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I was looking at songs that had exciting rhythms, thick texture, and objectively happy harmony. I decided to transpose these songs into minor keys to see whenever or not the song would be sadder or continue to have the same feeling. And honestly, even with the exciting rhythms, texture, and "happy" harmony, the songs became a lot more somber. If the song originally was using happy harmony, how did the song become somber when transposed to a minor key?

Jevil
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    Then please edit your question to clarify what you're asking — to differentiate it from the existing one. – Aaron Aug 17 '21 at 03:58
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    "objectively happy": happy is inherently subjective. – phoog Aug 17 '21 at 04:24
  • I don't understand. Transposing is a global action? Or do you follow some recipe where major chords turn into minor chords and minor chords turn into something else? Is it perhaps some version of diatonic transposition and not chromatic transposition? – Emil Aug 17 '21 at 06:09
  • There's also the factor that changing to the *relative* minor gives a different feeling from changing to the *parallel* minor - but regardless, happy/sad is way too subjective for this question to stand. – Tim Aug 17 '21 at 07:07
  • @Jevil Here's a thought. Barring any hard (pseudo)science about the physiological impact of musical elements like mode, any inquiry into how we associate things like mode, tempo, and rhythm with emotive moods becomes the soft science of anthropology. Yes, these associations are subjective, but you can objectively study them. The question shifts from "what makes it happy/sad" to "_who_ thinks it's happy/sad, and why do they say so?" ... (1 of 2) – Andy Bonner Aug 17 '21 at 12:44
  • (2 of 2) ... You'll get very different answers from Plato, from Medieval scholars, and from Hungarian folk traditions. When you say "objectively happy," it's objective only within a certain subjective frame, and you'll learn more about how that frame works by examining _it_ rather than the music that is viewed through it. – Andy Bonner Aug 17 '21 at 12:44

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