Mad Worlds and Minor Thirds
Mad Worlds and Minor Thirds
This video also analyses the use of the minor 3rds in the melancholy Mad World.

The minor 3rd is an interesting interval – on the one hand, it is half of the Major/Minor tonality system of Western Music that was established over 400 years ago, but it is also an interval that has connections with vocal speech inflections when expressing sadness, not to mention the universal use as a children’s taunt – perhaps this lies at the heart of sad music normally being associated with the minor key in the Western tradition?