Why do specific sound frequencies are making us sad while others are making us happy?
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First of all, it’s not actually specific frequencies, but ratios of frequencies.
Most people don’t have perfect pitch. Most people can’t hear a specific frequency. In other words, if you took a familiar song and played it for most people in a slightly different key – starting on a higher or lower frequency – they wouldn’t notice the difference.
When you play two or more notes at the same time, it’s the *ratio* of the two frequencies that matters.
When you play two notes together and their frequencies have a very simple relationship using small numbers, it sounds “good”. Mathematically the two sounds fit together and make nice simple patterns. Our brains love those patterns.
Why? Probably evolution. It was probably advantageous in history for our brain to be able to hear certain patterns in sounds. Music just exploits that.
All of the harmonies in music are built on top of simple ratios of frequencies, like 2:1, 3:2, 4:3, and 5:4.
So that part is innate.
However, the patterns that we build on top of that are more cultural, historical. All music around the world is based on the same fundamental harmonies. But all of the complexity we create out of those differs.
Trying to assign emotions to it gets even trickier.
Major = happy, minor = sad is a huge oversimplification. It’s absolutely possible for a piece in a major key to be sad, or a piece in a minor key to be happy. But there’s a combination of certain harmonies and the way they make us feel that are universal to all humans, and then a lot of cultural tradition and history that musicians exploit by reminding you of other songs and harmonies you’ve heard, that all combine to give you feelings from music.
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