Kathy Lowden author page

"Musical interval used to convey sadness" for MINOR THIRD might cause some consternation for both musicians and Canadians.

It's sort of true that music in a minor key tends to sound more melancholy than music in a major key, and one distinction of a minor key is that the interval from the root to the third is "minor" (that is, only three semi-tones instead of four) but even a happy major key has more minor thirds than major thirds. In, say, C Major, the intervals A-C, B-D, D-F, and E-G, are all minor thirds.

"O Canada" starts with a minor third, and I don't think sadness is the intended emotional response.

(This is an example of how knowing too much about a topic can affect your experience in a way that nobody else cares about.)