Topic: The Minor Third

[Nichi]

Music and speech share a code for communicating sadness in the minor third
By Ferris Jabr Jun 17, 2010 05:45 PM 41

Here's a little experiment. You know "Greensleeves"—the famous English folk song? Go ahead and hum it to yourself. Now choose the emotion you think the song best conveys: (a) happiness, (b) sadness, (c) anger or (d) fear.

Almost everyone thinks "Greensleeves" is a sad song—but why? Apart from the melancholy lyrics, it's because the melody prominently features a musical construct called the minor third, which musicians have used to express sadness since at least the 17th century. The minor third's emotional sway is closely related to the popular idea that, at least for Western music, songs written in a major key (like "Happy Birthday") are generally upbeat, while those in a minor key (think of The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby") tend towards the doleful.

The tangible relationship between music and emotion is no surprise to anyone, but a study in the June issue of Emotion suggests the minor third isn't a facet of musical communication alone—it's how we convey sadness in speech, too. When it comes to sorrow, music and human speech might speak the same language.

In the study, Meagan Curtis of Tufts University's Music Cognition Lab recorded undergraduate actors reading two-syllable lines—like "let's go" and "come here"—with different emotional intonations: anger, happiness, pleasantness and sadness (listen to the recordings here). She then used a computer program to analyze the recorded speech and determine how the pitch changed between syllables. Since the minor third is defined as a specific measurable distance between pitches (a ratio of frequencies), Curtis was able to identify when the actors' speech relied on the minor third. What she found is that the actors consistently used the minor third to express sadness.

"Historically, people haven't thought of pitch patterns as conveying emotion in human speech like they do in music," Curtis said. "Yet for sad speech there is a consistent pitch pattern. The aspects of music that allow us to identify whether that music is sad are also present in speech."

Curtis also synthesized musical intervals from the recorded phrases spoken by actors, stripping away the words, but preserving the change in pitch. So a sad "let's go" would become a sequence of two tones. She then asked participants to rate the degree of perceived anger, happiness, pleasantness and sadness in the intervals. Again, the minor third consistently was judged to convey sadness.

A possible explanation for why music and speech might share the same code for expressing emotion is the idea that both emerged from a common evolutionary predecessor, dubbed "musilanguage" by Steven Brown, a cognitive neuroscientist at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby (Vancouver), British Columbia.  But Curtis points out that right now there is no effective means of empirically testing this hypothesis or determining whether music or language evolved first.

What also remains unclear is whether the minor third's influence spans cultures and languages, which is one of the questions that Curtis would like to explore next. Previous studies have shown that people can accurately interpret the emotional content of music from cultures different than their own, based on tempo and rhythm alone.

"I have only looked at speakers of American English, so it's an open question whether it's a phenomenon that exists specifically in American English or across cultures," Curtis explained. "Who knows if they are using the same intervals in, say, Hindi?"

See article for thoughtful commentary-

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=music-and-speech-share-a-code-for-c-2010-06-17

[Michael]

Steiner maintained that humanity was currently in the 'third' phase. We had finished with the 'fifth', which is why to our ears it sounds a little hollow or 'done'.

In the third phase we are exploring both the minor and the major, which is perhaps why humanity is so preoccupied with obvious emotions - the minor and major are 'external' emotions [my term].

Internal emotions would be the sixth and the ninth. India is still preoccupied with the major seventh, which the West seems almost completely unaware of - it is somehow to 'lazy' for the West.

Steiner maintained the ninth is the note of the gods.

[Nichi]

India is still preoccupied with the major seventh, which the West seems almost completely unaware of - it is somehow to 'lazy' for the West.

Do you mean as in
C Major 7 =  C- E- G- B natural?   (as opposed to B flat)

[Michael]

yes, B natural in the C scale. Or semi-tone below tonic.

In the West it is often used in a chord, to give a soft laid-back feel, but rarely used as a dominant note in the melody.

[Nichi]

yes, B natural in the C scale. Or semi-tone below tonic.

In the West it is often used in a chord, to give a soft laid-back feel, but rarely used as a dominant note in the melody.

Understood... the major seventh starts showing up in popular music a lot come Neil Young, Joni Mitchell - and it's used a lot in jazz.

The reason I was asking you how you defined it is that with many guitarists (and banjoists), they'll call C7 "C Major 7". Had to get that straight with my step-father a lot, as I was always surprised that a song he was playing (country & western and bluegrass songs) would be using a "major 7th" chord. With him, he was actually playing a 7th chord - he was just calling it a major 7th..

Don't know how "lazy" they are, though they're certainly easier to play than diminished chords and 6th chords. I'm partial to major 7th chords, though.

[Michael]

I see what you mean about C7 - there is often an unclear distinction there, except of course it sounds completely different. The major 7th is used a lot in jazz, but still mostly in chords. The Indian will linger for a long time on the 7th in their melodies, which always sounds slightly off to western ears. Also they will often sing the tonic note, then drop a semi tone to the 7th in sliding motion, which sounds like they are going to sleep.

[Nichi]

The major 7th is used a lot in jazz, but still mostly in chords. The Indian will linger for a long time on the 7th in their melodies, which always sounds slightly off to western ears.....

That's interesting. Just out of curiosity, you know how so many of their songs (ragas? not sure) begin with one sustained note that quivers in those microtones ... Is that note based on a major 7th?

[Michael]

That depends - it will always resolve eventually if it is the major 7th.

The beginning of the piece I linked in this post is what I am speaking of:
http://restlesssoma.com.au/soma/index.php?topic=9177.msg62170#msg%msg_id%