“Major is Happy and Minor is Sad”

It almost seems automatic when we hear music in TV shows or movies: something bad is going to happen when the key changes to minor.  Likewise, the hero always rides off into the sunset accompanied by a song in a major key.  Our culture has taught us these musical-emotional associations since childhood, but there is nothing in the music itself that carries emotion.  Major and minor scales are just different-sounding ways of putting notes together.  Language is the same way.  English and Spanish have different-sounding ways of greeting people, but we don’t think that “Hello” sounds happy and “Buenos Dias” sounds sad!