News article in The Guardian about "Emotional responses in Papua New Guinea show negligible evidence for a universal effect of major versus minor music".
What makes a piece of music seem happy or sad? Whether it has been composed in a major or minor key is a significant factor. It’s part of what distinguishes the cheeriness of Walking on Sunshine from the pensiveness of Ain’t No Sunshine, for example.
But the perception of major keys as happy and minor keys as sad is not universal, according to Australian research that suggests the effect may result from the influence of western culture.
“We’re all very much aware of how music has got this incredible capacity to move us both physically and emotionally,” said Dr Andrew Milne, of Western Sydney University.
“One of the ways that composers or performers communicate … is through the use of either major chords and major scales – which are very strongly associated with creating a happy mood – and minor scales and minor chords – which are associated with a more melancholy feeling,” he said. “We know that western people are highly attuned to this particular musical feature.”
In a study published in the journal Plos One, Milne and his colleagues have investigated whether the phenomenon also occurs in people without prior exposure to western music and its typical emotional associations.