Heavy metal music is more emotionally complicated than people often think. For her 2026 thesis titled “Affective Responses To Major and Minor Chords In Heavy Metal Music”, presented to the faculty of The University of Houston-Clear Lake for the Degree Master of Science in Psychology, Faith Carlos conducted research examining how chords affect listeners’ feelings in metal. In her thesis she explains that in Western music, major chords are typically heard as happy and bright, while minor chords sound sad or tense. But metal isn’t typical Western music. It relies on loud sounds, fast rhythms, harsh textures, and emotions like power, struggle, and resilience. So Carlos asked whether those familiar ideas about major and minor chords still hold in metal, or whether the genre changes how people experience harmony entirely. Read more.