Why do minor songs sound sad?

when a song remains the same except the tone, it usually feels happy to perform it in major and sad to perform it in minor. But occasionally there are exceptions, such as Van Morrison's minor song "Moon Dance", which can sound happy even if you don't understand the lyrics, while Rufus Wainwright's "Dinner At Eight" or The Smiths' "I Know it's Over" are all sad major music. Of course, we still have many examples about happy minor music or sad major music, but these are only exceptions, because everyone is still used to major music = happiness, while minor music = sadness. R.E.M's famous sad song "Losing My Relief" can confirm this theory. When we change the tone of this song to major, you will find that the mood of the whole song has also changed. Why can a simple tone change bring such a big change? Why do we automatically assume that when a song is performed in major, it will have a happy feeling, while minor will bring a sad feeling? This seems to be influenced by the cultural environment, especially those tunes appear in songs that we often hear, that is, familiar and memorable. These tunes that have been engraved in our minds will naturally let us guess the next tune of a song, which is also one of the processes in which people enjoy music. However, relying too much on the memorized tunes makes us react only when listening to a certain type of songs, and we can't accept new tunes. In the western music culture, the traditional major music in the west is music that can only be heard when celebrating festivals, such as Mendelssohn's "Wedding March" or Happy Birthday Song. When the whole country is jubilant, such as Buckingham Palace, Brian May's British national anthem will be played, and songs of happy moments at ordinary times, such as Kool &; The Gang's "Celebration" However, minor music will be used in mourning, such as Chopin's "Funeral March" and heartache, such as Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black"; Desperate, such as Johnny Cash's Hurt or Billie Holiday's Gloomy Sunday. Through these often heard songs, we are constantly brainwashed by the theory that major music equals happiness and minor music equals sadness, which leads us to make emotional reactions that we should have according to our previous listening experience. However, the excessive use of major music to create a happy atmosphere has caused western pop music to change this theory. Glen Schellenberg, a music psychologist, pointed out that in the past ten years, people have tried to accept minor music, and as a result, there is no evidence that we have become more depressed because of it. The relationship between major/minor music and emotion has become more complicated than before. Because everyone's cultural accomplishment is different, besides major and minor, there should be more delicate and deep elements in music that can trigger our emotional response. Through the example of Mafa tribe located in northern Cameroon, Tomas Friztz analyzed people's emotional reactions to music. The object of the study-－Mafa tribal group doesn't understand the traditional western music culture at all. Can they tell which song represents happiness and which one represents sadness? Although their reaction is not as good as that of western music listeners, the answer is, yes, they can still distinguish the happy or sad emotions they want to express in the song. Through the Mafa ethnic group and western music listeners, it is mentioned that the power of cultural influence and the experience of listening to songs in the past have created people's specific emotional reactions to established songs. Once again, without the impression of western music culture, Mafa people do distinguish the happy or sad mood in songs through some elements in music, so what kind of tone-major/minor can arouse our mood? Now, let's analyze the details of the sound in detail. The beat is one of the important parts. A simple minor chord (triad) usually replaces the major triad with a midrange close to the major tonic. For example, a triad in the key of C (C, E, G); The alto in C minor is E-flat (closer to C), but in C major we hear E (farther from C). The tonic (C) is the strongest and most attractive to our attention, so such minor chords will make people lose their senses, which is a tension arising from the intensive frequency of conflicts. Mafa ethnic group may be able to unite voice and emotion like us. Scientists have confirmed that the sound spectrum displayed by happy tone will be close to that of happy music, and conversely, the sound spectrum displayed by sad tone will be close to that of sad music. This theory that tone is related to music seems new, but it actually comes from an ancient theory. Aristotle (an ancient Greek philosopher) suspects that the influence of music on emotions is at least partly due to the imitation of our own sounds, such as those when we shout, scream or get angry. Many elements create happy and sad music, which includes different beats, timbres and rhythms, but major/minor is the key for us to extract an emotional message. This evaluation comes from our response to the sound structure of major and minor chords, but it is mainly related to our ancient and modern academics.