How are you the top comment with ten likes and no pin?

@@SewerYum beats me, dude

@@SewerYum “DESTINY” - most reasons for ancient emperors

Very true

We have to thank Bright Eyes for making major tonality a lot harder to listen to, good lord, they have a lot of songs that have really pessimistic lyric over an joyously happy instrumental with emo-like vocals.

Yesterday, Tears in Heaven...

That uses a minor 4 chord, and I - iv is one of the saddest chord movements (I think at least)

A-ha - Lifelines

i think the word he was looking for was melancholic when describing the major sad feeling

@@Isalick34major to minor 4 chord especially creep comes to mind

i just realized

LOL you use this joke to me?

thats actually smart asf

Minors?

I love minor NO NO WAIT

This is remarkable. I have browsed a large bit of of the comments and you are the only other one to mention this that i have found so far

Same in the Balkans

@@lilemont9302 Good to know. That is not widespread knowledge

Interestingly, Hungarian (the language from the Moon) also has dur and moll for the two most common modes of music, and none of the major/minor

@@vale.antoni Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's like that everywhere that the German academic music tradition influenced, instead of the French academic music tradition.

Well done - I think you captured that perfectly.

That's a really good way of putting it

so true! the word i kept thinking of, especially with "when somebody loved me" is "nostalgia." major key sadness is "i wish i could go back to this." minor key sadness is "i wish that never happened"

Yeah, minor key sadness is like my grandma's funeral, major key sadness is like visiting my grandma's grave at the cemetery.

@@darlingdannid Exactly! I was thinking of it similarly, wistful, there's a sense of longing. And nostalgia is perfect, you want to go back but that time, that place, that community, doesn't exist anymore, you can never go back

natural minor is almost never actually used, they all have raised 7th, its not what makes it "happier", they just sound bad without raised 7th

Melodic minor also usually has a raised 6th

That’s not correct. HARMONIC minor has a raised 7th, not melodic minor.

@@nicholasbarrera4589 um actually 🤓they both have a raised 7th but melodic also has the 6th.

There's a lot of songs in the Eastern European style that use this E7 - Am progression, sometimes as a I7-iv, and sometimes as a i-V7. Hannukah Oh Hannukah uses this (Am, happy song); Sunrise Sunset from Fiddler on the Roof uses this (Am, making use of the major V to uplift it from sad to nostalgic), and I play one called Stolichnaya (Am, upbeat song about drinking shitty vodka to drown out life's problems).

Prince Ali is minor too, I believe

Bittersweet is what you're looking for, me thinks.

@@seamusthatsthedog4819 Checks out.

😂

I honestly saw that bit and just thought it was the real video and that I'd just never known back then that that guy was in it!

Minor key happiness is the snarkiest of happy songs; they are happy in wry, ironic, happy-go lucky ways. Now a challenge: anyone know a happy Phrygian song?,

Yep, it’s a ridiculously good example of a song with a minor key chord progression that through some tricks of arrangement sounds very upbeat. Which is a perfect choice for its socially critical lyrics to feasibly sound like an endorsement, and that’s why it’s been so successful.

To me the best example of a happy minor key song is Bon Jovi’s “Livin on a prayer”.

That was written as a very sad song though, it was composed as a cynical critique. Which was actually a common theme in millenial EDM: Write a super sad/cynical song in a minor key, and package it as a happy eurodance hit.

@@odw32 yeah definetely, Dua Lipa’s “Levitating” follows the same pattern

The key actually does change for the last chorus 😅 G major to A major.

Right? I just got to that spot myself.

That's what should play when you lose the game

The "tetris theme" is actually a Russian folk song called Korobeiniki. (Nightcore version is even better)

Isn't it baked in tho? I mean... Phrygian is known as "Freygian" in Slavic/Yiddish folk music circles, or just the "Jewish scale", & to me that use of Phrygian says "Life is painful, so lets make a party out of it". I rarely get a sad/happy feeling from Phrygian. To me it's the most honest mode, & speaks of intensity, pragmatism, & passion to my ears. Simply human.

Check out Levi Niha's reimagining of the Tetris 99 theme.

Well, I've heard Rick Beato saying the same thing as Nigel several times. Granted, he chuckles every time he says it but still...

​@@smithjohn383there's no but still dude, it's just a joke

But it instantly makes people weep!

@@smithjohn383 He occasionally acknowledges the reference so it is a little humour creeping in.

Ah yes, the classic Lick My Love Pump

it depends on what song you listen to. Some songs you won't even notice are in a minor key bcus of the mood.

