Music = Sadness

Music can bring back memories and sometimes those memories can be sad. When you listen to a song that has some type of significance, it can bring out emotions that you never thought could be brought up just by listening to music. It can be a song that was played at a funeral or was a favorite of a loved one that passed away. Songs with sad lyrics can also create this form of sadness because of the compelling sad story the song tells.

When something bad happens in a movie and the violin music kicks in, we respond with teary eyes and having a sad feeling. A large part of our reaction to sad music is caused by culture conditioning. We've heard similar music played when something tragic happens that the sad music creates an instinctive response.

Music creates sadness because of its minor key (a key is a pattern of notes that make up a scale). Different types of keys have different patterns of notes that are separated by different intervals. Its the different intervals that separate notes between minor and major keys. Western music mostly associates minor keys with sadness but the connection isn't natural to creating sadness to most people. 

Tempo (the rate of speed) has a lot to do with why we associate sadness with music. Sad music is generally slow and quiet to match our feelings.

Some music evokes feelings of sadness by mimicking the signs of mourning. Shaky notes can sound like shaky voices and descending notes sound like sighs. The violin is an instrument that has a pitch range that can match a human's and is used to mimic human sounds of sadness. 

Resources: 

Scientists [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://www.exploratorium.edu/music/questions/sadMusic.html