Understanding the claim - "If composers want sad music, they use those two notes" [B&C]
Recently I had seen a great TED talk by Benjamin Zander in which he says (about Chopin's 4th prelude):
...... The first note is a B. [plays B] The next note is a C. [plays C] The job of the C is to make the B sad [plays BCBCBC], and it does, doesnt it? Composers know that; if they want sad music, they'll just play those two notes. [plays Mozart's 40th symphony transposed to E minor as an example (CBB,CBB,CBBG....)] .........
I'm trying to understand this in the context of music theory, I can think of two reasons:
The composer, by using those notes makes it clear to the listener that it is a minor key (otherwise it would have been B and C#) and minor keys are (usually) perceived as sad.
The B and C form a minor 2nd interval which is dissonant and hence we perceive it as sad.
However I am not so sure about these reasons, here are the objections:
If it is melodic minor instead of natural minor it would have been B and C#, same as the major key, but even the melodic minor is sad.
Even the Major 2nd interval is dissonant yet it is present in the major scale and doesn't sound sad.
So can you please help me and clear my doubts?
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The C–B, in the context of the Chopin E-minor Prelude, are scale-degrees (?)6 and 5.
Mozart 40, in G minor, begins with E?–D, also scale-degrees (?)6 and 5.
Thus both of these half steps function the same way in their respective keys, so when Zander transposes Mozart 40 to E minor, the E?–D becomes C–B.
So although this interval is a half step, it's more about this half step and its function in a minor key.
He's being tongue-in-cheek by saying that "to sound sad all you have to do is play scale-degrees 6 and 5 in a minor key." But there is some truth to it: as Dekkadeci says, this half step has traditionally been equated with a sighing gesture throughout history.
According to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pianto, the C-B passage you refer to is an example of a Pianto, which is a descending minor second motif associated with laments, weeping, and sighing (and often tied to lyrics with that sad topic).
(It's not 100% convincing to me, either, but it must work for enough of the people often enough...)
This is wild over-generalization. The plural of "anecdote" is not "data".
As an obvious counter-example, listen to "Fu?ík's well known march "Entry of the Gladiators" - nothing sad about that, but it's full of descending semitones.
You can find a hundred more counter-examples yourself - and that will be more instructive than believing everything that "famous people" tell you!
I think it's more of a question as to where those notes C and B are in the scale of the key. C-B invoke a sort of sad sound in E minor, that never appears with C-B in G or C major. That said, the maj. = happy, min. = sad syndrome does have a very large following...
Zander is a very charismatic communicator. He can get very enthusiastic over demonstrating a particular music effect. He was not suggesting (or shouldn't have been suggesting :-) that B and C have special significance in ALL contexts.
But look at 10'30" in this one for another B and C. Perhaps there IS something in the idea...
(Have you seen his demonstration that we play Beethoven's 'Moonlight' far too slow? Fascinating.)
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