I think you sorta nailed it, not a question between Major=Happy and Minor=Sad ... it's more like minor has more tension in it. A couple that Bennett mentioned as minor being happy ARE sorta happy, but with a tense energy. And many major songs are definitely heartbreakers. So one of the problems is confusing the lyrical message. And I'd agree with Bennett how either can be happy or sad, but it's more a matter of the musical energy comparison of major vs minor, with with major having a clarity and minor having a tension, and that can be sculpted into happy or sad in both.

or angry or haughty

The tetris theme def gives me anxious, rushed kinda sense

tbh minor "happy" songs remind me of how i felt when i got given compazine for a migraine- which fits this- anxious, jittery, anticipatory i guess are the words?

If you haven't already heard pianist Paul Sullivan's upbeat version of it, you might enjoy it!

I disagree, "tidings of comfort and joy" has rarely held less comfort or joy than they do in "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen." It depends on which version I suppose, but mostly they have that "true joy and happiness is a bit sinful, so let's not take it too far, lads." kind of sound like most Christian religious music. It sounds positively dour.

Not just the pitch and tempo, but E-minor, like yellow, is the key of consciousness. So "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" is sort of like a song about taking "group-think" seriously. - _The Acoustic Rabbit Hole_

@@rebeccaschade3987it only has that vibe because organists play super slowly. See, the trouble with organs is that you can't hear the beat: all the notes just blend into one another. People with no musical training can't stick to a beat if they're not being constantly reminded of it, and if someone is unsure of themselves they tend to slow down, so the organist slows to compensate. Assuming no choir member speaks up and reminds the organist that they need to breathe, it just continues like that. "Merry" means horny, that song is a jig, and E minor is the sexy key. It's the relative minor of B major, the "hero punch villain" key. Like it's relative major, E minor is confidant: but where B major is brash, E minor is like a musical mona lisa smile. It says "hey, want to see something cool?" Most club music either is in E minor, or uses E minor chords a lot: it's the third of G minor, which is probably the most common chord in blues and bluegrass. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun is in E minor for the first section, which is what clues you in to what kind of "fun" it is the girls want to have (yeah, that song is about abortion in case you weren't aware). But notice that song is quite fast and has a triplet pulse. Like God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, it's also a jig: an Irish jig, which is faster than the normal kind. Probably the best example of how drastically tempo can change a song is My Country 'tis of Thee. It's the exact same melody that the British use for God Save the King, but it's twice as fast. This is actually the Americans preserving the older performance practice, while the Brits slowed the song down so it would be more dramatic. Because of the need to distinguish the two songs, the old performance practice got fossilized in America even though it's not like we didn't go for schmalz in the 19th Century. So, when you're considering a song like God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, you have to understand that it was performed much faster and without as much ornamentation when it was popular. The way I first learned it, in a church which was founded at the time that song was popular, was as a round with the carol singers divided into two sections (both mixed voices, as was the custom in the 17th Century). Standing outside on a wintry afternoon, the tendency is rather to speed up than slow down: when you're all tense from the cold, it's hard to hold a note. That's the intended performance practice for that song: you show up at your neighbor's door, cheekily wish them a sexy night and they serve you hot spiced cider called wassail (in the old days it was mildly alcoholic, nowadays usually not). By all means, dislike religion, but don't hold prejudices that keep you from learning your own history.

A lot of sad major key songs use major tonics but a lot of minor chords *from the key* (ii, *iii,* and vi), as well as often the iv and even v - but especially the iv. In fact, I wrote a song called “Wit’s End” in G major, but the chord progression in the verse is I - vi - iii - ii (note how it also descends in the scale). And then I go to bVI and II, both a tritone apart, in the chorus, which are both major chords, one of which borrowed from the minor key. It doesn’t sound sad but instead beckoning, because it borrow’s minor’s power for urgency but on a major chord. The major-diatonic chords sound more wistful, but they resolve back to major immediately and lack a minor iv or v, so it sounds easygoing and easy to bring back to major. It’s also in how I’ve brought together the pieces though; music’s to be heard, not just read. There’s also power in the III chord, which implies an impending resolution to the relative minor. “Creep” uses both that and the iv to indicate wistfulness in a major key. Same with “The Air That I Breathe”, “Get Free”, we know the story haha. Note how using the bVI or bIII (major chords from minor ethos) generally doesn’t create sadness but does create urgency, however using the vi(°) or even iii (minor chords from major ethos) often creates poignancy or wistfulness. Meanwhile tonally “androgynous” chords like the IV7 and v6, as well as even the ivmM7 and VI7 (the last tonicizes the ii, which has both a brightening and darkening effect… I find anything with the ii is very contextual, more than usual) tend to create a harmonic jolt or increase in energy, even a bluesy or even more so versatile aspect. To each their own. There’s this one song, it may come back to my mind, it uses the progression I - V - ii - *iv,* and it sounds so starkly sad for that. That ii to iv aspect (both minor chords) is very useful. “No Surprises” by Radiohead for instance relies a lot on it.

