Why Do Minor Keys Sound Sad to Me? (2024)

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Have you ever wondered, “Why do minor keys sound sad and major keys sound happy?” Has this phenomenon been hardwired into us, or does culture impact how we perceive scales? In fact, it’s a little bit of both. Read more to learn how this works.

This post uses some technical words. For descriptive links, see the Glossary below.

Why do minor keys sound sad? Because of the melodic relationships. If you play the white keys on the keyboard from C to C, it’ll have a bright or happy sound. Conversely, if you play from A to A, it’ll have a dark or sad sound.

This happens because the pattern of whole (w) and half (h) steps changes between the minor and major scales. The C major scale has a pattern of w, w, h, w, w, w, h. You can see this on the keyboard diagram below.

The white keys all have black keys in between them – except for E & F and B & C. E & F and B & C are the half steps from the previous pattern.

In contrast, the A minor scale has a pattern of w, h, w, w, h, w, w. Because our ears hear in relative rather than absolute terms, the pattern shift completely changes the sound. Listen to the soundtracks to hear the difference.

When you play notes together their harmonics interact. What are harmonics? Each note has a collection of pitches called harmonics that fuse together into one huge note called a complex tone. (See the chart below.)

When the critical bands between the harmonics in a chord overlap, it creates roughness. Suffice it to say that this creates the sense that some intervals and chords will be bright and others dark. You can hear this on the soundtracks below.

This partially explains why minor keys sound sad. For the rest of the explanation see the conclusion. For details on harmonics, fusion, critical bands, and the chart, read Harmony Is Tone Color.

I’ve provided the soundtracks to help illustrate the difference between minor and major sounds. However, the soundtracks have also been specially designed to help you sing in tune. If you’d like to see more Singing in Tune posts, click here for The Intonation Flight Simulator.

We’ve talked about why minor and major keys sound dark and bright, but why do minor keys sound sad and major keys sound happy? Your culture attaches meaning to the keys.

Not all cultures hear minor and major keys as sad and happy. In India, they have major scales that they consider to be sad, while they think some of the minor scales sound happy.

Because you grew up in (or were influenced by) Western society, you’ve learned to interpret the bright sounding major scale as happy. Likewise, you’ve absorbed through movies, MP3s, and the internet that the dark sounding minor scale should be sad.

However, when listening to non-western music, it’ll be better to think of the scales in terms of bright and dark.

Therefore, the fact that minor keys sound dark to us has been hardwired into our bodies. However, the emotional interpretation of the dark sounding key as being sad comes from Western culture.

Related Content:

• How Does Your Brain Learn to Play the Piano with Two Hands?
• Ways Around the Difficulty of Playing the Piano Due to Short Fingers and Small Hands
• How to Overcome the Fear of Performing in Front of an Audience
• Why It’s So Hard for Someone with a Good Ear to Learn Sheet Music
• Do I Really Have to Learn Music Theory to Learn How to Play Piano?
• Why Do Pianists Occasionally Play Their Hands at Different Times as They Perform
• What Are the Small “>” Signs Above or Below the Notes?
• After They Can Sight-Read What’s Left for Musicians to Learn?

© 2023 Geoffrey Keith

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• Chord
• Complex tones
• Critical bands
• Fusion
• Half step
• Harmonics
• Harmony
• Interval
• Intonation
• Major
• Melody

• Minor
• More tips
• Music of India
• Note
• Pitch
• Relative key
• Roughness
• Scale
• Tone color
• Western society
• Whole step