Well... thinking.. Leeneia, you could say that, but ... I remember a quote from I think Frederick Douglass-- that's America, but still-- which said that "slaves sing most when they are unhappy". Now I know that's a different cultural and national context, but there's something else. I also remember reading an extract from a book- "Rock it come over" written by Olive Lewin on Google Books, in which she said that an old funeral custom in parts of rural Jamaica was to perform songs and dances called Dinki, which have upbeat-sounding melodies. This was meant to deal with the grief over death. One of the songs sometimes played at those funerals was "Linstead Market", the lament of a woman who can't feed her children.


BTW Leeneia, do you mean "tone" or "tune"? There are lots of sad songs set to upbeat melodies-- Stone Cold Dead In The Market, for example, which is about domestic violence and what is now called "battered woman syndrome" (plagiarised from a 19th century murder ballad, Murder In The Market), the guitar playing meant to cope with the father's loss, to hide the family's sorrow.