@@gillianomotoso328 @gillianomotoso328 Yes, I agree with all of that. I think some of what you're talking about also touches on modes (such as flirting with the mixolydian v which tends to sound very wistful, or the dorian mode, or double plagal cadences and things like that). There is tonal ambiguity and borrowing and displaced progressions and all sorts of things which can create various moods and colors. Interesting stuff.

@@gillianomotoso328 Send me a link to your music and I'll check it out! 🙂

Yeah, agreed :)

@@glennpagemusic where would be good to send? I could have you give my Instagram a look… though, I don’t have “Wit’s End” recorded anywhere :/

Creep is also in major key (i suspect it will show up later in the video lol)

Motion Picture Soundtrack is also in a major key.

Most of Radiohead's saddest songs are in major key. Let Down as well

And funny enough, what I would consider Radiohead's most upbeat songs are all in minor key Electioneering and Bodysnatchers for example

Daydreaming and How to Disappear Completely are sad as fuck and they are in minor key

Thank you!

rick beato?

Though we use the word too much now, that’s practically the definition of nostalgia.

@@landrypierce9942 good word, and true. I suppose the feeling I described has less of the sweetness which I would associate with nostalgia, although it's splitting hairs at this point.

Exactly. And you could also use it for nostalgia. If used properly, IMO, this much sadder than anything you can get with minor. It's just human nature: sad is okay, but you're telling me, once upon a time, you used to be happy? Now that's truly depressing. After watching this video, I thought back on all the songs I put on to feel sad. A lot of them are on major keys, ad yes, the lyrics are usually mourning a loss, acknowledging things used to be better, but there's no way to get that back.

I feel like Randy Newman mastered this. The scene where Sully says goodbye to Boo or where Andy leaves for College

Brilllllliant observation. Thank you for this

Holy shit is that mark cooper?

​@@yoavboaz1078No it's the map from map men

mmmhmmm, adjacently- what's the mode of skin sofa?

Shout out Crazy Ex-Girlfriend!

Other standouts are the peppy Bonetrousle and infamous Item Bounce.

The Tetris theme is an example of that (it's based on an old folk song called 'Korobeiniki')

​@@rw100 Спасибо!

Yeah, but a whole lot of it, & I'm going to include Yiddish folk here, since they pull from the same source material, has this underlying theme of hardship to it. It's like -life is hard and full of sadness, but were going to carry on anyway, since we don't have much of a choice in the matter.

Seems like nearly all eastern European dance music is in the minor, though it's all for happy-dance occasions.

True, but a lot of folk music is also like that meme with the dog tied to a chair in a burning room. "Ring around the rosy, pocket full of posy..." yeah, that's about the Black Death. Spirituals were first sung by slaves yearning for freedom. They might be very danceable, but "happy" is often not really the right word. It's more like "if we don't throw a party we're all going to lose it, so ignore the dead bodies".

To be fair, "Drunken Sailor" is Dorian, not purely minor (harmonic minor, melodic minor, or Aeolian).

Dorian is still a minor scale though. It has the flat 3rd and flat 7th which is pretty much the defining characteristic of minor chords.

@@Ghi102 It's a minor mode, but it's brighter than Aeolian or harmonic minor thanks to its major 6th. Melodic minor can also still be somewhat darker than Dorian despite having a major 6th and 7th since those raised notes were traditionally used only when ascending.

I was caught off guard when I heard the verses for the first time

Happy minor keys are really common in reggae too!

Its all going great until the “everyone you know will die” line 😭

GUTBUCKET, I see the key of E a yellow and "realized" that The Flaming Lip's song "What is the Light" is written in yellow. E-major!!!

​@Acoustic-Rabbit-Hole "what is the light" is in D major though

@@MeMeMcsplosion OMG (Oh my Goddess) we were BOTH wrong. I'm here at my piano. You said it's in D (orange to me) I said it's yellow (E). The song is in-between! It's in E-flat! (And, incidentally, is see E-flat as a golden yellow. Golden light!).

Me when I lie

Couldn’t agree with you more.

yeah with the natural 7

I agree and I would like to add that I find that most minor songs are either menacing (slow legato sort of thing) or rebellious/independent/angry (upbeat but dark) rather than sad. Except Moonlight Sonata first movement. That one's sad. Beautiful, but sad.

@@perseusgaming365 For me Beethoven's moonlight sonata mvt 1 isnt' really "sad" in my opinion. I felt it was more 'atmospheric', a calm, dream-like piece that felt like you were at the start of a long journey. it's not the kind of melancholy i'd associate with minor as other people typically would.

