Why major chords sound happy while minor chords sound sad - Alice Artzt

[@AWal31994]

Literally the only source I could find that correctly explains it

[@Guitartzt]

Thanks for your kind words.

[@timothyolbrych1591]

Great insight into frequencies, overtones and tonal clashes. Tunings will always be problematic especially the "elephant in the room-major thirds" (too sharp) Combined with minor thirds we have a big problem which most people ignore. You are a masterful teacher.

[@williamlovelady7217]

I came to one of your recitals at the Wigmore hall with a friend from Toronto who's later married Lyn Gangbar , it was one of the inspirational concerts that inspired me to write for guitar . I seem to recall you playing a Rubio. Can't thank you Enough. I have quite a lot of KZbin posts Amanda cook , is one of them . Thank you.

[@Guitartzt]

You're very welcome - thanks for the kind words.

[@doc_matter]

Awesome!

[@Guitartzt]

Thanks.

[@JasonPriebe]

Simply astounding

[@Guitartzt]

Many thanks.

[@Ak3r0n]

great explanation about the dissonance of the minor half step versus the overtones of a note. my question would be why is that fluttering oscillation or dissonance between two close notes is perceived as sad or scary. Is it the same for all cultures? Is harmony innate to humans and thus we perceive as bad when something is not quite fitting with the other?

[@Guitartzt]

+Ak3r0n The fluttering you mention is called "beats" - it is caused by the different number of vibrations between, let us say, A 440 and a sharper pitch of A 450 - that, for instance, would be 10 beats per minute. So you'd hear 10 peaks and troughs where cycles of the two different pitches coincided to make it louder and then diverged to make the sound softer. Similar to if you threw two stones into a pond. They'd each make a circle of waves, and where those waves hit each other, they'd make a bigger wave so that an object floating between them would bob up and down on the peaks and troughs. Anyone of any culture would hear those beats, and probably think they sounded un-harmonious.

[@paulwood4142]

It could have something to do with how humans would perceived a cry for help or a scream, if the voice produces these harmonics during these situations, perhaps we intuitively understand something is wrong and needs our attention?

[@Grrizo]

Great explanation.

[@Guitartzt]

Thanks - glad it was helpful.

[@bengray3950]

I clicked on this with great skepticism but your explanation was illuminating. I never knew all of those harmonics could be heard and that it formed the basis of a major chord. Thank you for sharing this insight.

[@Guitartzt]

You're very welcome

[@zelda1420]

Yoo... that's so awesome! Thanks for explaining it! Overtonal dissonance. Very cool. You explained it so well!

[@Korn1holio]

You're a brilliant explainer. Thank you

[@Guitartzt]

You're very welcome...

[@ahedrick699]

Very interesting and I love your videos! I'm a church organist who is now learning classical guitar. As a church musician, I'm aware that many traditional Jewish melodies (Hava Nagila most famously, but also Leoni and Torah Song) are happy and celebratory but in minor keys. So I thought the reason was more cultural and incidental than scientific.

[@Guitartzt]

Music started out in many countries with modes and quite different scales with different intervals, and so I think near Eastern music has a little different mindset re harmonies which tended to be merely elaborations and figurations on the main melodic line. But once people started trying to do counterpoint and trying to get the different lines to sound good together, the old church modes in Europe gradually got modified so that they more and more resembled major scales, and I think once the idea of chords became the norm, then harmonic ideas took over and that is what caused people to be unhappy with ending any piece with a minor chord which they took to be dissonant.

[@thephirebird]

Wow, best explanation I've heard of this, been wondering why for over a decade

[@jeanlemoignan3130]

Ah! At last, an adequate answer to a question I’ve always had. Thank you.

[@Guitartzt]

You're very welcome. Glad to have helped.

