Apart from discussing which mode could fit into the descriptions "happy and sad", here's another thought: due to listening habbits (you hear the key of C way more often than Db) some keys might sound brighter than others. Like a Dbmaj7 chord sounds a bit "dull" directly compared to Cmaj7.
Again, this has nothing to do with physics or harmonics and it has no effect to the music in these keys, it's just based on the facts of hearing some keys more often than others.
hearing more keys often than others doesnt change how you feel when you hear them. i just played them both over and over.. and i like them both, they go nicely as a rising progression.
it's subtle and has nothing to do with they way you think of moods (scalewise) in music. and when you cannot hear anything, nevermind
I'll throw in a bit of speculation on the mood of keys...
An awful lot of music through the years has been written with singing in mind. At the time that people were assigning emotions to keys, most vocal music (at least most of the 'serious' music) was either operatic or art songs, and composers always have to take into account the vocal ranges of the various voices.
Let's say I'm writing for alto voice, which typically runs from the G below middle C to the Bb above middle C. If I'm writing in G, Ab, A, or Bb, I have a whole octave to work with. If I want to go from E to E, I'm in trouble - I have to write for soprano or tenor. But I'm writing for an opera, and the character to sing the piece has to be the alto voice... what to do?
I'd end up having to write my melody lines around the vocal range, or change keys. With a much tighter range, I'd be more limited in what I could present... so pieces in E for alto singers might be seen as 'darker' - I don't have room to make a nice happy leap up a fifth. If I make that leap the main thing, and I write in A instead... well, A ends up being viewed as a happier key.
In light of that musing, there may actually be something to each key having a specific mood - but I think we'd be seeing the effect, not the cause :)
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its just like art!
when you see The Mona Lisa or The Vitruvian Man, does everyone see the same thing?!?! NO!..
some people would see it as "creepy" or "intreguing" or "happy" or "shocking" or "amazing"..
its still the same painting on the wall...
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Notes.. theyre all the same arent they.. the way we see (interprete) with our eyes is to do with ourselves, personality, experiences and beliefs..
with music, its what we hear..and those things in the previous sentance affect how we interprete music..
different for all
.. its just like those stupid dream books that say if we all dream of a dog we all have the same thing on our mind, when some of us might love dogs, some might have had horrible experiences with dogs, some might be allergic,
if we interpreted art, music, and dreams all exactly the same, then individuality would not exist, we would all be one another.
