Why are minor keys in music sad? | Tom Service

A new study finds that both western music and western speech use the interval of a minor third to communicate sadness. But which used it first?New evidence for a musical phenomenon we've taken for granted for centuries: that the minor key is sadder than the major. Dido's Lament is audibly bleaker than Kylie's I Should Be So Lucky' – although neither are as sad as the doleful monotone of the vuvuzelas that blared out from Bloemfontein on Sunday. A scientist in Massachusetts thinks she's discove...

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