I just can't relate to major scales.

[deathwish]

I tend to prefer minor keys and find it easier to present some emotions there as you suggest, but there is a ton of pop music in major keys covering a wide gamut of styles.

Here's something a bit sad in C major... hard to believe it's been 20 years since this video!

To me that's not a very sad song.

Here's a sad song in a major key:

[Functional]

I tend to prefer minor keys and find it easier to present some emotions there as you suggest, but there is a ton of pop music in major keys covering a wide gamut of styles.

Here's something a bit sad in C major... hard to believe it's been 20 years since this video!

To me that's not a very sad song.

Here's a sad song in a major key:

That actually impressed me a lot, have to add into my lists. Thanks.


Though Jan's and yours examples are perfect for demonstrating major key capabilities for sad feelings, it only adds more mystery to the fact that I keep hearing mostly music in minor key.

Why do popular music artists prefer so much minor keys?

[NKF]

Here is an example that shows that keys are not so evident. Just looking at this song without knowing what follows, you could argue that it is in a major or minor key. Just the first song before the next one comes in where it finishes on the a dominant chord on C#.



There isn't a right answer. The dominant in the intro section which comes back hints a minor key yet you never actually get it so you don't know. ANd you never get an actual real cadence at a pivotal part that would give it away.

Similarly , every minor key could just be a passage accentuating the submediant of the major key. It means nothing other than a point of view. Like how one would call V of V a subdominant. You aren't in another key.

[deastman]

I recommend trying "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" in Hungarian minor.

[Dewdman42]

"D minor is the saddest of all keys really" --spinal tap

Whether you like major or minor key centers is completely personal. many great non-cheesy tunes have been written in both ways and cheesy songs can be written in minor keys too by the way, but probably minor keys tend to sound a little darker or moodier.

How you linger on certain chords within a key will determine a lot of the feel of the song, even if its major. There can be a lot of blurred distinction about whether its based on a major scale or the parallel minor scale. Depends a lot if you keep coming back to the root I chord a lot with strong cadences.

Resorting to typical sounding cadences can easily make a song sound cheesy or cliche.

Personally I almost never think about it much. I start combining chords into a musical idea that fits the feel I want and after the fact I discover its based on a major or minor scale...or occasionally one of the other modes like dorian or phrygian.

[Ph-J]

(Much more important point in terms that Radiohead, for example, seems to write only in minor mode. And I think people would agree with my opinion, that Thom Yorke is quite the artist)

F major not major enough for you ?

[jancivil]

the point per the relative status of minor to major, I to vi or conversely i to III, is a really pertinent one here as far as a basis for discovery in music. You can just move to and fro smoothly, without preparation necessarily and you can arrive at a change of mood.