My theory on why we hear music the way we do.
The Joy of Music
Have you ever wondered why” Happy Birthday” sounds, well, happy? Why does the major key sound happy, and the minor key sound sad? I had a great article on Leonard Bernstein, which I’ve unfortunately lost, but remember him expressing similar views. My friend reminded me of this book of his.
I remember being in college when this question came to me for the first time. I don’t remember when this thought finally took this form of answer, but here is my first attempt at a musical explanation:
As I understand it, sounds – trucks driving by, chalk on the board, cats meowing, singing, everything - have the overtone series springing from them, all the time everywhere.
So when there is say a pitch, in this case, say a C note, the inaudible overtones immediately accompany this pitch (going up in pitch):
Octave
C
5th
C
MAJOR 3rd
5th
minor 7th
C,
major 2nd
and more.
So the first 5 pitches have what you see above. Since this is floating around us, and probably out in the spheres, there is a sense of “all’s right with the world-ness” to this. When we take the MAJOR 3rd, and we lower it ½ step, we have now thrown off that feeling and replaced it with a sound that we interpret differently.
Here is the part I like: In some cultures, that is taken and used as sad, gloomy, angry, tenderness,
nostalgia, doom. Beethoven’s Pathetique piano sonata is a great example of the troubled angry version:
Other cultures can take the same thing and instead create a feeling of depth, devotion, deeper meaning. Listening to chanting by my Persian friends, for the past 35 years, I get to experience this beauty often:
And with that, I am done here. I have lots more questions. I am interested in hearing any ideas people may have - feel free to leave comments or contact me with your ideas. I’ll follow up with further development of the idea in forthcoming posts.