“The foreign element thus introduced is not sufficiently distinct to destroy the harmony, but it is enough to give a mysterious obscure effect to the musical character and meaning of these chords, an effect for which the hearer is unable to account, because the weak combinational tones on which it depends are concealed by other louder tones, and are audible only to a practiced ear.”
But Gurney[40] refuses to admit to a sense of melancholy in this slight dissonance, for as he points out
“the same slight degree of dissonance as exists in the minor triad may be made to supervene on a major triad, by adding to it a certain extremely faint amount of discordant elements: it would seem then that the major triad thus slightly dimmed or confused ought to sound melancholy, but it does not in the least. Another argument may be found in the following fact. The minor triads of D and A are of perpetual occurrence among the harmonies of C major; and yet they do not seem then to convey the distinctly pathetic impression, instantly produced by the appearance of the C minor triad.
“Music in a major key may be profoundly mournful; and it would often be impossible for any description to touch the musically felt difference between such music and mournful minor music. The minor mode has a somewhat more constant range of effect.”
Such discussions continued until Valentine[76] decided to test the mood effect of the modes on a group of listeners. He found that “major intervals are described as sad or plaintive twice as often as the minor.” Heinlein[45] not only substantiated this but found that intensity was the dominant modifier of feeling. He reviewed more than twenty-five hundred compositions for beginners and among them found only seven per cent written in the minor mode. “It is a difficult matter to obtain a composition in the minor mode written for children that does not have a title which relates to the weird, the mysterious, the sad and the gloomy. Apparently composers in their attempts to differentiate the modes for children fall victim to the method of introducing titles opposite to feeling content. To children, the title of a composition is a very outstanding feature. It may be, after all, that reaction to the modes is largely a question of the extent to which association with descriptive titles of a specific variety first establishes the affective impressions in the mind of the beginner.” Thus it can be seen that composers have been nurturing an old philosophy by titles rather than music. Beaunis has shown that although among European composers, the major mode has been used for bright and restful passages and the minor mode has been used for uneasy and stirring selections, a study of the music of other races will uncover an entirely opposite use. Hevner[47], in an elaborate series of controlled studies, concluded that “all of the historically affirmed characteristics of the two modes have been confirmed” but admits that “in producing its effect on the listener, the mode is never the sole factor.”
In a later study Hevner[48] continues to maintain that modality is effective in the dimensions of sadness and happiness but quite useless in the dimensions of vigor, excitement and dignity.
The reaction to mode is influenced by what has been heard immediately previously, and by musical training. The reaction to mode is not physiologic but offers one key to music for patients in that those who identify the minor mode with sadness should not be given such music when gay music is indicated.
Key. There was a time when particular keys were credited with emotional powers. Lest such thoughts still persist, the following quotation from Gurney[40] is offered.
“Particular keys are sometimes credited with definite emotional powers. That certain faint differences exist between them on certain instruments is undeniable, though it is a difference which only exceptional ears detect. The relations between the notes of every key being identical, every series of relations presenting every sort of describable or indescribable character will of course be accepted by the ear in any key, or if it is a series which modulates through a set of several keys, in any set of similarly related keys. But as it must have a highest and a lowest note it will be important, especially in writing for a particular instrument, to choose such a key that these notes shall not be inconvenient or impossible; and also the mechanical difficulties of an instrument may make certain keys preferable for certain passages. Subject to corrections from considerations of this sort, the composer probably generally chooses the key in which the gem of his work first flashes across his mind’s eye: and when the music has once been seen and known, written in a certain key, the very look of it becomes so associated with itself, that the idea of changing the key may produce a certain shock. But the cases are few indeed where, had the music been first presented to any one’s ears in a key differing by a semitone from that in which it actually stands, he would have perceived the slightest necessity for alteration; and as a matter of fact when a bit of music is thought over, or hummed or whistled, unless by a person of exceptionally gifted ear it is naturally far oftener than not in some different key to that in which it has been written and heard. Even the difference most commonly alleged, between C major as bright and strong and D flat as soft and veiled, comes to almost nothing when a bright piece is played in D flat or a dreamy one in C.
“That a variety of emotional characters can be definitely attributed to various keys is a notion so glaringly absurd that I would not mention it, were it not that it is commonly held; and that such doctrines are really harmful by making humble and genuine lovers of music believe that there are regions of musical feeling absolutely beyond their powers of conception.”