Last time I heard it I was at a funeral. It became so poignant that it reduced me to tears.

Every chord in the (clockwise) circle of fifths progression in JImi Hendrix's "Hey Joe" is major

😂

"Operator" is another Jim Croce song in a major key (G major) that is definitely not a happy song.

Similar to what David mentioned in I'm Still Standing. Lamenting verse in Bb, hopeful chorus in Bbm.

Amazing. Wow. // Ektd, did you know that Beethoven's 9th Symphony, the "Ode to Joy" is _sort of_ in D-minor, but really it's building up to a conversion into D major. A sort of inner-metamorphasis from sadness to happiness. Come and see my note-to-color music theory at: _The Acoustic Rabbit Hole!_

Thank you!

Sorry, natural minor takes the cake here for poignance. The VI-i is classic, the i-VI is classic, basically every sequence and combination of the v VI VII & i chords Plus inversions can create an extremely poignant chord progression, and it's extremely flexible too.

I'd argue that the minor plagal cadence is far sadder. It involves the major 4 being a cornerstone of the major key but then injuring it by going to the minor 4 instead before resolving. That is the saddest chord move I could think of. Also, harmonically, the minor plagal cadence is the exact opposite to the perfect 5-1 cadence so it sounds just as perfect. 1 to 3 is sad and commonly used, but 1 to dominant 3 with a flat 13th that resolves down and then the minor 6 chord just squeezes more emotion out of it. I know I know... no need to overcomplicate it. Keep it simple, stupid.

The 'Saddest" chord progressions are chains of suspensions like in Beethoven's"Moonlight Sonata", Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings", and Pergolesi "Stabat Mater".

@@battleframestudios8989 I used it in my comment. I gave it second place only because it's not TRUE major. It borrows from minor.

Me too. Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and the hymn "O Sacred Head Sore Wounded" are very poignant. And there's something very evocative about Pink Floyd's "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun.

This is the only comment I've "disagreed" with, but scales/modes are often more up in the air for emotional interpretation. Also what you hear as cold is understandably interpretive, because to me Phrygian is almost neutral. There's certainly not a lot of happiness going on, but I don't often hear sadness either. I hear anger/intensity/humanity/passion.

That also depends on context. A lot of Spanish or Arabic music in phrygian can sound warm and upbeat

@@RusNad Very true, & I was trying to come up w/some examples for that, but I was in a rush. Duh, Brittany Spears "Toxic" 😂 Still, even those happier songs, have a sort of intensity that other music just doesn't have. I've always been attracted to Phrygian over other modes since I was a child. It just feels honest to me. And it's got nothing to do w/origin since I'm a whiteboy born in Wyoming lmao.

Not as cold as the fridge-ian

Wow, thanks for mentioning Mika's Relax, Take It Easy. Haven't heard that song in years

Wake me up when September ends and Welcome to the black parade{Sometimes I get a feeling section} use very similar chord progressions actually, with the descending bass line (of the major scale).But September ends has a minor plagal cadence,so more melancholy from that.

@@avijatsinharoy8944 I know, David did a great video about those descending chord progressions and a great video about the minor plagal cadence. Still they’re both in the major key and sad

@@robinonion great songs 🙃

@@alessandrosummer thanks buddy

Thanks 😊

hahahah i knowwwwww

Yeah, that song always makes me cry.

What is that song?

​@@lepacs14The one from toy story

True. listening by heart is what allows different chords to trigger certain emotions in us 👍🏻

Great 😊

One of my favourite melodies in any genre...

You tell him

Good luck with that... 😂

Did he disagree with you?

Beato actually called out a sad song being in a major key recently claiming it should have in a minor key. I couldn't help but laughing!

Beato is a a KZfaq snake oil infomercial,,,,all he is doing is trying to sell you shit.....

Thanks 😊

@@DavidBennettPiano Yes, I rate it better than the average David Bennett Piano video, which is already a high bar

@@zzzaphod8507 thanks 😊

Another great video. Highly informative, and fascinating. I love the drawing upon well-known pop/rock songs to illustrate the technical point being explained. More!

Thank you!!

Thank you 😊

Thank you! 😃

😃😃

I thought that from just the thumbnail

Yes, Sultans of Swing is melancholy rather than sad, but certainly not happy.

Thanks!

Many of Beethoven’s scherzo movements- the comic relief of his works, effectively- are in minor key. I don’t think anyone would describe the D minor scherzo to the 9th as sad, but there’s an almost comedically obsessive quality to it.

Thank you 😊

@DavidBennettPiano I just had a thought. I was listening to Paul talk about Yesterday in an interview, he said he initially assumed it was inspired by some old Jazz song his dad used to play. So, has anyone found that song since? I can't really find anything about it

Glad you enjoyed it 😃😃