[@Lostoldman]

Thank you dear lady

[@SCFick318]

I just had so many questions I didn’t even know I was asking answered, thank you

[@siddyx]

Hi Alice, it was the English Guitar Music album. I remembered my friend had a copy and has kindly donated it to me. I have very fond memories of listening to your beautiful playing

[@Guitartzt]

+Julian Egan I'm so glad you liked it. Let me know if you want any of the others. Best etc, Alice

[@siddyx]

Great video Alice , great to hear you explain sadness in words ! I managed to get another copy of your Album at last. You started my love of classical guitar. I owe you xx

[@Guitartzt]

+Julian Egan Thanks you for your kind words. Which album were you wanting? I do have a few LPs left of some of my records, and also can make home made CDs of nearly all of my records. I've been doing this for some time for students and friends since they are all out of print by now. I am also hopeful that pretty soon my Baroque record, which hardly got any release at all for various reasons, will FINALLY actually be available on CD to buy on Amazon.

[@asdf9890]

Great explanation, you have a way with words.

[@Guitartzt]

Thank you so much for your kind words - it seemed to need an explanation, so when I figured it out, I thought I should explain.

[@parafizzle]

Nice video, thanks!

[@HarpanW]

first good explanation ive found thank you

[@Guitartzt]

Thank you.

[@ianstobie]

Thanks. Tremendous explanation. This is the first time I've felt I even half understand what's going on. Describing it in terms of the vibrations of a guitar string ties it to something real, so it's not just arbitrary-seeming mathematics.

[@Guitartzt]

Glad it helped. I think nearly all explanations about the rules of harmony etc are rationalizations of what we naturally hear - explaining why we hear things that way etc.

[@robertmartin1116]

Wow, you explain so well!

[@omarb7164]

Hi Unfortunately I didn't come across your video looking to learn musical theory - I literally just wanted to know whether the major or minor chords were the sad sounding ones, because I wanted to hear a certain song version. I scrolled through dozens of long "well-produced" videos and soon started thinking I had dreamt up this idea that minor chords sound sad, because every other video forced you to sit through minutes of fluff content for this small crumb of basic information I needed. Thank you for this video, only the title has saved me from minutes of overheating my computer and hopping between ad-filled videos, so that's worth a sub in itself.

[@Guitartzt]

Glad I could help.

[@adammickiewicz7818]

Thanks!

[@Guitartzt]

You're very welcome.

[@MarcosDana]

Wow! Thank you for all your videos and advices, they are so invaluable and useful. One saves years of bad practice. And I enjoy so much the way you play. Thanks!!!

[@upsideguitar]

Hi Marcos. I totally agree with you, but I think the word you're looking for is "invaluable".

[@wanttosayadrem2551]

Deep explanation! Thank you. I think about opposite issue, why sometimes dur/major scales can sound quite sad, e.g. "Purple rain" in Bb scale by Prince (RIP)?

[@Quazi-Moto]

Thank you, ma'am !

[@andrereginato3538]

Hi Alice, Would love to hear and see you play more on youtube...you are first a fine musician and a fine guitarist...you have depth in your playing...like Segovia, Bream and Pavel Steidl...as far as technique it has I know a lot to do with the right hand and keeping the right hand fingers at right angles to the strings with an arched wrist...just like Ida Presti..I don't hear that in the modern players today...I don't think a straight wrist is the answer because you loose the cello in the bass...eg. Villa Lobos Em prelude...lovely to hear the Bell Canto in the guitar again...the way it shoud be...Cheers

[@Guitartzt]

Thank you for your kind words. I am planning to get some selections from my various records onto KZbin. The delay is because I need to find the time to figure out which pieces to put on, and then I have to get my husband Bruce to find the time to do it. I'm pretty busy still doing a lot of teaching on Skype, and my husband is super busy also. But it will happen. (For a long time I was trying to get my record companies, or some other company, to re-issue my LPs on CD. But by now, really no one is interested in that any more.) Thanks for the encouragement.

[@coolbluelights]

Know what's weird is Salsa music is often in a minor key but it sounds super upbeat.

[@Guitartzt]

Probably the rhythmic complexity puts in the upbeat element and gets one thinking of it more modally, and less as just plan minor. Also by now in current music we are very used to lots of dissonance so it doesn't affect us as strongly as it would have centuries ago. I can't guarantee - but off the top of my head that might be the case....

[@rocknroll7261]

Very informative video, and you have a wonderful soft voice. It wasn't clear to me which frets give which harmonics. Was it all by eye estimate of the length?

