Sad
Minor without modulation, silence as a device — grief with a cause.
Titles
Albums with this mood
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Sad has a cause. That sets it apart from melancholic, which is a state without a cause. Sad music belongs to a loss the film names.
How to recognize it
By minor key without modulation and a tempo under seventy. By sparse instrumentation — often just piano or solo strings, sometimes a single voice. And by silence as a device: pauses between phrases that last longer than expected.
What sad music does not have is escalation. It stays where it is. A build-up would suggest comfort that the moment does not offer.
What it's suited for
For loss and farewell: obituaries and memorial films, funerals, documentary passages about illness and death, retrospectives on what was lost, film scenes after a breakup, fundraising appeals with a heavy subject.
What it's not for: manipulation. Placing sad music under an image that doesn't carry the sadness is noticed by the viewer — and it damages trust in the whole film.
No PRO registration
Royalty-free and GVL-free. At funerals and memorial events, public performance takes place, and both collecting societies apply there. Royalty-free music alone only clears one side. The cue sheet is generated automatically, licensing is a one-time fee starting at 1.49 €.
Related: melancholic for weight without cause, emotional for closeness with warmth, serious for restraint without feeling. Genre page: Cinematic and epic music.