This is our second story in our series on the characteristics of musical keys. We started with the “people’s key,” C major. From there it’s an easy skip to D, the root of today’s subject, the “saddest ...

"In Western music, there's nothing that says 'sad' like a minor key," explains the Exploratorium science museum. You don't have to be up on your music theory — or have synesthesia — to recognize when ...

To begin our discussion on what it is that makes minor chords sad, we will first listen to some examples of the use of minor chords and minor keys that demonstrate breathtaking power to convey deep ...

Where does sad music get its sadness from? And whom should you ask—a composer or a cognitive psychologist? Scientific American recently reported on a Tufts University study that purportedly lends ...