[@Guitartzt]

+rocknroll72 You get an octave harmonic if you put your finger right over the 12th fret. You get the next 5th up on the 7th fret, and the couple octave on the 5th fret. There are other higher harmonics, but those are the most useful and best ones - the others are weaker and a bit harder to land on accurately.

[@rocknroll7261]

+Alice Artzt Thank you Mme!

[@Guitartzt]

+rocknroll72 You're very welcome. Best etc, Alice

[@willimekmusic]

The Theory of Musical Equilibration states that in contrast to previous hypotheses, music does not directly describe emotions: instead, it evokes processes of will which the listener identifies with. A major chord is something we generally identify with the message, “I want to!”. The experience of listening to a minor chord can be compared to the message conveyed when someone says, "No more." If someone were to say the words "no more" slowly and quietly, they would create the impression of being sad, whereas if they were to scream it quickly and loudly, they would be come across as furious. This distinction also applies for the emotional character of a minor chord: if a minor harmony is repeated faster and at greater volume, its sad nature appears to have suddenly turned into fury. The Theory of Musical Equilibration applies this principle as it constructs a system which outlines and explains the emotional nature of musical harmonies, for example why a diminished chord is well-suited as the score for film scenes involving fear, or how an augmented chord can convey amazement and astonishment. You can get more information on the link Journal of Psychology & Psychotherapy (www.omicsonline.org/open-access/why-do-minor-chords-sound-sad-the-theory-of-musical-equilibration-and-the-emotions-of-chords-2161-0487.1000139.php?aid=24803) or on the link Music and Emotions (www.willimekmusic.de/music-and-emotions.pdf) . Bernd Willimek, musictheorist

[@Guitartzt]

Interesting ideas you talk about. I read a book called "Emotion and Meaning in Music" by Meyer many years ago, and found it most interesting also. It dealt a lot with what one expects, and if one gets it, or not, or gets it but not in the expected way. It dealt with the idea that many musical expectations are pretty much innate to humans - presumably not to Martians - which I found most interesting. Very good book.

[@williamlovelady7217]

Absolutely brilliant, are you still playing a Sergio Abreu guitar?

[@Guitartzt]

Yes indeed - I have several Abreu guitars, and play them all the time.

[@greentrader6905]

Man I wish I understood something she said it sounded like great lesson

[@rebecaquintana8115]

Hi! I just recently discovered your channel and its very useful, i was wondering if you could explain a warm up routine, since im kind of scared of overstrechtching my fingers, oh btw i sometimes hear my wrist crack while playing, what can i do to avoid that? Thanks

[@Guitartzt]

Unless you are holding or moving your hand and wrist in some awkward position/way, it is hard to know about a cracking wrist. For that perhaps you might go to a hand specialist doctor, just to make sure there is not something really wrong. As for warming up, mostly I'd suggest doing some simple chromatic exercises (such as those in my book "The Art of Practising") and/or arpeggio patterns, slowly at first and then a bit faster. Mostly just don't try to jump in and play harder pieces at top speed right away. Take a little time to get into whatever you want to practice, but work on exercises that are simpler versions of some of the things you are wanting to practice or improve on doing.

[@theresepraisethelord201]

Where all you lovely videos??

[@Guitartzt]

As far as I know they are still on KZbin. I certainly didn't do anything to get rid of them.

[@riddleiddle]

So every note's frequency being played is playing a major fraction of itself as well? Is it always major or can it be minor? Also, does this happen with any instrument, or is this overtone a byproduct of this specific instrument's design?

[@Guitartzt]

It's always a major third. That is just how the overtone series is in acoustics - that's just plain acoustics - nothing to do with just the guitar or just a vibrating string - is the same for pipe organs, or keyboards or bowed instruments or wind instruments. The original note contains first the octave, then the 5th, then the double octave, then the major third, then it continues on with ever smaller intervals that are always the same ones. However in some instruments you get a much large percentage of some overtones sounding than in others. For instance in the clarinet, the very distinct sound of the clarinet and of several other wind instruments that have a conical bore, is so distinctive because clarinet notes only really contain every other overtone - so you don't hear the first octave overtone, but do get a very strong 5th, then not the double octave, but then you do get a prominent major third. You can look up the overtone series - the Greeks got that figured out a long time ago, and the German scientist Helmholtz did a lot of experiments with overtones (different percentages of different overtones in notes make the note sound like it is singing various different vowels - think of an ambulance driving by singing eee-oooo-eee-oooo) which make the basis from which engineers later could start trying to make electronic music and synthesize voices etc.

