VLVL2 (12): Minor Chords

[Tim Strzechowski]

225.6:  "A kind of promotional jingle more than a song, and about as up-tempo as anything would get around here tonight, the 'Toids preferring minor chords and a dragged recessional pulse."


The discussion of mood of certain types of keys and chords is a great one!   Joseph Machlis's The Enjoyment of Music has this to say:

"Is the minor scale "sadder" than the major?  Such connotations exist only in reference to the music of a particular time and place.  The nineteenth century seems to have regarded the minor as more somber than the major.  The funeral music of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Wagner, and Grieg is conspicuously in the minor.  [. . . ] The minor mode has a certain exotic ring to Western ears and is associated in the popular view with oriental and east European music"

Almost all classical work features some minor as well as major (or "happier" chords), but what sets the somber, pensative tone is the domination of the minor.  Personally, I think the "creepiest" chord is certainly the diminished chord.  Listen to a horror film soundtrack, and I guarantee you diminished chords galore!  I have a book, somewhere on my shelves, which discusses the supposed chord that summons the devil when played.  I seem to remember it was "D diminished."  One simple way of explaining the structure of dimished chords is that it's a sort of "double minor," that is, two minor intervals stacked together and played at once.  

However, a lot of funk music and reggae have upbeat or medium-tempo songs that don't really sound quote/unquote sad, yet are in minor chords.  So, of course, it's not safe to generalize.  Ne'ertheless: 

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/piano/77057
"The idea that a major chord denotes a happy emotion and a minor chord denotes a sad emotion is largely a matter of convention and conditioning. In many cases, western music will follow this very general rule. However, I'm sure if you think about it for awhile, you can think of music, particularly from outside the western world, that is upbeat while using alot of minor chord sounds. Even in western music there are many exceptions to the "major is happy, minor is sad" rule. 

"Two notable exceptions to this major/minor rule are some new age music, and some contemporary jazz. Both of these styles use major and minor chords as well as chords that might not be easily categorized as either major or minor. Yet, a listener may have a distinct sense of whether the music sounds happy or sad. Furthermore, one person's impression may differ from another person's impression."

http://www.abc.net.au/newengland/countrymusic/stories/s1029660.htm 


"All dominant 7th chords have an interval structure within them which is called a tritone. A tritone is the distance between the 3rd and the b7 of a dom7 chord, and it spans the interval of a b5. You will notice that even if you invert it, it remains a b5. This is because it splits the octave exactly in half. It gets it's name from the fact that it is comprised of three steps, or whole tones...hence the name, "tritone". Because of it's omnimous sound and mysterious properties, this interval was banned from music during medival times and was commonly referred to as "The Devil's Interval". It found it's way into many hard rock and heavy metal tunes (bands like Black Sabbath), probably for the same reasons. They also have a very recognizable, "diagonal" shape on the fretboard."

http://www.wholenote.com/default.asp?iTarget=http%3A//www.wholenote.com/cgi-bin/page_view.pl%3Fl%3D3828%26p%3D8


And thanks to Popilius for the musical theory!
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