Can Music Be / What Makes Music Sad?

[the captain]

Ben Ratliff of NYT wrote this a week or so ago. I just noticed it this morning. If the topics raised therein interest you, by all means, discuss. What about "sad music" makes it sad? Is it inherent in notes? In words? Is it a product more of craft or of honesty? What does this say about affectation or authenticity?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/arts/music/in-praise-of-blue-notes-what-makes-music-sad.html?ref=music

[the captain]

Wow, great topic, captain! You're wise and handsome! I have something to say about it.

This is my take on the overarching areas I find interesting, and it actually links somewhat into another article to which I linked the other day, about musicians needing philosophy. I don't think music itself (minus words) can be sad: I think that's entirely a cultural construct. We've been trained to think a minor third in particular symbolizes sad, just like we've been trained to think a major seventh chord is happy or a fully diminished chord portends doom. But that said, I reject the idea that western/functional harmony is entirely a cultural construct. Harmony is in large part based on natural overtones, which is why a perfect fifth is such a fundamental part of the structure. Because of that stability, the aforementioned fully diminished chord may not inherently portend doom, but it absolutely does inherently give an unstable feeling, which can be easily manipulated by a composer--an aural manipulator--to function in the way horror-movie scores have made it function.

On the authenticity side, I don't give any particular value to the "authentic." I don't care if you're singing about something that you've experienced. I don't think the end result is necessarily improved. A craftsman can create something that feels more authentic than an unskilled honest musician. And often I think we reverse-engineer our observation of authenticity into artists because we know their stories.

[Ron]

What makes music sad is the minor key it's written in. 

[JK]

What makes music sad is the minor key it's written in. 

I don't know about that. The Band's "It Makes No Difference" is heartbreaking----and it's in a major key. The Hollies' "Bus Stop" is upbeat (new love blossoming)----and that's in a minor key. Two out of many, no doubt.

The classic song that throws the whole major/happy--minor/sad bit out of the window is Elton John's "I'm Still Standing". The wound-licking verse is major and the triumphant chorus minor. Now that's weird----but it works!     

Just a couple of random thoughts on a fascinating subject...

[Emily]

When I had a baby I read a lot about babies, primarily how to take care of one, but I also read a lot about their vocal sounds. Why the awful nerve-wracking crying? And they make such cute little burbling sounds.

Turns out that babies have "accents" (inflections really) in their vocal noises like their parents do in their speech: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120131516

but pitch is an important communication tool for babies. Adults universally have a heightened physiological response to the sound of crying babies, whether or not it's their own baby. That response is more dramatic the higher the pitch of the crying and different pitches can mean different things: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/oct/17/crying-babies-hard-ignore, http://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/14/us/health-when-a-baby-cries-researchers-seek-clues-to-potential-problems.html?pagewanted=all, http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/22718/0000273.pdf?sequence=1;

And when I say 'universal' I mean universal - or at least global - it applies to mammals in general: http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/baby-s-cry-transcends-species

similarly, the way care-takers talk to babies with a shifted pitch is universal:
•Their voices become higher-pitched
•They use a wider pitch range (i.e., more distance between the highest- and lowest-pitched sounds)
•They exaggerate their emotional tone
•They speak in simpler, shorter utterances
•They use greater repetition
•They speak more slowly
•They give special emphasis to words by speaking them in isolation (“Ball!”)
•And, if they are English-speakers, they may also exaggerate the articulation of certain vowel sounds and position target words at the end of a sentence (“Look at the BALL!”)

http://www.parentingscience.com/baby-communication.html

This all came to mind when I read your post. Some human reactions to sounds are seemingly hard-wired and not cultural. As a test of myself, I just listened to a portion of The Seven Samurai (the most handy movie I had in a language I don't know at all) without watching and took note of what I interpreted the emotions to be based on sound alone. It's totally unscientific but I can tell by tone of voice if a person is happy, sad, angry, excited... This study shows that Irish people can identify a Swedish speaker's mood based on audio alone (to a degree) :http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~julia/papers/gobl03.pdf

I've found that there's some evidence that there is a universal perception of 'sad' in some music and 'happy' in other music:
from http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100108/full/news.2010.3.html:
"Most cultures share the same acoustic characteristics of happy or sad speech, the former being relatively fast and loud, and the latter slower and quieter. There's good reason to believe that music mimics some of these universal emotional behaviours, supplying a universal vocabulary that permits listeners sometimes to deduce the intended emotion in unfamiliar music.