[@devilhand]

This kind of knowledge will only come from someone of your caliber. Thank you very much. Does it mean that every single note is not only a note but also a note with major characteristics or can we say every major chord can be represented by a single note?

[@Guitartzt]

Thanks you for your kind words. Yes, in fact each note comes with some other overtones (harmonics) that replicate a major chord, however the overtones are pretty faint much of the time. They are audible and do have an effect though, and particularly were clearly heard by Medieval and Renaissance musicians, who were so bothered by the dissonance between the bass note's overtones and a minor third, that they refused to use a minor chord at the end of a piece - too dissonant - not sounding like the nice final chord of any piece, even if the rest of the whole piece was in a minor key or mode.

[@tonicogsf]

Great video, but the question of why the sadness is in the 3rd and not the 5th or even the octave is still unresolved, at least to me. Do u know anything on this issue?

[@Guitartzt]

A perfect 5th is perfect - it almost sounds like the fundamental note. It is the second overtone, and if you change it up or down by a half step it sounds absolutely dissonant. The major 3rd is further up the overtone series, and a 3rd can be either major or minor, and both sound nice - at least to us now. But the point is that the major third is IN the overtone series, so it sounds consistent with the fundamental - so harmonious and calm and stable. The minor 3rd is NOT in the overtone series and so clashes by a half step with the not terribly loud overtone of the major third that IS in the overtone series, and is already present within the bass note of the note/chord you are playing. Try this out on any instrument and you'll see. Needless to say if you added an augmented or diminished 5th, or an augmented or diminished 8ve to the chord it would sound REALLY dissonant, and totally unstable.

[@tonicogsf]

+Alice Artzt first of all, thanks for answering. About the major/minor third, I know the major is in the overtone series, as we can see on the 4th fret, near the 9th fret, 16th, etc. What I was saying is: Why is exactly the minor 3rd, and not the "minors" (i know thats not their names) 5th and 8ths? I mean, I know a diminished 5th sounds quite dissonant, but why just "strange" and not especifically "sad". I mean, if we lower a half tone to all the notes that are in the harmonics, why is just the 3rd that, apart from dissonant, really brings the sadness? Maybe it's just cultural, something that is the way because we chose?

[@Guitartzt]

It may be a combination of things. Octaves and 5ths are so close to sounding like a unison, since they are so early in the overtone series, that any slight deviation up or down from them sounds like an out of tune note clashing with the in tune fundamental note. The major third is the first of the overtones that is far enough away and different enough that it really does not sound like a unison - it gives a really specific color to a "chord" that contains the fundamental with an added 3rd. So lowering it to a minor 3rd doesn't sound like a clash with the fundamental to anything like the degree an augmented or diminished 5th or octave will. And to us, it doesn't sound like a clash at all, though probably to 16th century people it did sound more like a clash. This is also a matter of custom and history and what one is used to. 16th century people were not used to listening to Stravinsky or to modern film scores with all sorts of crazy dissonances. They did not end pieces on 9th chords the way lots of jazz and pop musicians do these days. We also are very used to tempered tuning, which would sound a bit out of tune to anyone a few centuries ago - pre Bach's time. Tempered tuning 5ths and 4ths are NOT perfect, and we accept them - people in the 16th century probably would not have done so very readily. So our ears, and our expectations, are not as clean and pure as theirs were. Some is psychological and some is expectation. There is a good book I read many years ago called Emotion and Meaning in Music by Meyer. I don't remember too much about it but do remember finding it very helpful and informative. You might find it helpful.

