well we all know, and absorb certain traits of music.

So there are a few basic rules that work for most people.

Certain keys, suit sad subjects. Minor keys are tied by usage to suffering, as in the blues. Some keys, particularly on fixed note instrument like piano and guitar, have non-mathematical intervals to keep the number of buttons/keys/frets down to a workable number. This is said to make a key melancholy, sad, bright etc. If you knew the key and its usual adjective you would nod in agreement.

Plonk words and tempi on the vehicle and you have sadder, brighter, funnier etc that is hard to deny. And then there is the pathos, and bathos, and curious - eg happy words on a sad key.

Discords strike fear - look at Psycho in the shower scene. We feel that one alright.

I guess like any endeavour, if you live the genre, like music critique, you get to see the gaps in the above and have words that fly past mere mortals like us.

But what do I know?. I am a drummer.