Many people mistakenly associate major chords with happiness while minor chords with sadness; this perception has nothing to do with the chords themselves.
Composing a sad song doesn’t have to be difficult when using appropriate chord progressions; creating such an opus could be achieved as easily as tapping into certain notes on a piano keyboard.
1. C major
Played slowly, this chord progression can create an emotive sense of sorrow or melancholy in music of many styles.
C major doesn’t require key signatures, making chord progressions much simpler to write in this key. To create sadder sounding chord progressions in C major, pair it with minor chord that shares notes similar to it – an Em chord with its top two notes is often recommended; when combined together it creates something known as minor plagal cadence.
Chord progressions can convey an incredible range of emotions when combined with melody and lyrics that elicit certain responses, but it’s important to keep in mind that music’s impactful emotional reactions vary according to who’s listening and listening to what. Knowing some basic rules of harmony may give songwriters a leg up when creating melodies that convey specific emotions or express certain experiences.
2. G major
Chord progressions are an invaluable asset in music. Though instrumentation, timbre, rhythm and melody all play an integral part of creating the overall effect of any song, chords remain the primary way chords communicate emotion through musical language.
Example: Most Western adults and children associate the sound of a simple’major’ chord (made up of root, third and fifth notes in a major scale) with joy; yet by simply shifting this chord down one note it becomes associated more commonly with sadness than joy.
These methods will enable you to write sad songs using many of the same techniques used in other genres of music. As either a songwriter or instrumentalist, try different chord progressions until one sounds emotionally sad to you before adding in other musical attributes for an enhanced emotional effect. Don’t underestimate just how far one or two chords can take you! Don’t worry: even if your only know one or two chords, you can still craft music that brings out emotions and brings about empathy in listeners.
3. E major
Chords are an essential element in any song, providing the foundation for melodies and inducing various emotional responses in listeners. Although there may be an assumption that major chords sound happy while minor chords elicit sadness in listeners, this assumption can be false since other factors like tempo, timbre, and rhythm can make even major chords sound sad as well.
This can be accomplished by pairing major chords with their depressing counterparts, such as pairing C major with its depressing counterpart the Em triad to add dissonance and create melancholy feelings. Another way of making major chords sound depressed is using sus 2 or add 9 chord progression, which increases dissonance while making them sound tense – such as John Denver’s song, “Take Me Home, Country Roads”.
4. F major
When discussing sad chords, it’s essential to keep in mind that there’s no set rule; rather it depends on how the chords are combined together and the emotions they convey in combination with other musical attributes such as tempo, timbre, rhythm and melody.
An effective way of making major chords more emotive is to play them with a non-diatonic minor triad – as seen in Lana Del Rey’s song, “Summertime Sadness”. This creates a dissonant feel and gives off an air of sadness that cannot be replicated elsewhere. This example can be found in “Summertime Sadness”.
Make a major chord sound saddened by adding dissonant ninth intervals such as sus 2 or minor add 9 chords that will create an empty, sad tone, as seen in Eagle-Eye Cherry’s “Save Tonight”. This technique can be utilized in a progression such as one found in Eagle-Eye Cherry’s “Save Tonight”.
Music can express many different feelings and the chords supporting melodies are an integral component. Some chords elicit sadness such as minor chords.
Western ears often interpret Ionian music mode-based major chord progressions as sounding happy; but can they sound sad as well? Yes they can; in this article we will look at five ways major chords progressions can convey sadness.
Major Triads
How a chord progression sounds sad depends on many elements of music like tempo, timbre, rhythm and melody – but one key reason people associate minor chords with sadness and major chords with happy music may lie within how major chords (consisting of root note, major third and perfect fifth notes) sound when lowered by half-step on piano keyboard keyboard.
Lowering the middle note makes the chord sound dissonant and sadder, something most major triads in music utilize to produce discordant chords. But major chords can also sound discordant when built using an inverted form with its low root note lowered an octave; this produces what is known as a major open-voiced chord with C, E and G as its constituent parts.
Major Triad Extensions
When playing a major chord, its lowest note is known as the root; middle note major third; and highest note perfect fifth are used to identify it. A major triad can also be inverted so as to change its order and create new sounds – flipping one note can alter how it sounds as well as making its composition unique.
Enhance the sound of major triads with chord extensions by stacking notes an octave higher. Common extensions include adding 9th, 11th, or 13th notes by stacking three notes stacked an octave higher.
Low playing volume of these chords creates a sad or melancholic sound to your music, or use a progression such as i-ii-VI-V from blues and country songs for an emotive effect that works well in slow or upbeat songs.
Major Seventh Extensions
The major seventh chord is an effective progression for creating emotive music that conveys feelings of sadness. Paired with minor chords, its combination creates an agitated and dissonant sound which conveys its intended message of sorrow through clashing notes in both chords’ overtone series.
Dissonance can be further increased by adding another note to the chord, creating an ever more discordant sound and making listeners anxious or tense as additional notes clash and create tension within the chord, rendering its sound even more discordant and discordant.
However, chord selection alone doesn’t determine emotion – other factors like tempo, melody, lyrics and instrumentation all influence how we experience music. Even so, being familiar with common chord progressions will provide you with a good starting point when writing original music of your own; understanding chord extensions will broaden your harmonic palette even further.
Major Scales
Music’s impact on emotion is highly subjective, yet most agree that major keys tend to sound happy while minor keys tend to sound sad. Why is this?
At its core, sad songs often owe their sadness to chord progressions. Chord progressions that feature minor triads and diminished chords tend to create this effect as the intervals used to build both major scales (W-H-W-H) and minor scales (W-H-W-H) vary slightly; meaning each note distance varies by an octave and a half.
As such, closer together notes feel happier while farther apart notes appear sadder. This contrast can create tension that can be used in music to convey sadness or emotion, using slower tempos, wider melodies, or minor chord progressions; such techniques are seen in songs by Lonnie Donegan such as House of the Rising Sun and Titanic’s My Heart Will Go On.