[@tonicogsf]

+Alice Artzt hmm I see, so it's probably just dissonant enough that we can accept it, even though it's not on the series (like sad things are Inevitable in life, while strange things, like in a creepy way, can be avoidable), since the major 3rd it's further up on the overtone series. It's kind of interesting that I was trying possibles harmonics on the low E and I also found the 7b (D), the 2th (F#) and something quite weird, which seemed to me to be kind of between the 4th and 4th aug (A and A#) - although this last one was really hard to hit in the right spot, and the sound seemed kind of pitchy, not sure why haha

[@Guitartzt]

Yes as you keep going up the overtones they get closer and closer together and become what we'd call quarter tones - and eventually even closer than that. There are Eastern European scales (and probalby others also) that use notes that are closer together than our semi tones. And if you've every heard a trumpet player overblow really hard, they get a sort of chromatic screetch that covers a lot of those very close together notes you are finding. That's actually why the French horn is so very hard to play and why they make so many mistakes. They have a VERY long tube and are often playing all those very high overtones that are so close together it is extremely hard to hit one instead of another - so very easy to blow a little too hard or not heard enough and get the wrong overtone, and be at another pitch completely or one that is a quarter tone wrong.

[@vd_sv]

You are a genius

[@Guitartzt]

Well thank you very much, but not at all. One only has to figure out the overtone series to see what's going on. I've been interested in acoustics for some time... fascinating stuff.

[@grandpaobvious]

i would say "portentous" rather than sad. Thanks for an interesting fact about the inherent dissonance of the minor keys.

[@Guitartzt]

Minor chords can evoke many different reactions and feelings in people - their instability and the muted dissonance in them can be perceived in many ways - and this will depend also on how the composer uses such chords. One old music teacher I knew used to say all minor pieces sound Russian. So the main thing is that they don't sound stable or happy.

[@theresepraisethelord201]

I meant the new one 😀🤗 Upload for us new ones

[@Guitartzt]

For that I need time to do them, and time is what I have very little of just now. Hopefully in the future I'll manage to make more videos.

[@stephenfreeman7808]

Thank you. I liked this a lot. However, after reading the comments I realized that some people don't seem to quiet understand what you are saying. They think that you have explained why a minor chord is sad. That subject, I think, would need to be a bit longer of a video that would start by explaing that any given pitch is created because there are a certian amount of vibrations happeninng per a given amount of time. In other words, frequency. How frequently the vibrations occour. If the number of vibrations per a given amount of time (or frequency) is halved or doubled then it would sound the same pitch but a different octave. Using ratios, one would go on to explain how the frequency of a 5th relates to the frequency of its root. Then how a major thirds frequency relates to its roots frequency... anyway don't misunderstand me. In my estimation it's a good video. But some have misunderstood it. It seems to me that your intention is to make people aware that there is an unwanted but unavoidable high pitched major third sounding in a minor chord that basically interacts with the other notes creating dissonance and/or making an unresolved sound. So if the composers could have somehow done away with these overtones, then they would have just ended the music with a minor chord instead of major chord, and that minor chord would have still been sad without the overtones, however it wouldnt have sounded dissonate and unresolved. It's not the sad part that was the problem. And it's not the overtones that make the minor chord sad. It's sad because it has a minor third, and as I said, why a minor third is sad is a different subject. it's got me thinking about how each note of the chord has these overtones and how they all relate back to the root of the chord... But, come to think of it, I'm now remembering the title of the video, and it doesn't seem to jive with what I'm saying. I didn't scrutinize the video, I just watched it and thought about things as I was watching it. Maybe you did claim that the overtones are the reason a minor chord is sad... now I'm confused

[@Guitartzt]

Glad this got you thinking. My main point is that the sadness or instability, or lack of consonance and stability, of the minor third is due to the conflict with the overtone series that contains a pretty prominent and very audible major third when played by nearly any instrument. This really bothered musicians centuries ago, when their ears were probably a bit purer and less influenced by all the dissonances in modern jazz or 20th century music. We still do feel that conflict - and actually also many people notice the bests created by this dissonance, and we equate it with sadness or something not quite stable or solid. But of course I cannot give a full course in acoustics in such a short video. For that read Helmholtz "On the Sensations of Tone" - which I read in High School and was fascinated by.

