The Sunrise

“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” – Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

A Little Background

 

Major and Minor 

Major and minor keys are synonymous with happy and sad feelings.  Although I would argue that minor keys are not always sad and major keys are not always happy, the happy and sad descriptors are fairly accurate.  There is something contemplative about a minor key, and something uplifting about a major one.  You can listen to these examples of C major and C minor scales.  (C major happens to have no sharp or flat notes in it – only white keys on the piano – so musicians like to use it as an example because it’s easy to work with.  C minor begins on the same note, but has three flats in it.)

C Major:

Click to listen to a C Major scale.

C minor:

Click to listen to a c minor scale.

 

How Major and Minor are Used

As you can probably hear, the minor key is more melancholy and the major key sounds a little brighter.  This simple fact influences musicians a great deal.  Most of the sad, “somebody done me wrong” country songs are written in minor keys.  Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony spends most of its time in a major key.  Composers change keys within a piece all the time, and many works have major and minor sections; often the major sections sound bright and playful while the minor sections sound reflective. 

 

The Picardy Third

 

Here Comes the Sun

My favorite thing about major and minor keys is the Picardy Third.  A Picardy Third is the sun coming out again after a long, dark night.  A piece begins in a minor key, stays there for the duration, and at the very last moment it decides to be major instead.  I see the Picardy Third as the musical embodiment of hope.  What a beautiful thought that no matter how long the sad minor section may last, there is always the possibility of the last chord being that "sweet, silver song of a lark"!

 

The Technical Stuff

Here’s what happens technically:  In c minor, the most important chord (group of notes played together) is called a c minor chord.  It is made of the notes C, E♭, and G.  It will probably be the chord you hear the most often.  By the end of the piece, we are very comfortable hearing a c minor chord and it feels like home to us.  Meanwhile, the most important chord in C Major is the C Major chord.  This chord is made of C, E, and G.  Notice the only difference between the minor chord and the major chord is the E or E♭.  When you use a Picardy Third, you raise what should be an E♭ to a regular E (E natural). 

This tiny half-step change makes the whole face of the music change.  What was a comfortable, albeit sad home for us has become a joyful home instead.  There is something about the contrast between the minor and major keys that makes this simple C Major chord ten times more joyful than it would be if it followed an entire piece in C Major.  As Victor Hugo says, the sun does always come up in the morning, but I think we appreciate it much more when we haven’t seen it for a while.

 

Listen to this!

Hope you enjoy these examples of a Picardy Third:

Chopin's Nocturne op. 9 no. 1 in B flat minor 
The Picardy Third happens at 5:08, and continues until the end.  He plays the same chord several times.  If you read music, you'll notice the last chord has natural signs marking the D's.  The entire piece has contained D-flats, but a D-natural makes the last chord major.

"And I Love Her" - The Beatles
This song has a recurring Picardy Third that happens on the word "her".  The rest of the song is in a minor key.

Please post more examples of Picardy Thirds in the comments section!  There are many.  Hope you've enjoyed watching the sun come up.