Psychoanalysis of Music

There is the possibility of dividing into two large categories the emotions suscitated by Music, viz., joyous and sad emotions. It is well known that the former ones are awakened by the Major Mode while the latter by the Minor Mode.

Joyous expressions and sad expressions in music were not distinctly known in ancient times when the technique of Harmony was still unknown. In those times only the variation of rhythm was generally in use to convey joy or sadness to the listeners. Harmony, as the expression of the Tonality, looms with Guido d'Arezzo (990-1050) to whom are attributed the first harmonic essays, while the true conception of harmony was discovered by . After Zarlino, and among the musicians, and among the physicists, the musical historian and the philosopher amongst the modern scientists, have researched for a physical explanation of the two hamonical modes.

From the works of the above mentioned scholars it results that while the Major Chord and therefore the Major Scale springs forth from a simple combination of a series of harmonic tones, no physical reason justifies the existence of the Minor Chord. Since the method of investigation so far employed has proved rather inadequate to the problem in question, let us try to achieve our goal through some different channel.

It is a known fact that the Minor Mode differs from the Major Mode because the Third Degree of the scale is diminished by a semitone. In fact the interval of Major Third is in our musical system composed of four semitones while the interval of Minor Third is composed of only three semitones.

The problem which we attempt to solve follows.

Why the diminution of a semitone in the Major Third interval (called also Perfect Interval) develops such a great change in the expression conveyed by the musical harmony?

How is it that reducing the frequency of the acoustical vibrations of the third note of the scale, which is a pure physic phenomena, we