[@stephenfreeman7808]

@@Guitartzt why thank you for the reply. I can remember the first time I experienced this phenomenon... It jumped out at me, but I had no earthly idea what was going on at that time, so I was beyond fascinated with the sound that I was hearing. I was mesmerized. I just sat there staring at the guitar playing the same chord over and over for a very long time. It was a gibson explorer big enough to make a coffee table out of. I must have by chance had all the knobs set just right on everything to cause all the right underlying notes to be really pronounced. It was an E5 chord at the 7th fret, with both E strings and the B string open. So 3 different E notes, one of which had a duplicate, and a B note that was also duplicated. It was like one of those magic eye things. Different harmonies would seemingly appear out of nowhere. Then I would loose focus on a particular sound only to have another one come into focus. I had no idea what the heck was going on. In this case It sounded incredibly pleasing as I had no minor third, and no third at all actually. I wasn't playing an E major, but that's clearly what was coming out of my amplifier. Knowing what I know now, I can imagine that I was at the least getting a high F# in there, as it's the 5th of the B note. So that was making a beautiful add9 sound. And maybe even the B notes major third, creating a soft major7 sound against the E root ... Anyway, see, you did get me to thinking... thanks again

[@Guitartzt]

With all those Es, you'd have had a bunch of G#s also, which is why you heard an E Major chord despite not playing the G#. This also works backwards as well. When you hear an orchestra play on a little table radio with tiny speakers, you think you hear the double basses play their notes. But those little speakers can't actually do that. What you hear is the overtones of what the double bass instruments are playing, and your ear, hearing that, automatically assumes that there must be lower notes down there making those overtones, so you "hear" the lower notes. Acoustics is fascinating and worth some study, since it helps understand things about guitar playing and what you need to hang onto, and what you can release, and why certain notes can be left out of chords and still sound, and a whole bunch of other things... etc etc etc - all useful info.

[@stephenfreeman7808]

@@Guitartzt I should have mentioned the G# ... so like you said in the video, a lower note naturally produces overtones that are other higher pitched notes, but also, a lower note thats not really there can apparently be conjured up by playing it's overtones. You're talking about some fascinating stuff

[@Guitartzt]

For sure fascinating. Also take a look at a guitar note on an oscilloscope sometime - the initial peak is very sharp and pointed = high (loud), the decay is super fast, and the sustain very low and soft....which is info you need for recording the guitar and also to know when you need to damp bass string and when you don't.

[@aquarius5264]

i like how a lot of music is just kinda feeling it out lol

[@Guitartzt]

It's mostly designed to work that way.

[@sitiaqilah6927]

Hey..i dont know if you know kpop..but please try to listen to im ok by iKON because the song have major and minor chord that people said it create dissonance.

[@morpheusk1395]

If she was my grandma I would like to learn from her

[@Guitartzt]

Why would I have to be your grandmother to teach you? I have a lot of students and am not the grandmother to any of them.

[@frfrchopin]

Minor sounds sad because it's in the UNDERTONE SERIES which mirrors the fundamental major as the subdominant minor. That's why it sounds negative.

[@alphaphilosophy8450]

I have heard mixed results on this. Some have told me that Major and Minor have equivalent beating, others have said minor does have more. Beats are measured as f2-f1= beat. If I build a Major triad off of 400hz I get 400, 500, 600. If we look with pure sine waves we can measure the beats of the fundamental. Major triad: 400, 500, 600 500-400 = 100. 600-500 = 100. 600-400 = 200. Sum beating = 100+100+200 = 400. Minor triad: 400, 480, 600 480-400 = 80. 600-480 = 120. 600-400 = 200. Sum beating = 80+120+200 = 400. They are equivalent beating in the fundamental with sine waves. The harmonics should scale equivalently and still get the equal beating? If as saw wave was played would the beating still be equivalent for Major and Minor triads? I have personally always thought of minor as slightly more dissonant and can hear the beating in the minor triad vs major, though the math seems to say they are equivalent?

[@Guitartzt]

Quick beats between notes that are quite close to each other make the interval sound tense. The point is that the beats generated between the major third (generated naturally by the actual bass note of the chord) and the minor third of a minor chord, SOUND dissonant, and the beats between those notes sound tense. Just listen. Adding up total beats and all your math make no sense to me. Just listen and you will hear.

[@mohamedhabib8982]

Appropriate analysis

[@bzeliotis]

Great explanation.

[@Guitartzt]

Many thanks.