord or bad one. I know a happy song or sad song based on context, but listening to a single chord doesn’t strike me as having any mood.
So it got me thinking: am I missing out on a universal experience, or am I just not in sync with the culture I was raised in? If you played the chords from “Walkin On Sunshine” to someone in, say, 5th century Korea — would it make them feel happy & peppy?
Also: could you write a sad song with happy chords? A peppy song with somber chords? etc
Please make explanations really for a 5 year old — I really don’t understand music, I don’t get what major/minor keys are, or even why certain notes make a chord while others don’t. Keep it simple, please!
Thanks!
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Hi, you’re right. No chord is inherently happy or sad. It’s entirely contextual. A lot of the time it depends on conventions. In Western music, we have the convention on using major chords for upbeat responses, and minor chords for more emotional responses. If you make something sound very emotional, it’s likely sad or passionate. If you make something moving and upbeat, it’s likely happy or triumphant sounding. But almost every song uses a combination of major and minor chords.
So how do we know what is happy and what is not in Western music? We don’t, but conventionally, the home key chord (generally the most common chord, and the one you start/end on) will determine a major (“happy) or minor “sad” theme out of repetition.
Not all cultures follow this. In African countries, emotion is very tied to rhythm rather than harmony. In the West we do this too, but it just isn’t realized and is much less complex than African rhythms. (Think fast strong beats as happy, and long slow beats for emotional). In the middle East, and India, they use spaces in between our notes (quarter tones) to inflect their music with additional information.
Music isn’t a universal language. You aren’t wrong or weird for not seeing music the same as convention.
Music is universal in that all cultures have it, but how they understand it is very much unique.
If you want to understand how music can function as a way of communication, i suggest reading Music as Discourse by Kofi Agawu. Ignore all the dense analysis, and just skim to his discussions of language and it might help.
I think the quick answer here is culture. There are [cultures](http://philipball.blogspot.com/2010/01/is-minor-key-music-sad-for-everyone.html?m=1) where the minor chord is not considered “sad” for example.
It may be better to consider chords in terms of brightness instead like how [Jacob Collier](https://youtu.be/mLJVvjqMjbo) describes them. (This is really worth a watch even if you don’t know any music theory)
To answer your second question, any two notes can be considered a chord. Probably not a very interesting chord but a chord nonetheless.
Personally different chords or melodies definitely have moods. Though the “mood” is strongly affected by the wider context of the music playing.
“Happy” and “sad” and other emotional sounding music is NOT universal. It is a learned cultural response. And yes, it varies depending on what culture you grow up in.
Growing up in western culture, we are frequently exposed to music in contexts that inform us whether we should be happy/sad/whatever when hearing that particular music. Think TV shows, movies, parties, weddings, etc. We learn those associations from a very young age.
For example, composers will often use minor keys for music intended to be played during “sad” moments. We have learnt to associate minor keys with sadness, so when we hear that sort of music, the emotion comes to mind unconsciously.
People raised in non-western cultures have completely different associations. For example, someone raised in a tradition of south-east Asian traditional music does not have the same “happy” or “sad” reactions to music that people from western cultures do. They simply never learnt those. Specifically, if you played “Walking on Sunshine” to a person from 5th century Korea – no, they would almost certainly *not* get a happy, peppy feeling from it.
This has been established through research, and fascinating information about it (and other stuff about how we react to music) can be found in these references (which I highly recommend):
* *The Music Instinct* by Philip Ball.
* *This is Your Brain on Music* by Daniel Levitin.
One aspect of chords that is more universal is consonance, which in simple terms is how “neatly” the different frequencies fit into each other (e.g low whole-number fractions). Less consonant chords (dissonant ones) have more complex interaction cycles that make them sound “clashy”.
Western classical music is essentially set up around creating tension with specific patterns of clashes and then “resolving” them with nearby consonances. After you’ve heard this for a while, your mind starts to predict where things are headed and the resolution feels “complete,” but this is learned, like how you can detect the end of a sentence in your native language.
Dissonance is not very common in traditional music around the world, so in your awesome 5th century Korea example, I expect locals would feel confused and overwhelmed by “Walking on sunshine.” Sort of like eating kimchi if you’ve only ever had iceberg lettuce with salt.
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