Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh does it a lot. I estimate it to be down 7 semitones (sounds like "the Star Wars interval", a perfect 5th)
this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2025
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Music Production
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What do you think the essential nature of downward inflection is? Would you say reduction of excitation at the most neutral?
Is the nature or upwards inflection likely increased arousal or alertness and attention?
In most popular music there is often upwards modulation to make it more interesting and finish with a larger bang it seems. Downwards modulation seems incredibly rare
What do you think the essential nature of downward inflection is? Would you say reduction of excitation at the most neutral?
In the case of Eeyore I think it's entirely intentional to sound downtrodden. It's hard to say it's universal, though, especially without more examples to compare to. I'm not sure how to classify it in this case, for example: https://youtu.be/5ghgWUNa8GM I think you could make an argument that here it signifies "the chase is over", it's a reduction of excitation in that regard, even though the character is obviously excited or pleased to have seemingly won.
Is the nature or upwards inflection likely increased arousal or alertness and attention?
To the best of my knowledge, yes, but it would be a good question for someone into linguistics. I'm sure we have a few of them laying around here somewhere lol.
Mozart used the movement of a semitone downward a lot to end phrases. It's used a"sigh" of sadness rather than to establish confidence as in spoken English. I watched a few videos about it, and I have to say that in my ears, it sounds as if a downward inflection in English is actually just staying on the tone, because the default is to go upwards. When someone actually goes downwards, it easily sounds sad or condescending.
Depending on context there might be some connection between the two phenomenon, but anyway, I'd say that in music, the way to establish a solid point is achieved by playing the root note twice. The interval beforehand is less relevant, but perhaps downwards works better than upwards. That's my opinion anyway.