u/matsnorberg

Oops! A mistake o me, I've edited my post.

But a lot of common lullabies are in minor key, at least in Sweden. I recall I once read a psycologist writing that minor keys have a calming effect on restless minds.

Perhaps. In my mental image the b3 is nearer to the center of gravity, 1, and may affect us with more "heavity" or "gravitas" pulling us towards the earth. But different persons may be affected differently emotionally.

The minor pentatonic scale is 1 b3 4 5 b7. No 3 in there!

It's mostly subjective. The feel of a chord is also strongly affected by the tonal context. A minor chord rooted on the 3rd in a major key sounds almost "majorish". Any major chord has a minor third. It's a psychoacoustic mystery why we feel certain ways about different musical modes and as you say it's at least partially dependent of our cultural bias.

Ask them perhaps.

What's so controversial about musica ficta?

I'd even go so far as claming that a book with only likable characters would be boring. We need chacters to hate as well as those to love. It's the constrast that creates the drama and tension in stories.

I really recommend the Space Trilogy. It's not like anything else I have read.

Oh yes! Cashmir and Carfilhiot, may your souls rot! My favorite charactera are Shimrod and Madoc. The world building is awesome! In Vance's books moral is simple and retribution for the baddies is swift and violent.

My mother actually liked Watership Down. It was about the only of my recommendations she approved. So maybe that book will vibe with your mum too.

I don't see the point. What does the letters mean? Especially S, which is not a note name.

Finally someone mentioned Bakker! His dragons are really scary actually. Great monsters, almost unstoppable.

Me too and the sequel series too. There are actually two different magic systems in those books. Sunrunning, which is a kind of magic communication system and the more demonic "diarmadhi" magic featuring in the second trilogy. Not earthshaking fantasy but solid, good stuff.

Honestly to tie major and minor to single emotions like happy and sad is very simplistic. Drunken Sailor sounds neither happy nor sad to me, it's just a tune. There is a vast gamut of feelings that music can express, no matter wether it's minor or major. Tempo and rythm matter for sure as do key but they aren't the only factors that affect the mood of a piece.

I does not even define a scale because it's still possible to play in any mode or to change any note using explicit accidentals. Key signatures are just notational conventions.

Hahaha! Eurovision has always been all about cliche.

Haha! I read Moomin in Finnish because I study the language. Never read moomin as a kid. It's amazing how much more beautiful the books become in Finnish. Astrid Lindgren in Finnish is so awesome!

Finns hate pakkoruotsi not because it's difficult but because they have to study it. They're probably much happier with French. Swedish is also strongly connected with the old ruling class.

Such generalizations are simplistic. Reaching C2 in any language requires a lot of work. I don't think Swedish or English is much worse than Finnish or other languages in this regard. In Finnish, for instance, there is the notorious difficulty of object case labeling; do I need the accusative or the partitive in this connection? All languages have quirks that foreigners almost never fully learn.

Well it's not exactly easy to learn for western people. However the difficulty of it is typically exaggerated. In the end it's just a language and to reach a high proficiency level you need to put lots of time and energy in your learning as with any other language.

I love this comment!

But if you really have the circle memorized you should immediately read the key. When I see 3 flats I immediately know I'm at 9 o'clock on the circle and that's Ab-major/C-minor.

Now come on! There's 15 keys. How difficult can it be to memorize 15 items? If you can't you probably can't memorize your phone number either.

You may love gregorian chant. They sing the Lydian at their breakfast!