minor key
Sad musical scale
A minor key is a musical key based on a minor scale, characterized by a lowered third note that gives it a darker, sadder, or more somber quality than a major key.
Much Western music uses the contrast between major and minor to convey emotional shifts: The song moves from major to minor in the bridge.
In casual usage, in a minor key describes anything subdued or melancholy.
Subdued, lasting sadness
- sorrowDeep emotional distress
- sadnessState of emotional pain
- longingIntense, persistent desire
- wistfulnessTender sadness for absence
nostalgia · introspection · pensiveness · heartache · yearning · bittersweet · plaintive · mournful
Measure of relative size
- chordNotes sounded simultaneously
- tonalityMusic organized around tonic
- modulationVarying signals to transmit
- harmonyAgreement or musical blend
flat · sharp · tonic · dominant · cadence · progression · transpose · resolve
melancholy
Subdued, lasting sadness
wistfulness · nostalgia · introspection · pensiveness · heartache · yearning · bittersweet · plaintive · mournful · elegiac
scale
Measure of relative size
- chordNotes sounded simultaneously
- tonalityMusic organized around tonic
- modulationVarying signals to transmit
harmony · flat · sharp · tonic · dominant · cadence · progression · transpose · resolve · Aeolian
nocturne
Contemplative keyboard piece
elegy · ballade · adagio · funeral march · blues · fado · tango · Moonlight Sonata · Chopin · Beethoven
dark
Absence of light
- moodyProne to sullenness
- dramaticStrikingly expressive or sudden
- mysteriousBeyond easy comprehension
tense · suspenseful · ominous · brooding · cinematic · gothic · nocturnal · shadowy · subdued · muted