This doesn’t make any sense to me, these are just sounds, they don’t sound neither happy nor sad to me (when I try playing them on piano). But I’m new to music so I don’t know… Is there an explanation that actually makes sense?
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It’s more that major sounds “normal” in Western classical music and minor sounds not normal, but we are told this oversimplification as a starting point for hearing the difference. Something like 70% of all music in the Western tradition is written in major keys, even some music that sounds “sad”, and the inverse is true too, sometimes music written in non-manor modalities sounds happy.
Try them in a progression of chords, not just on their own. Theres not really anything to “get” beyond minor chords generally sound sad to most people and major chords generally sound happy to most people. Try looking at the chord progression of a song that sounds sad to you. A chord in isolation isnt doing a lot to evoke emotion.
We don’t really know for sure, but there have been studies of remote cultures that have little to no exposure to western music that suggest our emotional association is cultural rather than anything inherent about the chords themselves.
This article goes over a recent study in Papua New Guinea that is quite interesting. https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/are-minor-chords-sad-and-major-chords-happy-not-if-you-live-in-a-remote-papua-new-guinea-village/
The major 6th chord sounds happy and resolved and is a mainstay of pop, jazz, blues, and boogie. It is an inversion of the relative minor 7th chord. In C the notes are C E G A, the same notes as the Am7 chord.
So to answer your question, I have no clue.
The difference between a minor and major chord is that the minor chord is a semitone lower than a major chord. Our ears are expecting the higher major third, but instead we get a note slightly lower. We associate notes lower than expected a being “sad” (think about speech patterns, if we are saying something sad we lower our voice while if we are excited we raise it) so we associate the minor chord as being sad.
Here’s an interesting piece on it. (Plus some minor chord songs that are happy and some major chord songs that are sad/somber)
Pretty much anything musical at some point finds its source in the harmonic series. Partials 4,5, and 6 form a major triad. Indeed, it is the reason why one can’t simply “lower the third of the chord.” Doing so is how you change an equal temperament triad into just intonation. However, if you are playing a just intonation instrument (say… a horn [cf. username]) then partials 4,5, and 6 are exactly where they need to be.
So there we have, built into nature itself, a pure major triad. In his theoretical text Paul Hindemith offered an explanation as to the affect of minor triads. Since there is no minor triad built into the harmonic series, it is possible that one hears minor as a sonority that always wants to resolve to major. This would be supported by the Picardy Third. One feels stress for as long as the tonic harmony is minor, because one wants to hear major, being built into nature. In other words, minor is unnatural. It’s up to you, gentle reader, if you buy into that. I’m a Hindemith scholar and I’m doubtful that I do.
A lot of it is cultural. But there is some theory that it might have to do with the ratios between the frequencies of the notes (imagine a string vibrating). A major third has a ratio of 5:4, while a minor third has a ratio of 6:5. If you look at the harmonic series, the minor third is one step after the major third. Generally, at least in western musical theory, chords that are later in the series (and have more complicated frequency ratios) have more tension and are less pleasing to the ear than earlier ones. Only a little bit, since it’s one step away, but it’s enough that a major third sounds “nice” while a minor third sounds “sad” or “dark.”
It’s not that a single key has emotion to it. It’s how you combine them.
Sad songs are typically slower paced and lack “energy” aka minor. This can mimic the somberness of sadness.
Wheras happy songs are more swift in rythym and focus on major keys that mimic high energy and positivity.
It’s the same reason happy chars are often portrayed as full of energy and in your face positivity while sad chars are sluggish and mopey and depressed with little to no energy and focused on negativity.
You can have a song in minor that promotes happiness, it depends on the pace and rythym and progression.
If the pace is slow and progression is high to low, it will sound somber and sad.
Wheras if the pace is fast with a focus on low to high progression, it can emphasize a positive feeling.
something i don’t see explained (well) here is *what* consonance/dissonance is. Basically, when you have a tone/note, it is a sound wave vibrating at a certain speed. a 100hz tone hits the peak of its wave 100 times per second. a 200hz tone would hit that peak 200 times, meaning that the peak of the first wave will always line up with every other peak of the second. This is called an octave, and having so many peaks line up consistently makes it a **consonant** sound. The next most consonant ratio of notes in western music is the perfect fifth, where every second peak of the one wave meets every third peak of the other. The major third has every fourth peak meet every fifth peak, and the minor third has every fifth peak meet every sixth peak. Because of this, the minor third has more of its peaks not lining up with any of the other peaks in a chord than the major third. The more peaks a note has that don’t match with anything else in the chord, the more **dissonant** it is, and that means the minor third is more dissonant than the major third. In western music we generally have more positive feelings associated with lots of consonance and more negative feelings associated with dissonance, so the more dissonant minor is usually felt to be sad, and the more consonant major happy.
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