Why does music sound sad?
Listen to both versions of the melody. Which one sounds sad to you?
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Try the experiment: your result will appear here, next to what most people do.
What just happened (read it after the experiment)
What most people do: Most Western listeners find the minor version sad.
The two versions differ only in the third, lowered by a half step: that is the shift from the major mode to the minor mode.
In 2009, Thomas Fritz played Western music to the Mafa of Cameroon, who had never heard any: they recognized joy and sadness far better than chance. Yet in 2022, among the Uruwa of Papua New Guinea, the link between minor and sadness was almost absent.
Part of musical emotion is universal; another part is learned by listening, from childhood on.
More experiments
Sources
- Thomas Fritz et al., “Universal recognition of three basic emotions in music,” Current Biology, 2009.
- Eline Smit et al., PLoS ONE, 2022.