For example, Western listeners can judge fairly reliably — based largely on tempo — whether pieces of Kyrghistani, Hindustani and Navajo Native American music were meant to be joyous or sad23. A study of the Mafa people of Cameroon, who had never heard Western music, also found that they could guess whether extracts were intended to be happy, sad or fearful."

But the evidence so far is murky with different studies showing different results:

Study showing some but little recognition of Western music mood by people unexposed:
http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/the-science-of-music-why-do-songs-in-a-minor-key-sound-sad
http://heller.brandeis.edu/sustainable-international-development/tsimane/wp/TAPS-WP-64.pdf

Study showing greater recognition of Western music mood by people unexposed:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090319132909.htm  (I found here links to some really interesting other articles as well)
http://pubman.mpdl.mpg.de/pubman/item/escidoc:722101:4/component/escidoc:722100/fritz.pdf
and another article based on a different study comparing Western and South Indian music:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120314172302.htm

My suspicion is that there is a lot in sound that is universal (scary animals make sounds that are scary to everyone, cute animals make sounds that are cute to everyone)... eta - some ugly animals make cute sounds that cause the "cute" reaction in humans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drkVaBWd0oY

I don't really expect that Western major or minor chords hit those mood points on the basis of being major or minor, but I'd expect that some chords (combination of pitches) would hit the same nerves universally.

Fascinating question. Must be because you are so wise and handsome.

[Emily]

On the authenticity side, I don't give any particular value to the "authentic." I don't care if you're singing about something that you've experienced. I don't think the end result is necessarily improved. A craftsman can create something that feels more authentic than an unskilled honest musician. And often I think we reverse-engineer our observation of authenticity into artists because we know their stories.

Regarding authenticity: sort of a landmine, but I think there are musicians who are more often crafting sounds and words while considering mainly the market or a specific audience and not with much reference to their psyche while other musicians are mining their psyches for their material and not considering the market or an audience while doing so. Of course most are usually doing both, but the emphasis varies a lot.
I think the craftsman vs the unskilled musician is a faulty comparison. Consider two skilled musicians: one is thinking "I will try to write so-and-so kind of song. I need to punch up the melody to make this more marketable. I should write certain type of words to appeal to audience x;" the other is pouring her guts out into a microphone.
'Authenticity' is not a word that I would use to describe the difference between the two ensuing products, but I do think that they are very different acts of creation. I think both are needed to make a strong appeal to my tastes but with a tiny bit more of a lean to the latter (though I really like some of Linda Ronstadt's work. Interpret that as you will. There are some sounds I find beautiful just on aural quality and I don't need anything more) - but then, I don't necessarily know how the artists of my favorite music were creating, so that's just an educated guess.

[JK]

Pity this fascinating topic stalled when it did. How about a sad song or two to keep it (and the wise and handsome OP) afloat?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctKlYHZOkUQ

[csparks]

Music surely does (sadly) have the ability to make you sad in many different ways. One of my saddest moments actually happened quite recently. I was in the gym, and the radio was on some Sirius channel. Tayor Swift's "Wildest Dreams" song came on the radio. Had never heard it, and didn't recognize her voice.

"He's so tall and handsome as hell
He's so bad but he does it so well....

Standing in a nice dress,
Staring at the sunset, babe
Red lips and rosy cheeks"

I couldn't imagine that this had actually been recorded, and was now playing over the air. I thought it sounded like a self-obsessed 15 year old girl who had been binge reading Wuthering Heights or Gone With The Wind. The truly sad part was when I later realized it was Taylor Swift, Grammy winner, and hottest thing around to the mindless generation of the music deprived.

Its enough to make you want to cry.

[the captain]

I think Swift's 1989 was a good album and Ryan Adams' cover of it was, too (and more to my liking). But I'll admit the lyrics couldn't compete with genius examples from the golden era. Say...

Love, love me do.
You know I love you.
I'll always be true.
So please love me do.

Now THAT is fucking brilliant. I mean, the depth. The genius. That's music for grown-ups, not teenagers. Deep. Layers of meaning.